[Every 50 Readers I write one that pertains to the process and thoughts that lead to each Reader; it also reflects about the process of writing-for-action and for-impact in general]
-“If it is possible to live without writing, do it.” (Gabriel Garcia Marquez quoting Reiner Maria Rilke)
-I think a writer writes only one book, although that same book may appear in several volumes under different titles.
Upfront
1. Can I consider myself a true human rights activist? Well, have I not, over the years, written extensively about the so many aspects of HR? Yes, sure. But you may ask: Can human rights (HR) violations and inequality be overcome by a ‘computer activist’? But the truth is they could… The current-day-internet-tool, linked to the compulsion to tell, to denounce and to create, can and very often does become a lethal weapon against deception, against exploitation, against submission and against resignation. (Louis Casado)
2. Actually, sometimes I think: I do not write the Readers; they write me. There is a continuous energy circulation that flows from the pages that enters my eyes and runs through my nervous system before it exits through my hands on the keyboard. The computer and me are Siamese twins united by the tip of my fingers. (Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451)
3. Perhaps in a very indirect and general way, what Pablo Neruda said about his poetry, applies to me and my Readers. He said: “Life, books, travel and wars, goodness and cruelty, friendship and threats make my writing change a hundred times. I have been privileged to live in all the distances, in all climates; I have suffered and loved like any man of our times; I have loved and defended profound, just causes; I have suffered my own pains and those of the humiliated condition of many peoples”.
4. Like so many people, I constantly think about rage. Who am I mad at? What is my anger good for? How is it that all your and my rage has long gone unheeded –even not eliciting a counterattack by those who have ignored it for their own gains? (Rebecca Traister)
5. In all truth, I do not like to talk too much about my Readers because, as it happens with all essays/blogs, presenting or commenting on them may or may not awaken your interest. But nothing can substitute your actually reading them* –something that does not happen with paintings, that can be seen instantly or with music that can also instantly be heard. (Albino Gomez)
*: Secretly and un-admittedly, I hope the Readers are not just thought for the gut, digesters of Food for Thought, a toilet newsletter, a newsletter for the john (although if this is where I get your attention, so be it).
Old fart?
6. It is sad, for those of us who have not betrayed youth ideals and commitments, to realize that we are a failed generation that was not able to implement our vision of a better society…** (Roberto Savio) I think we can confidently say that we, those ‘from before’, are no longer the same we used to be. (P. Neruda)
**: There have actually been only two noticeable changes: The arrival of women and youth on the political scene –with millions of them mobilizing against injustice and patriarchy (can I extend this to HR…?).
7. So, while I and several of you are closer to the end of our work lives than to its beginning, others among you are much closer to the beginning. The HR movement (and these Readers) needs both of you, old and young!
What I do in the Readers
-I do not have to defend my morality. You may ask: “Is it better for you to exaggerate morality rather than immorality in the Readers?” Perhaps yes, but I have to be careful not to fall into the sentimental patheticness of morality. (Milan Kundera) I also have to be careful not to use words that seem to be full of common sense but that, in fact, have or make no sense or are too vague or even mysterious and, therefore, are disquieting to careful readers given their only apparent moral meaning or relevance. (Pier Paolo Pasolini)
8. I think it is not enough to get through to you with ideas; I always try to appeal to your feelings/sentiments. The Readers try to elicit the sensibility of my readers. My idea is to combat other ideas I think are wrong and, to do so, deliver clear and understandable messages even if they impact only a few of you that take those ideas-on and decide to take them forward. I dream it would perhaps be good that each of you would rebel against the many HR injustices and would become furious defenders of what I jockingly call ‘my little HR project’. (adapted from M. Kundera)
9. My position, for what it is worth, is that I scan all of the different HR fields looking for ideas and perspectives that seem useful for the Readers***; some of these, I just file for future reference. In other cases, I dig deeper to learn more about these different morsels. In this way, I am forever in the present in the knowledge I share.
***: The Readers do not take for granted that widely accepted ideas have to be correct. A positive disruptor, a rebel-with-a-cause is always driven to ask difficult questions about such ideas as a way to seek answers in search of advancement.
10. There is clearly a hidden subject (an ‘I’/‘we’) present in the Readers that carries such knowledge. This points to the questions of the Readers being useful to whom? To do what? In what circumstances’? I work on the basis of a ‘library of partial stories’. I do not necessarily seek any kind of coherence in the knowledge I collect; I just collect different morsels. Then, to address particular ‘wrongs’, I draw from my library of partial stories to create a coherent account of what it is which is upsetting and what kinds of options for action I/we may have. (adapted from David Legge) I thus create relationships where none existed. I also try helping all of us critically engage with the many reasons why HR policies are not necessarily producing expected results.
