Paul Fidalgo has a gut-wrenching open letter to Alexander Aan at Friendly Atheist. The petition failed, you know. I should have done more, maybe – I blogged about it twice, the second time with considerable urgency, and tweeted and re-tweeted often. I guess I figured blogging a third time would be counter-productive, like begging Mummy for ice cream once too often and being put on an ice cream fast for a month. But I was probably wrong.
Anyway – it failed, and failed pathetically.
In order to guarantee such a response — and it was a loose guarantee at that — we had to collect at least 25,000 signatures. Alexander, I promise you, I and my colleagues truly believed this was a very achievable goal. We felt very confident that if thousands of American nonbelievers could rally in support of someone like Jessica Ahlquist, the brave young high school student who stood up for separation of church and state against her entire community, sending her good wishes, writing in support of her, and even donating money for her college education; if we could get, by some estimates, between 20-30,000 atheists from across the country to gather on the Mall in Washington, DC, in the rain, surely we could get 25,000 folks to click a couple of buttons on your behalf.
It didn’t happen, Alex. We didn’t even manage to round up 8,000 signatures.
That’s…really bad. I think it was at around 6,000 when I did the second post, and I was worried because the rate had slowed down. Obviously it had slowed to a fucking crawl.
I have been thinking a great deal about what it means to be part of the skeptic-secularist community versus the skeptic-atheist movement. We have been very proud in recent years about what seem to be encouraging upticks in our numbers: more young people, more folks coming out of the theological closet to declare their nonbelief as you did, the rise of a vibrant (and often tumultuous) universe of skeptic and atheist Internet activity, etc.
But these developments speak to the growth of a community, not of a movement. A strong movement would have garnered 25,000 signatures on a website for you in the first couple of days. So, if anything, the silver lining of this falling-short tells us something we desperately needed to know: despite the growing numbers of declared freethinkers, we have yet to find the best ways to do something meaningful with those numbers beyond gloating.
Yes.
If you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go cry…
Fucking assholes not caring about a fellow human’s well-being…
Again… and people wonder why I’m a cynic…
I know.
Sarah, someone commenting over at Friendly Atheist, has a few good suggestions on how to move forward. Letter writing campaigns, emails to our representatives, things that could do some good in this situation.
She also linked to the Change.org petition.
Is it possible that everyone understands the utter pointlessness of online petitions?
I don’t sign online petitions because they are a giant waste of time and serve only to pretend to do something. It’s also disappointing to see someone try to guilt trip me into signing a petition.
The entire thing is a tirade against how the lowly followers couldn’t be bothered to sign a petition. He pretends to take the blame but instead says things like:
Like meaningfully signing an online petition?
The entire thing is a massive complaint about how people wouldn’t rally around the petition he wanted people to rally around.
Here are 2 charity events that come to mind that atheists have rallied around, I’d call them meaningful. It’s not that the movement is worthless, just your petition didn’t get signed as many times as you wanted.
http://www.firstgiving.com/fundraiser/r-atheism/ratheism
http://www.kiva.org/community
I did sign the petition as soon as I saw it linked.
My brain is going off into irrelevancies here. I want a t-shirt that says “My movement is a TUMULTOUS movement.”
But, yeah, more traction and less tumult would be awesome.
@Kilane, I believe Paul addressed your concern prominently within the blog post…
Besides, getting the US administration involved would hardly be futile. It’s just silly to claim that it would.
Maybe, Kilane, you’re assuming that all White House petitions are futile – but then you’re wrong, and you’re making just the kind of mistake that probably caused it to fail. I mean, brilliant – what bad thing would have happened if you’d signed it?
Sheesh.
I can’t get White House petitions to work. I have a login, I log in, it resets something back to the main search for petitions page, and when I go back and refollow the link to the petition I wanted I’m logged out again. Lather, rinse, repeat.
The bad thing that happens if we all sign petitions is that people start to think they matter. We get more petitions and less things that matter.
I ask that you pray for his release. It’s even easier than clicking a button. Just say “God, please release Alexander Aan.”
