[TLDR (too long didn’t read): If you are reading this, chances are you care about HR. This Reader is about the dire need to bring in the youth into the struggle for human rights. For a quick overview, just read the bolded text].
–Young activists play the indispensable role of setting the path forward, making noise and ridiculing the politicians for their failures and their overall lack of leadership on rights issues. (Simone Galimberti)
1. While there is no doubt that their strategies can and have been successful in creating public awareness and overall raising various stakes, ultimately, human rights (HR) and especially climate young activists still have a way to go. In the years ahead, we expect the same energy and ingenuity so far shown by them to keep up with the growing pressures. This, because it is the only way to ensure that political leaders from around the world will not divert their focus and will, instead, remain committed to pursue and achieve more ambitious HR and rights of the earth targets. (The risk is … that just more of the same young activists’ tactics may not be enough to bring the desired change.)
We need to listen more attentively to the near ubiquitous social silence that surrounds all of us and to gain young converts in the struggle for human rights (Gillian Tett)
2. This means we will need to engage in a collective effort to broaden all spheres of activism, popularizing it and enrolling the masses of apathetic youth* (the vast majority of them, i.e., those millions of youngsters who are still not on board in terms of social activism), to join the cause.
*: The overall goal is to create an army of engaged young people able to join, not only the cause of climate action, but hopefully also other related HR causes because, ‘connecting the dots’ among the various unfolding crises is going to be paramount.
It is ultimately about harnessing young civic engagement as an antidote against the multiple crises we are experiencing
3. First, it is now indispensable to go back to the grassroots and win over those disengaged and often disgruntled youth that, so far, have not been showing any interest in social activism for any major cause.
4. Shouting, picketing, and staging protests easily grab the headlines. But, while these/their actions are essential and must continue, at the same time, other forms of engagement must also be pursued. After all, one thing is to lead a march, speak on the microphone at the most important global events, but another is to find the way to engage those who are staying behind.
5. Even small actions undertaken by those young people count; they help raising awareness. For example, the vast and promising field of education for sustainable development holds potential in this. But then, action must be stepped up and get mainstreamed into the activism of larger groups –HR very much at the center. [I note here that a much needed campaign of HR learning for sustainable development is a crucial initial step to carry out with youth groups around the world. It is a prerequisite to step-up actions that will meaningfully change the current unsustainable global governance system].
6. Similarly, and complementary to it, volunteering is one of the best ways to link a cause with practical work on the ground, doing it in a way that complements or challenges the work of duty bearers while prompting them to do more and do better.
7. Young people have an entire spectrum of possible actions: from street protests to appearances on key talk shows, to an active involvement on social media. But they ought not discount the role played by others showing even simple, initial commitment, e.g., sharing content on a social media feed highlighting news on key social issues or, stepping up from this, writing an opinion piece or organizing local awareness programs, involving a local school in discussing the implications of climate change and other issues.
8. I am sure that many prominent young activists at the center of the global debate on climate action are already doing much of this and they should be appreciated and supported for being able to bring social action to the center of global struggles. At the same time, it is really paramount to enlarge this ‘circle’ of young activists in a massive way and to sketch-out a diversified array of tactics that can propel millions of inactive youth into action.
Through local and national efforts, the overarching goal of this civic journey ought to be finding ways for youth to enter the political arena
9. This is the only way that change can be brought about. A discussion must be initiated about the meanings and implications of more youth joining progressive politics (excuse the vagueness here) in any of its different forms, because ‘doing’ politics does not necessarily mean joining a political party.
10. Bottom line here, older human rights activists must help finding new ways of enabling more young people to involve themselves in policy making rather than just being mere spectators of detrimental decisions that, no matter their slogans and protests, are still being taken by the powers that be. (S. Galimberti) One avenue to involve them perhaps means we have to win over the young online ‘gamers’ for HR work. (Brian Sullivan, Laura Bartkowiak) [The gaming world is full of millions of young people that are intense, intelligent, centered and relatively rich. They are easily motivated by specific topics. They are mostly male, with not strong roots and have a tremendous potential power. (Steve Bannon…)].
