The check has come back from the Bank of Justice marked ‘insufficient funds’. (M. L. King)
- If the title is right, it behooves us to closely examine the processes that lead to widespread Human Rights violations. We need to identify the myths behind those processes and to show how the contradictions on which they rest are generated by political needs of the more powerful at a given moment in history. (Z. Pathak)
- Myths are seductive, but they crowd out facts; and when the facts make a compelling case for action, myths must be buried. Myths make us complacent and stifle our imperative for action. (Lawrence Haddad)
- This examination of the determinants of myths calls for creating a space –strictly based on facts– from which we can speak out as critics, to counter the proponents of status-quo who seek to homogenize the differences of religion, class, ethnic group and gender, that we know lead to widespread violations of the rights of large groups of people discriminated on these bases.
- If we accept the above, we simply cannot allow the Human Rights discourse to remain a superficial exercise confined to seminar rooms; this defeats the pedagogical objective of connecting our Human Rights concerns to the real world. So, the real world is to be our seminar room. Our function is to act as listeners, as well as teachers; and for that, we need patience and passion to turn the passivity of many into committed involvement. The same applies to our youth; our youth may be schooled, but it is not educated on many things that matter.
- Ergo, it is not enough to have all the right ideas and attitudes and not to have real passion and a rock-hard moral and political center. As activists working in different cultures, we have to press for the best practices to have Human Rights prevail universally –in the realm of all those cultures.
- In Human Rights, we cannot look at people as empty buckets –without an education, without a history, without cultural markers of the class they belong to. We cannot pretend all these are not there. People’s identity is clearly inside a social, cultural, moral and political formation, e.g., people cannot be de-coupled from the political to re-couple them with the economic and the social.
- Active-intelligence rather than simple-good-intentions is necessary. Too often, we see high emphasis being placed on the development of technical skills with low emphasis on the development of ‘moral-intelligence’. (M. Allott)
- Ultimately, it is all about being committed: the modern world has no place for innocence. Innocence can and does cause harm; so, every single one of us needs a sense of mission –beyond our seeking freedom from guilt. Some call this ‘optimistic-humanism’, i.e., behaving as-if-the-world-were-as-kind-as-we-wish-it-to-be. (J. Cassidy)
- So, we have to be alert. The ‘innocent’ and the ‘uninvolved’ remain among us, and they are not always quiet and harmless.
- Writing (e.g., about urgent Human Rights needs) is certainly a kind of action! But not of much help if one remains uninvolved, unburdened by emotional ties….tinged with the paternalism-of-empire. Paternalism is still very much in our midst and creates havoc through misinformation. (G. Greene)
- Our own societies have lost the sense of what we are fighting for. We are not trying to patch up the same kind of world that has produced the chaos we are in right now. Many come to this understanding grudgingly. To pity is easy, but it is difficult to really care. In the class that most of us come from, overriding emphasis is placed on complacency –and that is no good.
12.So, to reiterate, the need to struggle is both a principle of Human Rights and of development work overall; in this work, to be is to do. We-are-what- we-do, but (in this day and age) particularly what-we-do-to-change-what-we-are.
- The focus must, therefore, be on results, not on dogma. Bottom line: It is not the nice guys who bring about social change; nice guys look nice, because they are conforming. (Denial ain’t just a river in Egypt; it is a powerful animal and some stay there most of their lives). Rights cannot be theorized in the sense of claims being pursued in a vacuum, but rather as a means of a struggle in a concrete social and political reality. Rights are not standards granted from above, but a standard-bearer around which people have to rally to bring about a struggle from below. (I. Shivji)
- The underlying problem to all this is that people are not organized; there is no substantial enough struggle from below (yet). The poor and marginalized are neglected by modern, so called, democracies –because democracies are held captive not just to the power that money buys, but also to the ideas that money buys. (Wlliam Greider) Conversely, Human Rights are beyond money-metrics…
- We, therefore, need to foster indigenous Human Rights movements of the people themselves –and movements to win the support of the people to change direction towards the Human-Rights-cause need indigenous leaders; we need to find them and work with them. After a while, it will be up to these leaders to merge into national and trans-national networks of poor people’s organizations, i.e., a “Globalization from Below” (Voices of the Poor, World Bank) See www.phmovement.org
- Because all states that ratify Human Rights documents are obliged to bring their laws and procedures in line with treaty (covenant) obligations, it is important for each of us to know which treaties our respective countries have signed and ratified –and use this knowledge to put pressure on our respective government to implement the rights found in the treaties it has ratified (You can find information on this for your country at www.unhcr.ch). Thereafter, with others, we have to build a response capability to all these Human Rights-related documents, global and national. And, if national legislation has not followed the ratification of these Covenants, pushing such legislation should become a high priority for all of us.
