Oppression can only survive through silence. The silence of those who know of atrocities and do nothing.The silence of those who refuse to recognize their common humanity with others. People with religious and ethnic differences. People with different life experiences and viewpoints.
A Yemeni girl speaks. Her name is Hanadi, she is 12 years old and was forced into marriage. Her 50 year old husband repeatedly tried to rape her despite her tears, and threatened to beat her severely. “After three days, he put sleeping pills in my water. I woke up bruised, confused, and bleeding. I ran away, pleading for help. My husband will not be charged with a crime, and without help, I will be forced to go back.”
Oppression can only survive through silence, thus silence is complicity. We must address the practices we tolerate. I invite you to stand in solidarity, using your ballot to join with our voices, giving voice to those who have been denied their own voice, through torture, violence, physical brutality, operating through a regime of pain, erasing name, consciousness, identity, destroying subjectivity.
In solidarity, we speak.
Advantage 1: Bearing Witness
Yemeni officials complicit with these atrocities produce a violent hegemonic knowledge production, shaming and silencing the dehumanized in an endless, uncertain torture.
Haugbolle 08
[Haugbolle, Professor of Arabic and Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Copenhagen, 08 (Sune, “Imprisonment, Truth Telling, and Cultural Memory in Syria,” Mediterranean Politics, 13.2, July 2008, BH)]
As evidence from another authoritarian state… in the perpetuation of violence and repression.
Therefore, we must engage the 1ac as an act of counter hegemonic truth telling. This enables political reforms through the undoing of the state’s appropriation of language, utilizing the potential of truth-telling as a vehicle for political change to shatter hegemonic manipulation of the voices of victims and opposition.
Haugbolle 08
[Haugbolle, Professor of Arabic and Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Copenhagen, 08 (Sune, “Imprisonment, Truth Telling, and Cultural Memory in Syria,” Mediterranean Politics, 13.2, July 2008, BH)]
The belief that remembrance of political violence… , to tell their own stories, to re-member by remembering. (Phelps, 2004: 50–51)
Thus we affirm the Yemeni acts of bearing witness for freedom from political repression.
Our act of bearing witness affirms value to life and the subjectivities of those tortured, enabling transformative politics and the rejection of state objectification.
Oliver 00
[Kelly is W. Alton Jones Professor of Philosophy at Vanderbilt University, “Beyond Recognition: Witnessing Ethics” Title: Philosophy Today. Volume: 44. Issue: 1. Publication Year: 2000. (questia)KV)]
Subjectivity is produced through witnessing… possible only beyond recognition.
Our 1ac puts a human face on global injustice. This debate round counters hegemonic Western apathy and inaction, forging transnational bonds of empathy by highlighting structural violence and helping cultivate a sense of universal responsibility.
Kurusawa 9
[Fuyuki, Associate Professor of Sociology at York University, “A Message in a Bottle: Bearing Witness as a Mode of Transnational Practice,” Theory Culture Society, 26(92), p. 101]
Clearly, one of the most daunting facets … and the continuing situation in Tibet.
Affirming the narrative of bearing witness in Yemen creates an ethico-political response to global injustice. Debate is a key public space where accounts of wrongdoing can be broadcast and participation mobilized.
Kurusawa 7
[Fuyuki, Associate Professor of Sociology at York University, The Work of Global Justice: Human Rights as Practices, p. 54-55, OG]
Nevertheless, I want to insist … to the work of bearing witness.
The affirmative’s speech acts have the transformative power to uproot and replace status quo structures and norms.
Fairclough 92
[Fairclough, Norman. 1992. Discourse and Social Change, Polity Press. Norman Fairclough is emeritus Professor of Linguistics at Lancaster University. He is one of the founders of critical discourse analysis, a branch of sociolinguistics or discourse analysis that looks at the influence of power relations on the content and structure of writings.]
There is a further absence associated … transformed in practice.
Only by addressing the discursive nature of power can we truly refute and reverse domination and systems of exclusion.