To be a young human rights activist in the 21st century is to assume, not only an individual ethics towards a universal vision, but also assume a militancy in life (Luis Weinstein)
11. Action-ethics is generally put in the backburner by young people. Our youth must embrace an action-ethics.** (There is a difference between living our ethics and only verbalizing it…). In this context, young HR activists, are to be ‘dialoguers’, investigators and doers dedicated to bring to fruition the youth’s contribution to the struggle only a critical minority is now waging for the rights of the majorities of the world. As HR activists attempt to replace the choking financial globalization and the excessively pragmatic and selfish individualism we live under, the ethical responsibility expected from our youth thus is to be politically consequent and in tune with the ailments of the planet and its people. When we say that they have to be responsible, it also means being responsive in any and all circumstances to face any challenge. What this further means is that they have to take responsibility for the human condition by responding commensurately. (L. Weinstein)
**: Their wrong assumptions are obscuring the windows through which they see the world. They have to scrub these assumptions off every once in a while, or ‘the light’ will not come in. (Isaac Asimov)
12. Hope must be understood as compromise. We thus need to create an explosion of youth commitment expressed in facts and actions, in joining hands, in coming from the four corners of the world.*** The call will be: “We are millions; we cannot lose; we will not lose”.
***: Caveat: Do not underestimate: To change young people’s minds is one of the most complex and demanding intellectual exercises! (Esteban Valenti)
Will young human rights activists be blocked by obstacles, or will they advance overcoming them?
– Success without integrity is failure. (Anonymous) So, if you feel justice is really on your side, then, even if your opponent is much stronger, I would go forward. (Confucius)
-Keep in mind: “They are afraid of us because we are not afraid of them”. (Berta Cáceres)
13. In stoic philosophy, the obstacle becomes the path, i.e., the impediment to action advances action, so that what stands in the way becomes the way. Setbacks or problems are always expected and never permanent. The idea is to make certain that what impedes us can empower us. After all, adversity is the source of innovation. (Ryan Holiday).
14. For activists (especially the young), indignation is not enough if they want to consolidate what has been painfully achieved.**** Indignation, as the main response to obstacles, we know, can quickly turn against us making history jump back instead of advancing it.
****: Talking about painful: Distinguishing between pain observed and pain shared is key in HR work: Pain observed is journalistic pain; it is diplomatic pain; it is television pain –over as you switch off your beastly set. If you watch suffering and do nothing about it, you are just only a little better than those who inflict it; they are the bad Samaritans. (John Le Carre, The Constant Gardener)
Young activists as whistleblowers are necessary human rights defenders
-Do not impute malice where incompetence will suffice (anonymous)
15. Because transparency and accountability are crucial to every democratic society and to the rule of law, we would like to count on young activists to engage in disclosing information about crimes and omissions of governments, transnational corporations and other non-state actors. A Charter of Rights of Whistleblowers is, therefore, urgently needed for this. (Alfred de Zayas)
Bottom line
16. Yes, young people have become more critical and their demands have grown, but their current atomization still relegates them into relatively miniscule groups impeding their collective action to create a credible counter power.***** (Albino Gomez)
*****: “Men, don’t rejoice too soon at the defeat of your foes –the wombs they crawled from are still going strong”. (Bertolt Brecht)
Claudio Schuftan, Ho Chi Minh City
Your comments are welcome at schuftan@gmail.com
All Readers are available at www.claudioschuftan.com
Postscript/Marginalia
–One who knows and knows that he knows… His horse of wisdom will reach the skies.
-One who knows, but doesn’t know that he knows… He is fast asleep, so you should wake him up!
-One who doesn’t know, but knows that he doesn’t know… His limping mule will eventually get him home.
-One who doesn’t know and doesn’t know that he doesn’t know… He will be eternally lost in his hopeless oblivion! (Persian Saying, courtesy of Raymond Saner)