-Most of us are passionate about what we do. But the truth is that a good part of what we do does not matter to what we are passionate about…and matters little to those we are passionately working for or with.
-Activism is about taking direct action to achieve an end….a social and political end in our case.
1. At the highest level, the debate on our role as activists has to be centered around the premise-that-interests-us-most, namely, the explicit acceptance that dignity has to be a human right (HR) available to all human beings. Period. (J. Saramago)
2. Keeping this in mind, we need to be keenly aware that palliative solutions are ultimately more costly than more radical action. (Rudolf Virchow) [As a rule, actions towards the realization of HR that try to please every-one while displeasing no-one my lead to rather ineffective results. (Abhay Shukla)].
3. To ‘matter’ more, we thus actually need to slot-in more quality time to engage in reversing the current ‘invisibility’ of the HR paradigm at the grassroots level; this is the absolute prerequisite of human rights learning *. Many say that such an engagement requires each of us to amass sufficient creative anger so that we de-intellectualize the HR discourse and politicize its praxis: not a bit, but quite a lot, I daresay.
Our appropriation and our teaching of the HR discourse are thus intimately linked and should be inseparable tasks.
*: Note that we here insist on HR learning; education needs no personal commitment; learning does. (J. and S. Koenig). Setting up such HR learning in a meaningful way thus involves translating HR information into a language that is understood by different groups, different sectors and country leaders (duty bearers) without losing the essence of the HR message that is being conveyed. (FAO)
4. As this Reader has argued before, what this means is that, in these times, being only a passive observer is unacceptable. Or put another way, conformism is a senseless form of life. You simply have to give your dissatisfactions a channel of expression –and the HR framework is an exciting universal channel to do so.
5. Among other, we are also supposed to monitor the duties to respect, protect and fulfill HR using appropriately disaggregated data and suggested benchmarks –of which we have more than enough if we look for them in the literature: Google them. But the question is: Is this ‘desk monitoring’ worth much without social mobilization? Without our active involvement in the latter, as monitors, we risk becoming mere chroniclers-of-human-rights-violations…
6. We cannot, therefore, passively ‘wait-for’ in the expectation that the State will ‘soon’ enforce HR. So, where does that put us? Squarely back into promoting an informed social mobilization –ergo propagating HR learning a thousandfold.
7. Dr V. Chokevivat of the MOH in Thailand speaks of “the triangle that moves the mountain” as diagrammed here below:
Political commitment
Knowledge social support
of the evidence
(about which we should
feel passionately)
8. To move the mountain, he is of the opinion we do not do enough in all three corners, and gives as examples the following:
• we do not meet enough with union and congress members (both those pro and con our HR cause),
• we do not establish an ongoing dialogue with them (we ought to be soft spoken yet firm in this dialogue, he adds),
• we do not call press conferences with the results we achieve in our dialogue with these and other important duty bearers,
• we should be more proactive, e.g., publish letters to the editor, send open letters and/or prepare a white paper highlighting key contentious issues.
9. He reminds us there is a difference between denouncing HR violations or being anti-HR-violators (i.e., when violators are accused and exposed as the enemies) and promoting the principle of no-HR-violations (where violators can be brought in as allies).
10. So, this Reader thinks you cannot continue keeping a distance on these issues; you have to engage. (…and this is not what some belated socialist may be demanding –it is the stand of all those who care about dignity being a HR available to individuals in all social groups).
11. It is thus morally wrong to just have a ‘bias-pointing-towards-hope’ without contributing your grain of salt to make hope a reality.
Claudio Schuftan, Ho Chi Minh City
cschuftan@phmovement.org