First, the confession
There is this passion that drives the demolishing craft of the essay writer. (Leonardo Padura)
1. I am a hunter-gatherer-composer writer. Human Rights Readers (HRRs) thus relay true stories and thoughts, in part, of third persons …with some of the inessentials altered. How does this work? I am an avid collector of clippings from what I read and use these in the Readers. Does this make me a plagiarist? No! For two reasons: I give due credit to my sources, and I rearrange things giving them a new meaning and life. Ultimately, there thus is my imprint in the Readers.*
*: By the way, I never take guilt trips, as baggage must be paid for, and it may journey to nowhere. (Jerome Koenig)
2. I write them to read like an extended blog aimed at a non-technical, yet somewhat learned audience. I make it a point for them to be in the best tradition of polemic writing making sure their tone is incisive, even militant. (Actually, Readers have much useful intellectual ammunition for the friends of polemics). I attempt to make them proceed at a brisk pace by adding my own insights. I try to give you, the reader, the feeling you are invited to a party, a party for well-meaning adults with a clear sense of social responsibility. (Albino Gomez)
3. It is very clear that the Readers are texts of the miscellaneous type: I want to believe they are a good travel or night table companion; they do not require continuity; they admit interruptions; they can be opened and closed without necessarily any coherence. Moreover, they do not require a remote control like your TV (since at the end of the day, many of you prefer to turn on the TV than to grab something to read). (A. Gomez)
4. Occasionally, a Reader comes along that gives you a slap; one that says “you used to care, but you’ve gotten lazy: Wake Up!” Readers are expressly intended to be timely wake-up calls.** Since they are directed at multiple audiences, this makes for tension between the need of them to be encyclopedic and the desire to shine a spotlight on important single themes. They sure encourage the reader to think –laterally and vertically. (F+D, 49:1, March 2012)
**: Actually, getting through to my readers I feel I arrive faster departing from their total ignorance than when they depart from any preconceived notions. To be of the intended value for me, new knowledge and wisdom has to be acquired by each individual reader, not by a generic category of ‘readers’. I remain optimistic: to think and to analyze are the normal respiration of intelligence. (Jorge Luis Borges)
5. I am very clear about the still experimental nature of the Readers. At the risk of being accused of courting controversy, I think about them as a novelty. They are not exhaustive of my thoughts and are laboriously composed as they try to build-in an element of astonishment. I sure put my passion into them. This said, I understand, with a certain bitterness, that I can expect nothing from my readers who have accepted the Readers passively. But I am sure I can expect something from those of you who occasionally dare to oppose me. (J. L. Borges)
Human Rights Readers take care of their own defense; their general tone is far removed from frivolity
The Readers are born from my many years of moving around, because I am a rambler, a constant traveler –physically and virtually. (Eduardo Galeano)
6. The Readers do not spread rumours, because rumours start circulating in homeopathic doses that then do get out of hand. They call a spade, a spade. Better truth-based than sorry. Also, better accurate than vague.*** Readers also stay away from rhetoric, because the latter frightfully castrates the consciousness raising I ultimately aim for. (Luis Weinstein)
***: When a clock has stopped working it still shows the accurate time twice a day, no…?
7. HR Readers speak about all those things that are normally hushed up; things that have been polished and you think you already know, but which you may not know properly or to which you simply pay no heed. They try to make sense of certain concepts reminding us primarily we have to live life respecting others. They are the-guardians-of-what-brings-shame –without harming or insulting anybody– and they also speak for and guard those who merely manage to survive. (I. Arredondo) In their role as guardians, often, the Readers suggest the best way to ‘confront the dragons’ — who, to start with, are within ourselves! (Jerome Koenig) They set out to fight the deadliness of conformity; they do not shy away from the so often senseless truth. (J. L. Borges)
8. I am aware that it is both weaknesses, as well as strengths, that change the course of destiny. The HRRs ask whether things are out of the ordinary, either in a good or a bad sense. They ask about the whys and wherefores of anything that reduces the dignity of those who are otherwise helpless –and may live only under a pretense or veneer of dignity. (Juan Carlos Onetti) As such, the Readers do not take life simply as it comes. Every bleak reality needs an impulse as an antidote to otherwise inevitable decay. (A. Rossi) The Readers aim at providing such impulses.
