Amnesty International is hosting a poetry competition called You Can't Jail Minds for secondary school children in the UK. Students are to imagine life as a detainee in prison and to find expression without using pen and paper. It's up to them to scavenge up a way to express their poetry, i.e., napkins, toilet paper, disposable cups, clothes etc.
Amnesty International hopes that by asking pupils here in the UK to try and replicate the efforts that went in to producing the poems, it will encourage them to take a closer interest in human rights and question their own values and attitudes.
We also look forward to receiving some wonderful and thought-provoking entries.
--Kate Allen, Director of Amnesty International UK
On the one hand, I think trying to put oneself in the shoes of the oppressed or imprisoned is a good lesson in empathy and understanding, but on the other hand, I also wonder what other more subtle psychological ramifications might be to such a role reversal exercise. Induced, glamorized Stockholm syndrome or cyclical nightmares?
What do you think about exposing secondary school students to the harsh realities of surviving life as a terrorist detained in captivity akin to the infamous American-run Guantanamo Bay prison camp? Would you want your children involved in such an endeavor?
What do you think about exposing secondary school students to the harsh realities of surviving life as a terrorist detained in captivity akin to the infamous American-run Guantanamo Bay prison camp? Would you want your children involved in such an endeavor?
