Blog: Arigona

Being Active Online Makes for Better Campaigning and Causes More Change

Fifteen-year-old Arigona Zogaj is about to be deported from Austria back to Kosovo. Her family came to Austria five years ago illegally and applied for asylum. This summer the Zogajs ran out of legal options and were told to leave the country or be deported. After immigration agents visited Arigona's house, she went into hiding. On October 5th, a video message of her was aired on Austrian national TV ORF and has drawn much public attention. 

I wanted to find out what I could do to support Arigona and her family, so I did a quick online search for campaigns. "Arigona Zogaj" and "Zogaj" didn't turn up anything helpful. Next I looked up organizations backing the family but found on their websites only general articles and those centered on the debate around "Bleiberecht" - the right for illegal immigrants to stay in Austria if they are well integrated. The only real action I found being done for the family was an email campaign run by the Upper Austrian Green party. 

So I joined the Green party's email campaign and uploaded Arigona's video message to YouTube to help spread the word. It instantly got attention of hundreds, and after six days it stands at 16,600 views and 46 comments. The same video was uploaded a day earlier by dispatch05 and has been viewed 8,000 times and commented on 89 times. I don't know how many times the original video has been viewed.

What the heck. Why isn't more being done on this? I asked the Upper Austrian Green Party what was going on with the advocacy community in Austria, and their press speaker Dietmar Spöcker wrote back that the email campaign I mentioned had pretty good results for Austria: 2,000 respondents.

To create real pressure there needs to be more, much more.

This should be treated as a unique window for making existing Austrian immigration laws more liberal. Recently reported individual cases of deportees like Arigona's have greatly risen public awareness and have sparked debates on all levels.

And there's a lot that organizations can be doing more to push this online at little cost. Here are a few suggestions: 

• Be present on existing online discussions. These are in DIRE need of constructive and informed comment. On channels like the YouTube video posted above, ignorance starts to rule. It's simply destructive to leave these arenas to insulting comment combatants.
• Inform by generating better content on existing online channels. Post videos of current developments on YouTube, post pictures about demonstrations on Flickr, Facebook, and MySpace. Don't wait until Austria is online, generate content - Austria is online-hungry, people will watch and engage.
• Use your own websites better and give visitors clear ways they can support Arigona and get the facts on the issue.

Some people and organizations are taking these actions, but not enough. In his reply to my inquiry, Dietmar Spöcker said that political debate in Austria doesn't happen online as much as in other places like the United States. This is true. But the Austrian online community can't be ignored, and the views and comments on Arigona's video on YouTube prove this. Advocacy organizations need to make the first step, and soon. They can't afford to wait until the last Austrians are online - the internet provides too big an opportunity for engaging people and bringing about change.

Latest developments in the case of the Zogaj family: Arigona left her hideout and gave a press conference (German).English news about the Zogaj case

Online campaigns:http://www.austria4arigona.athttp://ooe.gruene.at/(I am sure there are some I didn't find, I would be happy to see more in the comments here)