9. Good essays are common enough, but there is scarce dialogue around them. In the era of the fast life of the social media, are attentive, critical readers already an extinct species? Actually, every critical reader is a potential writer. Are you? Every person is capable of all ideas. Be aware that it is not true that only lost causes interest truly concerned ladies and gentlemen. (J. L. Borges)
10. Finally here, HRRs may at times be preposterous. I know. But they are deliberately so; they are not casual. They certainly do not just take pity on the misfortunes of others …and do not take pity on my own failures. (J. L. Borges)
Mea Culpa
11. I have always been selfish about my time. It bugs me to have people come and drag me out of a piece of music, some reading or my writing (!)…
12. The Readers not infrequently review current complex situations only too succinctly to the point of being just a caricature. (Susan George) Despite this, I have not become habituated to the simplifications of journalism. (J. L. Borges)
13. As I am an honest person, beware of two things: i) look out for my use of adverbs: An adverb not infrequently comes up to mask something, e.g., for sure, unquestionably, understandably… and ii) every day I believe less in objectivity; even if I myself have all the intention to abide by it, all does start from my subjectivity. (A. Gomez)
14. I further confess: I read a lot. Of the so and sos or of the this and thats of what I read I do not always understand much or enough, but I do understand what bullshit is. (That never gets into the Readers).
Insights into a couple technical issues
15. As I re-read and re-read my drafts, I focus on the nakedness of the words I use and polish for clarity. Part of my credo is that it is in words that we find freedom. Words are power, because reading them can and does remove boundaries. My words do not necessarily convey truths; they convey my convictions. (Carlos Fuentes) Actually, I somehow feel that if I cannot write convincingly about what I read, I am not thinking well, and if I cannot think well, others will do their thinking for me. (George Orwell) ****
****: When one reads little, one shoots a lot. (Graffiti in Barcelona 2011)
16. Writing is more difficult than speaking; it requires a greater effort; it allows to think and to go more in depth. Moreover, it allows to correct, because when one speaks –except in the case of exceptional orators– one speaks ‘in draft’. (A. Gomez)
17. All of us writers have profitless afternoons in which we merely arrive at doing revisions and adjustments …or not even that. Also, we often wake up the next morning with a bugging feeling of guilt for errors or omissions in what we wrote or did not write in what just went out.
Human Rights Readers talk left and walk left (Patrick Bond)
-I would like to think that the HRRs appeal to many of you due to their ideological rigor. (D+C Vol.37, No.9, Sept. 2010)
-I have never been one of those who appear to listen, but is afraid to hear. (J.C. Onetti)
18. Foremost, I see the Readers as having the ongoing duty to convey ideas, insights and knowledge to readers who are not formally trained in human rights. (WPHNA)
19. I have more than once said in the Readers and I repeat: I am not harsh in my analysis; I strive for being politically clear.
20. What counts to me, and what I always try to do, is to address difficult political issues face-to-face, free from any taboos or biases. Why? Because issues addressing the need for greater dignity must be shared with everybody without beating around the bush. (Julio Cortazar)
21. In the Readers, the political theme is present and is absent; it is there and it is not; it depends on what you understand a political theme to be. When one speaks of political essays, I ask myself: Are there essays that are not political?
Getting old?
-Have you ever thought yourself to be the youngest in the room? I have – I still do.
-Where are the elders, those wise minds who offered choices. They’re not gone – they’re us. (Jerome Koenig)
-After 50, every change becomes a hateful symbol of time passing. (J. L. Borges) But I consider myself to be in the youth of old age. (Anwar Fazal)
22. As an aging social critic, what depresses me is the timelessness of my writings. Things I wrote in the 1970s and 80s are still current today and will eventually, even today, pass peer review without any changes. Also depressing is to acknowledge that, these days, colleagues can publish what they pay for. (The Broker, Issue 25, June 2011)
23. I think I agree with what Albert Camus once wrote: “Everything I know about life I have learned playing soccer as a goal keeper –especially the fact that the ball never comes from where one expects it”.
About writing
-It is through frequent repetitions that each HRR creates the prelude for ideas to slowly sink-in. No apologies.
-Since much of what writers write and say has already been said and written, may the writer be more significant than what is written? (Geoffrey Cannon) For sure, what deserves respect is her/his opinions and beliefs.