If you can’t even be bothered to say a little .5 second prayer in the off chance it’s answered, do you even care?
I’m not trolling, I’m making an analogy. Online petitions are useless and a waste of time no matter how little time they waste. They are like online polls, flouted if they agree with your conclusion and ignored if they don’t. If only PZ Myers had the petition Pharyngulated, you’d have hit 25,000.
Kind of sad how most of the commenters over at that piece seem more concerned with telling off Fidalgo for “scolding” them, and less concerned with Aan’s situation.
Miriam @ #10:
My simmering cynicism rose to a boil while reading those comments.
It’s disgusting, quite frankly.
Apparently, most (of the) non-theists (commenting on Paul’s open letter) couldn’t give two flying shits about Alexander Aan. I guess persecution only matters when it happens directly to you…
Again… fuck humanity.
X-Posting from FA
*I should add for context, that I do sign online petitions (and have already signed the one for Alex Aan at Change.org. I have seen consciousness and media attention raised and governments responding to such online protests before, just not anything productive coming out of the White House site.
You’re being stupid.
In prayer you are trying to gain the attention of a nonexistent being. With petitions, sit downs, letter writing campaigns and the like you are trying to gain the attention of real physical people.
Never be critical of atheists. Like ever. We react like entitled brats.
This assumption, also implied in Paul’s letter, is exactly what has everyone upset over there. I do fucking give a shit, and I don’t like it being assumed that I don’t. I just don’t think this was the best banner to sail under (at least not exclusively, and not as a first step without being clear what was planned next). There were tonnes of things that CoI could have done (and still could do) to help put pressure on the Indonesian government. Just because people wrote *this* particular strategy off doesn’t mean anything about caring what happens to Mr. Aan.
I too was unable to complete the white house part of the sign on, perhaps more people tried than you think.
Yeah it has nothing to do with ego or any kind of pettiness.
http://www.theonion.com/video/police-kidnapped-moveonorg-staffers-please-help-em,27561/
Ibis, I like you. You’re an incisive commenter.
But for this? Fuck you. What a stupid, egotistical, petty little piece of bullshit. Cry me a godamned river about your hurt feelings over being scolded or “assumed” not to care about Alex Aan.
Seriously-why the hell do you think that matters? Why is it important for you to trumpet your hurt? Why do you think that’s so damned important compared to Aan rotting away in a jail cell?
Do carry on about the “tonnes of things” Paul could have done. What about the one measly thing YOU could have done? Would it have inconvenienced you SO much to just sign the petition, even if you thought it wasn’t “the best banner to sail under”?
I’m sure Alex Aan cares soooooo much about your strategic preferences, and sooooo much about your butthurt over the nasty, mean assumptions made about you. Julian’s description is spot-on: you’re acting like a spoiled, entitled brat. First world problems and all, huh Ibis?
Shorter me: I don’t give a flying fuck if Ibis or any other butthurt “member of the community” gets their feathers ruffled. If even one or two people who did nothing re-examine their actions out of a sense of shame (for doing nothing when they could have done so little for such a small cost) then your cheap and privileged outrage is worth it.
Try not to be so disgusting?
And, since my dander is up, for the record: I did the very, very minimum, at nearly no cost all to myself. I retweeted the call for this petition a zillion times, kept going back to the White House website and slogged my way through its horrible and byzantine sign-up system, and took the time to tweet the White House folks that their web programming was fucked. And I signed the petition.
That took all of about 10 minutes out of my life, and it ain’t nothing to be proud of. It’s literallyarmchair activism.
Shut the fuck up with your indignation.
@Kilane, you said “If only PZ Myers had the petition Pharyngulated, you’d have hit 25,000.”
Actually, PZ Myers (graciously) posted about the petition twice. The petition was also promoted by Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, Michael Shermer, the American Humanist Association, American Atheists, Freedom from Religion Foundation, International Humanist and Ethical Union, and, well, the list goes on. We estimate it reached upwards of 500,000 people — which is why so many of us are confused as to why it only garnered 8,000 signatures.
First of all, I’m not indignant. My feelings aren’t hurt. I was trying in both of these responses to give an alternate explanation (and, I think, a more accurate one) for what happened and why the petition failed to get signatures (and secondarily, why people reacted the way they did to Paul’s letter). If I am correct about these things, *that is good news*. It means that people do give a shit and not only can some good still be done for Alex Aan by the community/movement/whatever, but that there are lessons to be learned for next time a similar situation arises (and you know there’s going to be others). Holding on to a non-popular strategy and blaming the people for a lack of compassion or caring *if* it’s the strategy (or communication thereof) that’s the problem is counterproductive.
I don’t think it would have inconvenienced me, but I’m not an American. I was under the assumption that that site was for Americans to petition their own government. I wrote a letter to my own PM (CCing our Foreign Affairs Minister, asshole of the first order, John Baird). Today, I also signed the Change.org petition as soon as I heard about it.
Shorter Ibis3 #22: Wah wah. I’m lazy. Wah wah victim blaming. Wah wah do things my way, wah wah I’m not an American and don’t care about the United States’ massive international clout.
From one non-American to another, grow the fuck up. The time you’re spending here now snivelling and crying about how people didn’t do things YOUR WAY because YOU’RE SO AWESOME AND KNOW HOW TO MAKE EVERYTHING WORK, you could have been spreading the hell out of that petition earlier.
But, no. You’d rather whine and stomp because people aren’t doing things your way.
People like you are why the atheist/skeptical community is going down the shitter rather than developing into a movement.
I know “both sides blah, blah” is a terrible thing to say, but just listen to yourselves folks: the vitriol, the bitterness.
And an online petition IS a shitty way of trying to do something; they only exist at the WH, at Downing St, etc, to distract people into thinking someone is listening. You might as well just be shouting down an unconnected phone line. If the notion of the petition is a device, a hook to draw people in to a wider concern, that’s OK, but if anyone sets off with the idea that it in itself will achieve anything, well, frankly, bless.
Those who think that online petitions accomplish nothing other than wasting time might want to check out
http://www.change.org/victories
Oh and feel free to take more substantive action – such as signing up with Amnesty International which has adopted Alexander Aan as a prisoner-of-conscience. You could write letters to the President of Indonesia or something….
@23 I’d laugh at you for being so absurd and ridiculous if it weren’t so pathetic at the same time.
It’s called analysis and strategizing, folks, not whining and crying. I don’t give a shit whose way it is, as long as it is succeeding. Paul/CoI were disappointed at the response to this call for action. It’s stupid to put it down to “not giving a shit”–not when we have lots of evidence to the contrary (successful campaigns for MSF, FBB, Camp Quest, funds for Jessica Ahlquist & Damon Fowler, Light the Night, Atheists Helping the Homeless). So which is it:
a) people do give a shit about all sorts of humanitarian causes but not about a person jailed for 2yrs for posting something on Facebook that we are all free to post all the time
b) people were too distracted by other causes or events to pay much attention to Alexander Aan’s plight
c) people would have cared and would have signed the petition had they known about it, but didn’t hear about it until it was too late
d) people do care about Alexander Aan and want to help but were prevented from signing the petition because of technical problems
e) people do care about Alexander Aan but decided not to sign the petition for certain reasons (if so, what are they, and can they be mitigated/answered to/resolved next time)
Once you figure this out, you can come up with solutions to answer to the problems and actually do something for Alex Aan. But no, you’d rather wail about how mean and whiny people are for not performing exactly the way you expect.
Oh, and one more thing.
Fuck you.
This is what that site says:
and
Why the fuck would anyone *not* take that to mean that the petition is for only Americans to sign?
These are for everyone
http://www.change.org/petitions#search/alexander aan
And this
http://www.avaaz.org/en/petition/Free_Alex_Aan_imprisoned_for_saying_there_is_no_god/
I feel it’s only prudent to remind everyone that Ibis did note that (s)he wrote a letter and signed the change.org position. So it’s safe to say that Ibis cannot be criticised for not doing anything.
@Ibis, yes, I think I can fairly say that was our fault. We should have made it clearer that non-U.S. citizens could sign.
