Right On Target - Interview with Sune Posselt

We have interviewed Sune Posselt, one of the 200 young participants in "Right on Target", a great arrangement about human rights. Right on Target took place in Denmark, and was arranged by the Danish Youth Foundation, to celebrate the 50^th anniversary of the declaration of human rights. Among the participants were representatives from several Danish and international youth organizations.

Q: What was so special about Right on Target?

A: Well, what made it so special was definitely the way in which human rights were discussed and taught. Usually you go to a meeting or a seminar to sit down and talk about a topic like human rights, but at Right on Target you literally learned by doing. The main part of the arrangement was a two day long role-playing game, where all participants were assigned a certain character that he or she then acted.

Q:

What was the game about?

A:

It was about a fictive country called Palonia. Palonia was a totalitarian and undemocratic country, which was ruled by a cruel and selfish dictator. The will of the president was enforced by the paramilitary police force and the military intelligence service, which shed no means to kill any resistance to the politics of the country. Threats, torture and arbitrary arrest were only a few of the inhuman ways in which people were oppressed by the regime.

Q:

What was your role in the play?

A:

I was as low as I could possibly get. I was a stateless, a refugee who had fled to Palonia from a neighbor country, to avoid war. In Palonia money were equal to power, and power was equal to rights, so since my only belongings were one set of clothes and a ragged blanked, I had practically no rights at all.

Q:

What was it like to be in the lowest part of society?

A:

It was extremely tough. You constantly had to be on the run from the police, who would harass or arrest you if you got caught. It was also terrible to watch other people eating delicious food, while you had to be content with a dry piece of bread or whatever you could steal from other people.

Q:

Which rights did you possess as a stateless?

A:

As I mentioned before I had practically no rights. You constantly risked being arrested for no reason at all, and without any kind of legal trial, just prison and torture. There was absolutely no freedom of expression, everybody who criticized the rule of the country was severely punished or even killed. We were only allowed to stay in designated areas even though there was no housing or shelter. Even peaceful demonstrations were prohibited, and you could only gather three people at a time. These are just a few of the violations of our basic right.

Q:

What was the worst thing about being stateless?

A:

The worst thing was the constant fear and insecurity. You heard terrible stories about people, who had been tortured to death by the police, so you were always on the run.

Q:

Did you fight for your rights?

A:

Yes, we tried to form an opposition to the government. We tried to make people aware of the resistance by putting up illegal posters, making magazines and painting graffiti expressing our main ideas.

Q:

What was difficult about this illegal work?

A:

The greatest problem was the fear of getting caught. Police were always around, you could never feel safe from their patrols. Our work was also hindered by the presence of government informers and snitches in our own organizations. Another problem was the terrible living conditions, it is very hard to motivate people to fight against political oppression, when they have to fight just to put dinner on the table.

Q:

Was there a wide support for your fight in the general population?

A:

Yes, actually there was, if you asked people most of them supported our cause, but when it came to active support most people were too afraid of the police to help us. They were afraid of ending up in jail or in the streets like us.

We were also backed up by the UN, who constantly put pressure on the government, trying to make them call a democratic election. By gathering information and stories about our living condition, they also made the rest of the world aware of our situation.

Q:

What was the greatest experience during the arrangement?

A:

The most amazing thing was definitely the way you got carried away with your role. I almost cried when one of my best friends was caught and tortured by the police, and I was really, really scared each time we were stopped by the police.

It was also extremely interesting to experience those situations in "real life". When you read about and discuss human rights you often have a hard time really understanding what it is all about. You learn very much by experiencing things for yourself, and some of the things that you learn, isn’t possible to learn no matter how many books you read on the topic.

Q:

What is your advice to young people who would like to learn more about human rights?

A:

I think that one of the best ways to learn about that kind of topic is to read a bit about it, and them get together in a group to discuss it. This discussion is really good, because it is not enough to know what the books say, you also have to really understand it, that is what I learned at Right on Target.

Send a mail to Sune Posselt