"A Call to Action: Turning Oppression into Opportunity"
--By Nicholas Kristof


[Writing as Activism]--Conference on Writing and Social Justice
Wolran Kim (Apr 2011)



Nicholas Donabet Kristof is an American journalist, author, Op-Ed columnist, and a winner of two Pulitzer prizes. He has written an Op-Ed column for the New York Times since November 2001, and is widely known for bringing to light human rights abuses in Asia and Africa. He has lived on four continents, reported on six, and traveled to 150 countries (including North Korea), plus all 50 states. According to his blog, during his travels he has had "unpleasant experiences with malaria, wars, an Indonesian mob carrying heads on pikes, and an African airplane crash.” Also he wrote many books based on his experiences: China Wakes: The Struggle for the Soul of a Rising Power (1994), Thunder from the East: Portrait of a Rising Asia (2000), and The Japanese Economy at the Millennium.

In 1990, Kristof and his wife, Sheryl WuDunn, earned a Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting for their reporting on the pro-democracy student movement and the related Tiananmen Square protests of 1989. In 2006, he won the Pulitzer Prize for Commentary "for his graphic, deeply reported columns that, at personal risk, focused attention on genocide in Darfur and that gave voice to the voiceless in other parts of the world."

He emphasized the needs of global poverty and value of invest girls education. Currently the proportion of male is higher than female in the world's population. Because women have lower social position than men and they are being deprived of educational opportunities in most developing countries. On top of that they are being kidnapped and abused in prostitution business. This modern slavery is still being sought from all over the world. Surprisingly the number of abused women is ten times more than in 19th century slavery. He attended 150 countries and mentioned about China, Afghanistan, Cambodia, Sudan, Uganda, and Ghana.

Many girls in his stories arranged a stepping stone to contribute to society and changed their lives against their culture and tradition. Those girls became a nurse as disability, the first college student in her village, the first person who graduated university in her community in spite of poor surroundings. Now they have sufficient capability to change not only their lives, but their families and communities as the starting point.

"Women and girls aren't the problem – They are the solution."

America, No. 1 country in the world, has had an enormous impact on many countries long since. (Of course, also there is negative view that half of the world's population is anti-American.) Korea, the country where I grew up has many educational and social groups with history laid the foundation by American missionaries. There is no necessity for mentioning about American soldiers who gave their lives for a foreign country in the Korean War. I think the power which makes America being as America is the people like Kristof. They turn their eyes to neglected and starving people in the world. The social justice which is practiced by few people cannot replace a whole society or country to heaven from hell. But, at least, they can show them the way to better lives and societies.