24. When I write, I make it a point not to let my emotions out too much, because our emotions control our reason much more than our reason controls our emotions. (E. Bachrach)
25. Through the Readers, I ultimately share my passion as a writer-educator at a time when so many others are silenced by a system with its agents and organizations that stopped thinking about the importance of free education and free thinking long ago. Instead, the system has installed a logical and rational techno-bureaucracy that has shown to be incapable to address what is human and is held captive by the laws governing productivity, supply, demand and competition. (A. Ghiso)
26. Perseverance, audacity, patience and senses-on-the-alert are all attributes I use to write the Readers. Moreover, I often have to conquest my own habits and fears. Writing is one way –alas not the most effective one– of breaking out of the terrible status-quo we find ourselves in. The decisions we make never come by chance; we come to them slowly, with illumination and, above all, with maturing, with effort, with meditation and practice. I would like to think the Readers contribute a grain of salt here. (O. Lins)
27. I write very freely though. The Readers are a bit about everything; about many imaginable topics. Nothing that is human escapes me –be it about Homo sapiens or Homo demens… (Leonardo Boff) In all truth, I write ‘when my hand itches’. I write in such a way that words that begin covering pages touch the face of those who are reading them –as if words had fingers capable of really touching. (Eduardo Galeano) The desire to write is like the nagging, gentle, companionable pain of a chronic illness, one you are not going to die from, because it is only possible to die with it. Actually, the moment comes when some maybe unimportant event forces me to wake up, to look at things as I think they really are; then I hit the keyboard. (J.C. Onetti)
28. As you have by now guessed, writing is not a useless passion. For me, the Readers are a form of communication that is blessed in that it arrives at many, many inboxes. (E. Galeano)
29. The writing of vast books is a laborious and impoverishing experience. To go for 500 pages developing an idea whose perfect oral exposition is possible in 45 minutes is simply not worth. (J. L. Borges) A better course has, for me, been to write fortnightly or so Readers that are summarized, pointed and dosed commentaries. Against many friends’ advice, I have thus chosen just that, i.e., to write HRRs rather than a book. HRRs are much the ‘anterior image’ of a book not yet (or ever to be) written. In short, to me, HRRs are necessary undertakings delivered to your office or living room.
30. For years, and from the outset, I have felt that undertaking the HRRs challenge, although sometimes agonizing has not been futile.
31. Writing like I do these Readers has its value, but it is not what I mean by action. I see it as necessary, but not sufficient for progress. Writing in itself is not action; nor is speaking –unless it moves hearts and minds. Action as I mean it, implies commitment, in writing and in speaking, but crucially also in doing. Yes, by action I mean what leaders of social movements do when they feel it is necessary to stand up against bad laws or policies, for instance; this is called ‘direct action’ which, by definition, involves personal and professional risk, i.e., you stick out your neck. (Geoffrey Cannon)
Always optimistic
Life is something that happens to us while we are planning to do something else. (John Lennon)
32. Readers may forecast social and economic calamities, but maintain a fundamental optimistic outlook.
33. As I write, I am often faced with the challenge of finding a distinctive tone that is somewhat pessimistic (that captures the banality, absurdity, deterioration, despair and anguish of a world that is oblivion to human rights), yet still foretells a better, optimistic future. (J. R. Ribeyro)
34. My ultimate hope is that the Readers appeal to those with a divided consciousness about social, political and HR issues. I want to believe that less is seen, until the Readers shed light on critical HR issues. Language, here, opens eyes; without words we are all blind. (Carlos Fuentes)
Detractors
35. One can be cynical about the value of writing sometimes inflamed essays. Take, for instance this: Words — words — words can indeed have very little meaning; engaging in a battle of words to see who says it better? How often do words stay in the stratosphere of intellectuals quoting one another –with a brilliant insight here and there– without making any difference or significant change for populations that grow and grow in misery? Perhaps somewhat better than the generation before us, with the agility of our fingers we type endless messages offering no new choices –while 50 million under 25s in Africa adopt a life of crime merely to survive ‘in equality’. (Shula Koenig)
36. Or, as it says in one of those files that I have at hand: “As writing exercises, intellectualized essays are ultimately useless if they do not reflect and engage with reality accurately; they may be an occasion for congratulatory toasts or obscene deluxe editions”. *****
*****: Reality has not the slightest need to be of interest; reality may avoid the obligation to be interesting …or it may not. Un-reality is a necessary condition of art, but not of essays. (J. L. Borges)
37. Someone once wrote to me: I am just about convinced that the HRRs questioning almost everything will leave readers with almost nothing. (Alvaro Jerez) To which I responded: HRRs also give credit and admiration to the sometimes hopeless positive measures being taken the world over.
38. I am certain that it is not difficult to challenge my meager authority. I hope nevertheless that I will not be prevented from, still for a while, bring up important points. My detractors may think I am sometimes ambiguous, but ambiguity also has its richness. Why? Because ideas come first. Facts are significant only inasmuch as they serve ideas. (Geoffrey Cannon)
39. Such are the thoughts summoned by my dipping into my credo. I do not say anything more though, because many things get worse with too much sugar. But, in short, I can say: I am interested in only one thing: everything. (A. Gomez)
Claudio Schuftan, Ho Chi Minh City
cschuftan@phmovement.org