The ZRC Zombie of the Year for 2011
I trust you’re all aware of the proud list of nominees we selected for the shortlist for this, the ZRC’s award honoring the very best and noblest efforts by a Zombie to improve the public image of the Zombie Community and advance the cause of Zombie Rights.
If not then I do humbly suggest you give the list a quick perusal; all our nominees this year were very worthy indeed.
How to pick from so many outstanding people and causes? It wasn’t easy, certainly. 2011 was the year that differing, and far more Zombie Friendly ideas about the Differently Animated were brought to the attention of the general public in ways never before seen. When the history of the Zombie Rights Movement is written I think 2011 will be seen as a landmark year, the point at which the tide really started to change and momentum to build for Undead Equality.
So this year we had Zombie Friendly film, and theatre, and literature, and activism to contend with in the selection process, and that’s just counting the publicly available shortlist! Numerous worthy runners-up could have been named, in comic books, music, television , advertising and more.
But ultimately, though the choice was hard to make, I think as a social activist organization we knew the decision that had to be made. The ‘Zombie of the Year’ award is after all an attempt to honor the individual or individuals who advance the Cause most in a given year, and in that regard, one individual did clearly stand out. A person who has put themselves out in the public spotlight, standing up for the rights of the Undead, who has suffered grievous discrimination and oppression at the hands of society and who, still, stands up for the Zombie Community, and even now is fighting against long odds to win civil liberty for the Differently Animated.
Therefore our Zombie of the Year 2011, the Zombie Rights Campaign is proud to say, is none other than
Hannah Eiseman-Renyard, our correspondent and counterpart from the United Kingdom, whose brave legal struggle for the rights of the Differently Animated has truly moved our hearts.
As previously detailed here on the blog, Ms. Eiseman-Renyard found herself swept up in a tyrannical police raid against the Zombie Community, on presumption of the Undead being… Republicans.
Which as it turns out is a very different thing in the UK than here in America.
The prejudice and guilt-by-association the Zombie Community faces in both our great nations is, however, sadly parallel, as our Zombie of the Year discovered first-hand. Was she deterred? Did she back down from her public display of Zombiism and affiliation with a tragically misunderstood community? No! Instead Ms. Eiseman-Renyard has taken the battle for better and more equitable treatment of the Differently Animated into the halls of power, and even now is an active participant in legal proceedings which, we hope, will once and for all make it legal to ‘Shamble While Zombie’ in the United Kingdom.
Truly, this work has been inspirational, and humbling. The ZRC has yet to get the Cause into a courtroom, but our Zombie of the Year is already confronting her nation with important questions about politics, human rights and their application to the Undead. It is an amazing achievement and a direct advance for the cause of Undead Equality whose importance is difficult to measure, and virtually impossible to overstate.
Even above and beyond the legal struggle, Ms. Eiseman-Renyard has become a great source of news and insight into the global stage of the struggle for Zombie Rights for the ZRC, and helped to keep us, and by extension, yourselves, abreast of all the latest developments, not just in her case but on the world stage. And for that we are additionally thankful.
Congratulations, Hannah Eiseman-Renyard. You are our Zombie of the Year 2011.
And we’re so very proud.
About The Author
Congratulations Hannah! What a great honor!