What I find odd is that the Change.org petition has so few signatures (1,837 at the moment, fewer than the WH one!). Perhaps that one should be post-bombed by people?
So, you know, for some reason this article really ticked me off. Forgive my posting in heat, but this really got under my skin. I signed the petition, and I’m really disappointed it didn’t hit 25,000.
Maybe the word just really didn’t get out? It would seem maybe so! After all, from the linked article:
I’m not saying the arguments against signing are necessarily right, but maybe it would appropriate to acknowledge this <is apparently not viewed as a good way to effect change and not just excoriate everyone who didn’t help out in this one instance, and use it as a launching pad to wail about the lack of strength of the movement at large.
I mean, for fuck’s sake:
Fucking really? That’s just insulting. Because, you know, since this petition failed, nobody anywhere is doing fucking anything, amirite?
Btw, I signed the damn petition, and clearly I’m still pretty irked by that post and some of the responses here.
On a completely unrelated note:
The WH petition site got a lot of flak when it was <a href="http://epic.org/2012/08/white-house-pulls-down-tsa-pet.html"reported by the Electronic Privacy Information Center, and too lazy to google) that they unexpectedly closed the TSA screening process petition at 90% of required signatures. The petition’s author apparently disputed that claim, saying it ended as scheduled and there were just not enough signatures.
However, it was a mini-explosion at the time, and my google-fu finds many, many sites still excoriating the WH petition system, most without any correction or updates. And that’s just one instance, googling the complaints about how hard it is to sign in to the site makes my eyes bleed.
Deserved or not, the site has a bad reputation.
And just to reiterate: I signed both petitions.
In less heat, I found this article made basically the same point without the same condescension and presumption to speak for the movement at large. Hell, I even found it through Friendly Atheist, in a post by Mehta.
http://www.religionnews.com/politics/government-and-politics/petition-fails-in-support-of-indonesian-atheist
It’s a personal reaction, but the chiding nature of the article linked in this post and the complete minimizing of what the movement has done really got my goat up. What should have been a tear-jerking letter telling Aan that “despite this failure, our efforts won’t stop here” was done quite poorly, in my opinion.
YMMV.
Trying to keep Aan out of jail doesn’t much resemble the failed Chris Stedman Lightbulb Distribution Project, but the open letter sure rings a bell.
Actions fail. Actions fail all the time. Blaming a community for a failed action is not useful. Actions are not fundamentally about justice or worthiness; they’re about persuasion. And the “vigorously defended streak of laziness” is something that every movement has to contend with. If Paul’s “deeply saddened” by it, that shows that he has some experience to gain.
@ Cam
Thanks for summarizing my rather emotional response with such economy. 🙂
Also, if this was an open letter to Aan, why oh why would it be a good idea to say ‘Look, we got your back, but our movement totally sucks and doesn’t care about you.’ The mind boggles.
Honestly y’all, Paul’s pissed. If you see my posts above, I get where he’s coming from. I guarantee you, after the initial failure, I’ve no doubt his anger was a community he expected to care. Because his petition failed, he felt the community was to blame.
I think I can say that’s what I thought because it was my initial reaction, which you can read in my first post here.
Maybe he was wrong. Maybe I was wrong. There’s more to this than people just not caring.
I think, if Paul sees the progress the current Change.org and Avaaz petitions are making (and they are doing well), he’ll see, like me, that people do care.
I was wrong above with my cynical attitude. I think (or maybe hope) that Paul will see it, too.
@ NateHevens:
Completely agree with your comment there. And y’know, if I’d been one of the first people to post, I probably would have said much the same thing. But some of the comments here…. yeesh.
Perhaps they were reacting from the same level of indignation, and not really thinking it through (or really reading Ibis’s posts, for that matter). A movement is going to come with differences of opinion on strategy and how best to go about accomplishing things, after all.
But really, what sucks is that the petition failed, Aan is still in prison, and we’ve devolved into anger and determining who the True Atheists(tm) are instead of, y’know, working out what to do now, as a movement. And I’m not helping with that, so I’ll just shut up.