221 IT BEHOOVES ALL OF US TO INSIST ON ASSERTING OUR HUMAN RIGHTS; OTHERWISE, WE ARE OUR OWN WORST ENEMY.
-Ignoring human rights considerations carries a huge cost; one of them is an inability to understand our world. (Vicente Navarro)…
220 A VISION FOR HUMAN RIGHTS WITHOUT A WIDELY SHARED ACTION PLAN LEADS NOWHERE.
It is not incumbent upon you to finish the task, but neither are you free to absolve yourself from it.…
219 DEVELOPMENT POLICY (..AND HUMAN RIGHTS WORK) IS NOT ABOUT (ETHICALLY MOTIVATED) ALMS FOR THE POOR. (H. Wieczorek-Zeul)
Development has become hostage to finance. Finance has to serve development and not, as it is presently, the other way…
218 WHERE THERE IS NO EFFECTIVE CLAIMING FOR REDRESS, THERE ARE SIMPLY NO PROSPECTS FOR EFFECTIVE HUMAN RIGHTS.
Before becoming de-facto claimants, the excluded come from an experience of being treated by bureaucrats in a way that echoes…
217 VALUES, POLITICS, DEMOCRACY AND HUMAN RIGHTS.
1. In this day and age, if one looks at the political spectrum in rich countries, value politics overshadow and…
216 SICK, UNDERFED, UNDERPAID, DISCRIMINATED AND OVERLOOKED, THE EXCLUDED ARE AT THE CENTER OF HUMAN RIGHTS WORK.
Human rights work is about first greatly reducing –and then putting an end –to the dynamics of exclusion. 1. In…
215 SPEAK TRUTH TO POWER
The struggle of man against power is the struggle between memory and forgetfulness. (Milan Kundera). 1. We do not live…
214 ACTIVISTS’ ACTIONS ARE NORMALLY MORE ENDURING WHEN DRIVEN NOT ONLY BY SELFLESS INTEREST, BUT ALSO BY A CERTAIN SENSE OF SELF-INTEREST. (A.R. Ghatak)
-Most of us are passionate about what we do. But the truth is that a good part of what we…
213 BRING HUMAN RIGHTS PRINCIPLES OUT OF THE CLOSET. #
Implementing the human rights framework in a participatory way is equivalent to exercising direct democracy (as opposed to representative democracy…
212 DEAR MR(S) PRESIDENT/PRIME MINISTER: ELEMENTS OF AN OPEN LETTER TO THE GOVERNMENT
As human rights workers, our loyalty is recognized when we can feel ashamed about the behavior of our own government.…