Bleiker 00
[Roland Bleiker is Senior Lecturer and Coordinator of the Peace and Conflict Studies Program at the University of Queensland. Popular Dissent, Human Agency & Global Politics 2000.]
Grand theories of popular …embedded identity constructs which support gender hierarchies.
Advantage 2: Patriarchy
Yemeni law discriminates against women, treats them as subordinate, and allows for rape and murder to go unpunished.
Article 19, 09
[Article 19: Global Campaign for Free Expression, March 2009. “Yemen: An Analysis of Women in the Media.” http://www.article19.org/data/files/pdfs/publications/yemen-an-analysis-of-women-in-the-media.pdf. ARTICLE 19 is an international human rights organisation founded in 1987 whose mission is to promote and defend freedom of expression and freedom of information. ARTICLE 19 takes its name from the corresponding article of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which guarantees the right to freedom of expression and the right to seek, receive and impart information and ideas.]
Indeed, Yemeni women have … those laws which afford rights to women.
Silence in the face of atrocity is complicity; our evidence shows the underpinnings of silence and its enabling of mass murder and genocide.
Roncagliolo 08
[Rancoglioli, Santiago. “The Complicity of Silence.” http://www.apublicspace.org/back_issues/issue_3/focus_peruthe_complicity_of_silence.html
Santiago Rafael Roncagliolo Lohmann is a Peruvian writer, scriptwriter, translator, journalist, a political analyst and a contributor for El Pais and other various Latin American newspapers.]
Every dictatorship—and many democracies…certainly, the rest of the nation.
Inaction makes us complicit in the harms of Yemen. We have a moral obligation to draw attention to these atrocities.
Staff 07
[Staff, July 28, 2007. “The Dangers of Apathy.” Yemen Observer. http://www.yobserver.com/editorials/10012652.html]
Too many people couldn’t … the country fester and rot.
Individuals choose to either perpetuate patriarchy through silence or to challenge the status quo of discrimination and injustice.
Thomas 91.
[Thomas, R. Roosevelt, 1991. Beyond Race and Gender, Amacom 1991. R. Roosevelt Thomas is founder and senior research fellow of the American Institute for Managing Diversity. Recognized by the Wall Street Journal as one of the top ten consultants in the country and cited by Human Resource Executive as one of HR's Most Influential People, he is a sought-after speaker and the author of several books, including Building on the Promise of Diversity and Beyond Race and Gender.]
Like all social systems, … perpetuate or challenge the status quo.
The logic of patriarchy is the root cause of all modern violence, including rape, environmental destruction, war, and ultimately extinction.
Warren and Cady 94
[Warren, Karen and Cady, Duane. Feminism and Peace: Seeing Connections, Hypatia, Vol. 9, No. 2, Spring, p4-20. Warren and Cady are philosophy professors at Macalester College and Hamline University respectively.]
Operationalized, the evidence of …-nature-peace connections in regional, national and global contexts.
Advantage 2: Human Rights
The Yemeni government is committing grave human rights violations, and no real attempt is being made to rectify these horrific acts. Security forces are ruthlessly killing protestors, refusing to allow medical treatment and forcing dissenters to slowly die in the streets.
AI 2011
[Amnesty International 2011. “Moment of Truth for Yemen.” http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/asset/MDE31/007/2011/en/5fa56895-8601-49c5-a7d0-a2fdecdfab5b/mde310072011en.pdf. Amnesty International is a global movement of more than 3 million supporters, members and activists in more than 150 countries and territories who campaign to end grave abuses of human rights.]
On 25 February, security … ‘Let them die!’ I had to go back.”
Only a firm commitment to human rights can avoid extinction
Copelon 98
(Rhonda, Professor of Law and Director of the International Women's Human Rights Law Clinic at the City University of New York School of Law, New York City Law Review, /99, 3 N.Y. City L. Rev. 59)
The indivisible human rights … both domestic and foreign policy.
