Background

The background of the campaign is based on two main arguments: 1. The dominating image of the South communicated through the media, aid/charity organizations, and academia in Norway is biased and one-dimensional. 2. Students and academics all over the world can act as agents of change, and are capable of exerting real influence over their own situation, both politically, socially, culturally, and economically.

1. The dominating image of the South communicated through the media, aid/charity organizations, and academia in Norway is biased and one-dimensional. There is an over-emphasis on war and conflict, poverty and disaster, passivity and despair. Even more importantly, the opinions of people from the South are too rarely voiced, whether expressed independently or through Norwegian intermediaries. SAIH believes that this image stands in the way for development in the South because it builds on a misleading idea about the problems and challenges that people in the South face. Through aid organizations and other agencies, people in the North exert a considerable influence on development in the South. It is thus very unfortunate if the Northerners’ image of the South is biased.

2. Students and academics all over the world can act as agents of change, and are capable of exerting real influence over their own situation, both politically, socially, culturally, and economically. It is therefore crucial that they have a pluralistic view of the world and an understanding of how everything is linked together. We hope the campaign can be somewhat a contribution to their reflection over the situation.