11. The Readers give me motivation to keep going, to think-of and to keep trying to do something about HR as I integrate political consciousness into all I write in them. That I keep trying, whether successful or not, is important to me and is part of my continuing development and commitment. (adapted from David Zakus)
12. So, what it is that makes me tick? People ask me why I subject myself to the weekly ordeal of spreading the word on HR. Perhaps the most honest response is that it has long dawned on me that I am addicted to gambling. I play the ghastly game against oppressive power. Anything else my peers want to convince me-of is an illusion. If questioned further, I might say that I have no wish to say more about it.
Has it all been worth for a ten-years-plus effort?
13. Not all has been pessimistic for me, as James Joyce purported in his novel Dubliners; I quote: “She asked him why he did not write out his thoughts. For what?, he asked her, with careful scorn. To compete with ‘phrasemongers’?**** Those incapable of thinking consecutively for sixty seconds? To submit myself to the criticisms of an obtuse middle class? One that entrusted its morality to policemen and its fine arts to impresarios?”
****: Is it true that the power of sentences has more to do with their sense that with the logic of their construction…? (Joseph Conrad, Lord Jim)
14. As I hinted above, I have known for ages that I would probably be more useful as a grassroots practitioner rather than as a theoretician. But the fact is you need a national base to do that and I have lived in foreign lands for the last 45 years –you can mainly be a prophet in your own land…
15. But I repeat: As a writer, am I not also a man of action? I answer myself: Yes, but if, and perhaps only if, I have influence. This is the meaning of praxis for me: knowledge that is usefully put to the service of a purpose (the HR cause) in a concrete given context. (D. Legge) This puts me right back to square one –but it has been worthwhile…
To finish this up, Galeano on writing.
[Eduardo Galeano, the admired late Uruguayan journalist and writer, also wrote about writing. I humbly identify with him on this. So, here, I unashamedly quote him with just minor adaptations].
16. Do not think it is easy. New doubts arise for everything I write as-a-given, and each new question brings a new one. (But doubt is stubborn; it comes back at me with a vengeance). What I know is that I can neither write nor read ‘neutral’ social or political statements. In doing so, what I look for is feedback, not admirers; what I offer is dialogue, not a spectacle. To maintain that (the Readers) will change reality by itself would be an act of madness or false pride. I would say that it is not madness that somehow (they) can help change an oppressing reality.
17. Being conscious of my limitations is being conscious of the surrounding reality. It is possible to confront facts face-to-face –yes, understanding my limitations, but definitely fighting them. I know that my public is a small bunch –the already convinced? I assume that risk, as every other (blogger) does, no matter how revolutionary they say they are as they give their readers what they expect. (My Readers) are not written in the name of the people; I do not attribute myself that right. Nevertheless, I believe in my trade. Words are a weapon and can be used for the good or the bad: the guilt of the crime never is that of the knife…
18. To uncaringly survive the grim reality out there, I would have to become deaf mute. Even if I enjoy a liberty of expression, I write for the great public, but am only read by a tiny, interested and illustrated minority. I feel that by writing it is possible to offer testimony of our times, our people and our planet. What I write, tries to make some people loose sleep.
19. If five percent of the population can buy refrigerators, what minute percentage can read (the Readers) and receive their potential influence? Those of us in the 5% come from a minority and write for a minority. This is the true reality; it does nothing but confirm social inequality and the reaches of the dominant ideology. But it also reflects our attempts to break with the latter. Given this minority situation, we are actually blocked by the rules of the game in the grim reality we live in. How many are we? For whom do we write? Who do we reach? What is our real public? Let us not get carried away by the applauses; sometimes, we are congratulated by those that consider us harmless. (all from Galeano’s Apuntes para Fin de Siglo)*****
*****: Ah!, and Antoine de Saint-Exupéry hit on an idea that I also try to apply. Writing in his memoir, he said: “Perfection is finally attained not when there is no longer anything to add, but when there is no longer anything to take away.”
Bottom line
20. I know where I stand. I know on whose side I must act-on. I write, you read the Readers. The existential question is: Are me and you not just postponing real changes while feeling good and at the same time feeling very nicely about ourselves? I am not looking forward to spend the next few years only reading and writing similar things in similar semi-academic fashion just sitting in front of the screen. (Alfonso Gumucio) I also must contribute to do and change other things so that the calls these Readers insistently make can become unnecessary: a dream…?
Claudio Schuftan, Ho Chi Minh City
Your comments are welcome at schuftan@gmail.com
All Readers up to 499+ are available at www.claudioschuftan.com
Postscript/Marginalia
-A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies.,, The man who never reads lives only one. (George R. R. Martin)
-In my whole life, I have known no wise people (over a broad subject matter area) who did not read all the time –none. Zero. (Charlie Munger) Yes, an investment in knowledge pays the best interests. (Benjamin Franklin)