It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong. (Voltaire)
- An activist cannot only be an intelligent-open-minded-teacher; s/he also has to be an advocate-and-active-change-agent-and-leader.*
*: Do not deceive yourself here though: I used to think that ideas and words would be sufficient. How wrong I was. The ideas I write about human rights (HR) are maybe essential, but if they are not accompanied by resolved actions by the victims of HR abuses, the beautiful words will go up in smoke and will never rise from the parlors of intellectuals. We often think that printed words denouncing evil will be enough to set in motion social change. But, at best, this is a form of anger-without-sufficient-follow-up-enthusiasm-to-see-actions-through. The fundamental is not what is written –it just puts people to sleep a pleasant sleep; what is fundamental is changing society. Compromise creates synergy. In the best of cases, written radicalism may end up replacing some government policies by other (sometimes a bit better) policies, without really changing the political system. In the worst of cases, it provokes government repression. Our focus ought to be to change the power balance in the political system, not just to make grandiose political declarations.
[If people could eat international resolutions and summit agreements, Africans would be among the best fed people in the world. (IFPRI)].
- An activist has to engage opponents in debates about HR-based alternatives for action. But that is not always easy. (Who has not been tormented by the little devil blowing in our ear the devastating argument we failed to use on time in our last debate? Time and exposure will minimize this shortcoming). (Gabriel Garcia Marquez)
- Today, in many countries, fellow activists are already seriously fighting for constitutional rule, to check corruption and check abusive power. As such, they are directly pleading for changes toward greater democracy and, therefore, implicitly pleading for the wider respect of HR; what is now needed is to explicit this HR pleading.
- The good-news is that the various existing covenants and treaties on HR increasingly make it possible to hold-perpetrators-of-HR-violations-liable, but the not-so-good-news is that, in most places, there are no good preventive-means-in-place-to-address-HR-violations. Experience tends to show that a society will not observe HR standards until it adopts them as ‘normal’ in day-to-day life. It is thus important to consider customary law and to link the key HR norms to it; this will contribute to HR being perceived as being-in-accord-with-the-local-culture.
- Public-interest-litigation and social-action-litigation are key elements of the rights-based approach. In them, un-represented, disadvantaged, deprived and dispossessed people use courts for the restoration of their basic, fundamental rights. Courts need to be lobbied to accept petitions sent-in in informal formats as, for example, letters from the affected and the ‘rightless’ seeking restoration of their rights. HR activists like us are to bring this situation of ‘rightlessness’ to the attention of the courts. We are aware that enforcement of court orders may not be guaranteed, but the moral boost favorable rulings can bring to social mobilization cannot be emphasized enough. Even symbolic pronouncement by a court are invaluable. We know that, when determined, a court can have its will enforced. Social-action-litigation has indeed led to some important reviews of laws and to the creation of a new HR-responsive-governance-culture as, for example in India, where an impressive jurisprudence of incorporation of HR standards into laws and regulations already exists.
- So, a new era can dawn where marginalized people freely recourse to courts and ‘have-their-day-in-court’. Governments will thus have to eventually explain and, at times, fully redress acts-of-commission and acts-of-omission in the HR domain. All this does not amount to an emancipation of the marginalized; but judicial activism can make those in power a little more accountable. At stake in this process is, not so much the legal, but the political correctness of the judiciary. (U. Baxi)
- Moreover, the internet is beginning to change things…also for HR; civil society groups have begun to use cyber platforms (e.g., the People’s Health Movement or this very same HR Reader). The www serves to inspire confidence in people’s power to make a peaceful difference and to connect claim-holders worldwide to the global-anti-negative-effects-of-globalization and pro-HR campaigns. The internet is thus serving the democratic and HR discourse. The question though is: Faster and more effectively than the undemocratic forces are using it?
- As regards the media, it certainly should become more of a public witness of successful outcomes of civil-society-activism of all kinds. (…Success always seems to happen in private; failure in full view…) But unfortunately, there is little independent press these days to keep a watchful eye on civil society, on the government and on dominant political interest groups. It is for us as activists to engage them.
- So, in conclusion (is a conclusion the place where one got tired of thinking?), it will indeed take organized-concerted-and-aggressive-grassroots-pressure –as well as concerted-action-at-the-global-level– to bring about the profound social and political changes that are needed for the HR cause to make faster headway.
Claudio Schuftan, Ho Chi Minh City