Aplicación de técnicas de venta

When asked how they joined the SOMO movement, several respondents told of their painful experiences from the time when their sons were serving in the army as conscript soldiers. They became involved as a way to find resolution for their personal strains associated with the suffering of their sons-soldiers. The activists’ personal grievances, however, are transformed and framed as social injustice. The meaning of activism is interpreted by Irina and Masha as a voluntary and selfless “service to others” and caring about saving the lives of young men.

When Irina’s elder son was serving in the army she visited him in his military unit. He always showed up covered with bruises and seemed deeply depressed. It was obvious to Irina that he was beaten up and bullied by other soldiers or officers in the unit. Although she was sick with worry for her son’s life, she did not know what she could do to help him: “I was in despair. The only thing one can do [in this situation] is to pay bribes” (interview, November 20, 2000). Her younger son has a weak heart and she was afraid that he would not be able to survive a term of military service. She knew that he probably should receive an exemption from the military duty, but the medical commission at the local draft board did not acknowledge his medical diagnosis. As a single mother, Irina could not afford to pay bribes or to pay for a visit to a private medical clinic, where her son’s diagnosis might have been defined and documented. Despair and anxiety for her sons’ destiny pushed Irina to look for extraordinary ways out of the situation. She turned

to the Soldier’s Mothers organization where she was able to get financial aid, necessary information and advice. Her younger son eventually received exemption from the military service and her elder son was dismissed early from the army. This experience had a profound effect on Irina. Her involvement in social activism transformed her feelings of powerlessness and eventually changed her worldview. In the SOMO, the ideology of human rights taught her to view her situation in a completely different way:

I realized then that there is a lawful way to resolve such situations, that I do not need to pay bribes. I was very depressed at that time, but this experience gave me a new motivation to continue to live. I wanted to share this feeling with the others and I engaged enthusiastically in this work. (Interview, November 20, 2000)

Looking back on her past experiences, she recognized that she did not understand many things and was acting like a ‘little mother,’ who was ignorant of her own rights. She started to see her individual problems as part of social problem which led her to build a new self-identity as a ‘counselor’ helping others. In the SOMO NGO she tries to help mothers as well as soldiers who are victims of hazing in the military barracks and to educate them about the possibilities of protecting their rights in these situations.

Another respondent, Masha’s path into societal activism also started in the painful

maternal experience which pushed her to seek a contact with other mothers. Her story illustrates how self and society intertwines when individuals are brought together due to similar problems and become recognized as activists by others. In 1987, when her son was 16 years old, she started to think about his future service in the army. It was a period of ongoing war in Afghanistan and she was afraid that her son would be sent there. She wanted to find ways to avoid his enlistment in the army. It was during the period of glasnost when the newspapers wrote relatively openly about controversial issues. So Masha both heard from the other people and read in the newspapers that there were groups of soldiers’ parents whose sons were missing in Afghanistan. For the first time in her life, she started to be interested in politics and broader societal issues.

She tells that even if her family was lucky, because in 1989 when her son was drafted, the Soviet troops had already left Afghanistan, political tension started to increase in the country and many violent ethnic conflicts erupted in different regions. Her son’s unit was sent to Azerbajdzhan, a Soviet republic in the south, and was assigned to a military unit which recently withdrew from Afghanistan.

In December, 19, 1990, the Soviet troops entered the capital Baku and tragic events followed. I do not know if his unit participated in them. But as I know they were sent to suppress the uproars in Tbilisi. My son suddenly found himself in the combat unit on a war footing. (Interview, September 28, 2001)

In the interview, Masha tells about her personal worries and a “natural” concern for her own child with the help of language and symbols which constitute the SOMO’s shared group narrative. The fear and anxiety she felt about her son are transformed into a feeling of indignation, and thinking in terms of collective tragedy and soldiers in general:

It was a kind of inner protest… naturally, I feared for my son’s life. I wanted also to understand what happens to our children, suddenly the soldiers started to be killed in Azerbajdzhan, during Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. It was a real military operation in which the soldiers were killed and peaceful citizens lost their lives. I was alone [with these feelings] and I wanted to do something, to intervene in this tragedy. This condition pushed me to search for women who felt in the same way. (Interview, September 28, 2001) A core group of activists emerged as a basis of the future NGO:

They were just mothers who gathered in the evenings, wherever they could, often in the High School of XXX, which offered them a room. We had a lot of agitated discussions… We, a core group of 15-20 people, who organized the meetings, saw or phoned each other regularly. General meetings with other mothers were crowded, up to 500 people gathered. (Interview, September 28, 2001)

We were trying to somehow resolve our own problems but the other women started to consider us as a kind of Committee. They came to us with their problems, folks, little mothers … so we dealt with our own problems and at the same time learned how to help the other people. We so to say undertook such a mission. And we learned and grew into it, gradually, step by step. (Interview, September 28, 2001)

Similar to Irina, who described how she was transformed from a ‘little mother’ into a human rights activist, Masha’s story shows how spontaneous ties of solidarity between mothers were eventually partially formalized and structured as a relationship between core activists and other women who were offered help.

At the same time, many activists’ relationship to the constituency is very informal and felt as a relationship built on genuine compassion. This rule of emotion in the shared culture of the organization creates opportunities for continued interactions. Masha stresses that her empathy to mothers and young draftees resulted in years of tireless voluntary work: