1. Let us not be fooled: Journalism helps shape public opinion; it thus is part of politics. (Z. Acevedo Diaz) Keep in mind that one of the basic tools to manipulate reality (or the truth) is the manipulation of words. (Albino Gomez)
Just think: When trustworthy news are not available or when news manipulate reality, we fall into the reign of rumours and clandestine communications –and people feed on it. (*)
We say: When human rights (HR) are being neglected and violated, the press must have more courage than rigor; when one lives in democracy, courage is not so much needed as rigor. (*)
So, today: People who are not confused about HR probably owe this fact to their total lack of information. That is why, perhaps facetiously, Thomas Jefferson once said that a man who never reads a newspaper is better informed than a man who does; this, due to the fact that the one who knows nothing is closer to the truth than the one whose mind is full of falsehoods and errors. It was over 200 years ago, that Jefferson actually also said that the freedom of the press was a pain that we must bear, because our liberty depends on it.
We could add: …because human rights depend on it.
2. Let us not be fooled: It was when it was discovered that information was a business that truth lost some of its importance. (*) Who understood it better than television…
Just think: Today, television has become our ruler; more and more, it determines our selection of candidates and of the persons we now elect to lead governments we-will-then-be-forced-to-live-under. There is no doubt that television is authoritarian and commanding (and an accomplice when it comes to HR violations) as perhaps no other mass medium in the world. (*)
We say: …and look at TV advertising! One of the outcomes of television publicity is to create frustrations to then propose solutions for those frustrations. The vast majority of us cannot consume all that is proposed to us. Besides not all ‘needs’ that are proposed to us by advertising are real; it is those entities with vested market interests that impose them on us! (*)
So, today: The supposed ‘objectivity’ of the camcorder is a myth. Television is a medium that necessarily makes points and takes sides, whatever its claims about impartial coverage of news events. Moreover, the speed and the multiplicity of on-screen messages we are exposed-to have reduced our capacity to keep our attention and to retain what we see, hear and read. As a result, we become less good at abstraction; we are transformed into vacuum cleaners of irrelevancies and into sages of trivia. (S. Geenfield)
We could add: …and human rights are relegated to the status of irrelevance –if not of trivia…).
3. Let us not be fooled: While modern information and communications technologies (ICTs) open new opportunities to foster inclusive participation, they do not (with rare exceptions) actually entice people to engage and become more active in the public sphere –for instance, in HR issues; nor do these new technologies by themselves effectively tackle the so-called “democratic apathy” of citizens in industrialized countries.
Just think: ICTs indeed have the potential of becoming a powerful critical engine in empowering people as participants in HR, in governance and in other political processes. There is no doubt that ICTs are moving much faster than institutional modernization or change and thus are putting tons of pressure on that modernization process to catch up. The same goes for fostering the HR principles of inclusiveness and participation using social media, the internet, and now, mobile technologies.
We say: There is an important gap here. People are slowly finding incentives to engage, but the critical question in this regard is if policy and decision-makers are listening or are even willing to listen.
So, today: We find quite a few examples where leaders are indeed ‘listening’, but it is mostly because they either have their own political agenda, and/or because they have keen personal interest in the new emerging communication channels as they fit their ambitions and can be capitalized for political purposes. Nevertheless, once they move-on with their own agendas, the listening stops while the voices may continue to be heard, but falling into deaf ears. (R. Zambrano)
We could add: …and the listening classically stops on crucial human rights issues. But our voices will not fall into deaf ears!).
4. Bottom line for human rights: A docile media without a sense of criticism, as we see today, just celebrates the capitalist lifestyle and tells us that if we do not feel good with ourselves, it is our fault, never the fault of the system in which we live and work. (S. George) Since this is a given, there is ever more information and less thinking, there is a dearth of reflective reading –not just the quick reading of newspapers or magazines or watching TV that only exceptionally make a valuable contribution. (*) This represents brainwashing of captive audiences… We thus have to continue to build/enhance the capacity of more and more people, especially young people to become ‘vigorously proactive and challengingly reactive’. HR learning again emerges here as a key priority. We absolutely have to enlarge the number of young people involved in our HR movement. They are the ones using all these new ICTs. We have to try to articulate our activities in ways that young people can begin to connect-to and link-up with so as to enhance their ability to effectively contribute to direct, participatory democracy as rights-bearing individuals. So, there is a new excitement that we have to draw into our movement. If we do not do that, we will have no future. (Anwar Fazal)
Claudio Schuftan, Ho Chi Minh City
cschuftan@phmovement.org