- Our inability to resolve Human Rights problems at home also represents economic costs of great magnitude; ignoring the benefits forfeited through our inaction is irresponsible and criminal. (Joachim von Braun) If you think this statement is a bit radical, just ask yourself: Where are we going to end up if nothing is done?
- For the needed changes to occur, we have to step out of the biomedical and neoliberal paradigms and become unashamed Human Rights activists.
This, because the prevailing paradigm allows to manipulate, dominate, exploit, expropriate the have-nots whose rights are being violated. (Ivan Illich)
Moreover, the prevailing paradigm is prescriptive, targeting-actions-upon- people rather than involving-people-in-decision-making.
- This is why, as Human Rights activists, we do not condone procrastination. In Human Rights, we need action now; we need reciprocal commitments by the local, national and international community. We need an international anti-poverty alliance based on Human Rights principles, on debt relief, on increases of ODA to 0.7% of GNP, on the principles of 20/20, on taxing international financial transactions (Tobin Tax), on fair trade…
Given increasing marginalization of the now powerless, this might appear to be a quixotic enterprise…
- We also absolutely need to concentrate on women’s rights, because men and women experience poverty and violations of Human Rights differently. This means we cannot allow gender hierarchies to persist in a hollow- commitment-to-Human-Rights.
- Neither can we be caught off guard in the battle for ‘a-market-share-of- the-public-mind’. We must bypass the biased editorial control of learned journals, the audiovisual media, the press, the internet space; they are as unreliable and biased as a smart advertising. (K. O’Neill) (J. Adamson)
- In the work we are asking all of you to take-up, we cannot underestimate: We are taking on formidable enemies, and we will not have succeeded until we ultimately force (and/or replace) policy makers and other duty bearers to begin adopting Human Rights-based approaches to development.
- In all honesty, we too often are more concerned about being scientifically correct than programmatically effective; even Human Rights have been over-studied and under-acted upon. (Kul Gautam)
- I see discussions on Human Rights usually going trough three stages:
Confusion – Anxiety – Expectations (“what do these Human Rights advocates want from me again now?”). Because of this, and to relieve these anxieties, our promises will have to live up to the expectations we create, i.e., our analysis must lead to a praxis.
- As opposed to the soft and non-binding declarations so many of the so-called Global Summits (often also called Summits of the Lowest Common Denominator), our Human Rights plans of action must depict what is achievable in real political terms and should go for broke to implement those actions.
- When reinforcing the sense of urgency to act, we cannot create a dooms scenario, or make people feel guilty. Be optimistic: We shall overcome! But warn everybody that things are going to get worse before they get better…
- Perhaps with our help, each community could draw up ‘entitlement-cards’ that list which entitlements they do have access to and to which they do not; that can be a powerful basis to get organized to fight for those entitlements they are denied. (M. S. Swaminathan)
- In the current real world, the rules of free trade override the Human Rights discourse: Trade agreements are binding and are enforced; Human Rights treaties are often ignored and rely on voluntary compliance.
- Moreover, as part of the rules permitted by free trade, access to the state has become a source and means for the accumulation of private wealth –as an end in itself among the ruling class.
Epilogue
- This –and all other Human Rights Readers– are not trying to load all these new responsibilities on your shoulders and make you feel guilty. We are merely trying to get a process going –with you as an active agent. We need an increasing number of people who understand the many worrisome trends depicted in these readers and elsewhere and who do-give-a-damn and decide-to-be-counted and do-something about these trends.
- You will not –and are not called to—actually do the needed changes. We are asking you to take the responsibility to be a catalyst and a validator of the changes needed to avert further deterioration of the Human Rights situation. Become active in your own environment in empowering popular movements and their leaders. That’s what it is all about.
- We have been deeply intimidated by the magnitude of the problem in front of us. We have imprisoned ourselves within our own skepticism, resignation and cynicism about the inevitability of Human Rights violations being a fact of life. (C. Lovelace)
- There is no reason goodness cannot triumph over evil, so long as the angels are as organized as the mafia. (Kurt Vonnegut)
Claudio Schuftan, Ho Chi Minh City