Human rights: Food for spreading the thought ‘Activism in HR’
HRR 742
[TLDR (too long didn’t read): If you are reading this, chances are you care about HR. This Reader is about the intricacies involved in being a good HR activist. For a quick overview, just read the bolded text]. Traducir/traduire los/les Readers; usar/utiliser deepl.com
–It always seems impossible… until we do it! (Nelson Mandela)
—Beware: Activists often think they finally are in the driver’s seat, but the danger of getting to occupy the driver’s seat is that, more often than not, they are not (yet) the owners of the bus. (Anwar Fazal)
1. For those of us who work for the defense of human rights (HR), the questions we face in our activism are, not only theoretical in nature, but also refer us to the constant practical preoccupation of overcoming day-to-day stumbling blocks. This leads us to ask ourselves: What demands does this activism impose on us and what limits does our activism have in contexts of complex crises in which drastically opposing interests are confronted? And also, how do we build and promote concrete practices beyond declarations of intention? At the bottom here is the challenge to promote real actions that contribute to the strengthening of a robust and plural public interest civil society, capable of a) facing the enormous current challenges, and b) staking commensurate demands on relevant procrastinating duty bearers.
2. One of the corollaries of this is that only by working collaboratively, will we be able to join forces to make more accurate assessments of the challenges that claim holders face so as to collectively design more effective solutions to problems that would be impossible to solve individually by and from each of our respective organizations. (Isabel de Brigard – DeJusticia, Bogotá)
In short: Activists cannot depend on the promises of those in power
3. Indeed, instead, HR activists must devote their efforts to build powerful political networks that can and will engage in attaining political power to see through the multitude of HR demands. [Nevertheless, using anger to mobilize can often result in a simplified narrative that ends up being pursued by bad actors. Such mobilizations convert anger into a righteous anger that activates negative emotions that often forestall needed critical reflections among potential network allies. (Julia Roig)]. When it comes to engaging with political power holders, the phobia exhibited by some sectors of civil society (international NGOs…?) to act politically plays directly into the hands of an establishment that considers politics its prerogative and its natural habitat. (Erik Edman) [Therefore, a convergence among movements conducting anti-capitalist* battles from different entry points is essential. From a transformational, anti-capitalist viewpoint work is to be across three inter-connected areas: building an alternative practice, navigating from that practice to political power, and reclaiming governance, democracy and human rights. (Nora McKeon)].
4. I further note that, while all social struggles start at the local level, HR activism must not be trapped within the national borders of national politics. The struggle is a global political struggle as well. Movements need to be given voice and more and more influence for claim holders to use it in the wider political world, targeting those duty bearers that have the power to decide and to change, but would not.* (Francine Mestrum and Meena Menon)
*: How can politicians be so HR indifferent and tough to nail down? Truly, thank God for the activists; confronting despair they march-on challenging the false narratives and the dereliction of duty of decision makers. (David Zakus) As the known activists’ slogan goes: “They tried to bury us, but they did not know we were seeds”. And another quote goes: “Our wine is bitter, but it is ours.” (José Martí) We will drink our wine, however bitter it may be.
An afterthought here
5. As a HR activist, “I do not pity those who do not protest. Why not roar with rebellion in the face of abuse and exploitation? I do not feel sadness, but despair. I would like to have someone to conspire–with. I would like to fight the battle to see the balance of power ‘tilt-the-other-way’. I feel in me the yearning to contend with this fauna of men of prey whom I will defeat with their own weapons –fighting evil with evil, if necessary. What have we gained by feeling victimized? Meekness prepares the ground for tyranny and the passivity of the exploited serves as an incentive to exploitation. Meekness and timidity encourage victimizers. I have the feeling that, this time, more steps are being taken towards mounting a revenge. My perseverance in the face of obstacles has never closed the possibility of surmounting them. I trust in the young people who follow me”.** (Jose Eustasio Rivera (1888-1928), LaVoragine)
*: I know that most young people, when they look to the future, have a lot of fear and little hope. If they are to have more hope, we need to help them be prepared and willing to stick out their necks and instill fear in the powerful of this world who, apparently, are no longer afraid of their enemies and live in an orgy of contentment. (Boaventura de Sousa Santos) Young leaders need to be trained to fight the planned ignorance imposed on us/them by the haves. This calls for creating intentional spaces for their political education so as to collectively reinforce the HR movement –this rather than focusing on prompting and prodding individual charismatic leaders. (escr-net)
6. Yes, hope alone will not sustain our cause. And there is always a cause; and if we do not see it, it is because of our own ignorance. (Pierre Simon Laplace, 1749-1827) And yes as well, sometimes, in life, it is necessary to know how to fight not only without fear, but also with little hope. (Alessandro Pertini, former anti-Nazi resistance fighter and later President of the Italian Republic)
Sometimes an insurrection is actually a resurrection (Victor Hugo)
—Street demonstrations are a form of militant lobbying.
7. Radical direct action and civil disobedience ultimately aim to demand power-holders (duty bearers) do something different. Faith in government is, most of the time, misplaced. If public pleas were enough to change government policies, we would have a fully funded public medical system; affordable housing; decent wages; paid sick leave; safe and accessible abortion; and an end to fossil fuel extraction. We have none of these things, simply because governments do not serve ‘the people;’ they serve the business class. (Susan Rosenthal) We must recognize that wo/men (activists) are driven by their passion to destroy existing structures in order to create new ones. (Frederick Lordon, French economist born 1962).
Bottom line
8. In life, we must not retreat in the face of any conflict, because only by confronting them closely can we see if they have a remedy. This, because fears go beyond possibilities and prejudices prevail over realities. We simply must separate reality from the many exaggerations we are fed. (Jose E. Rivera, op cit) It all boils down to: We know better, we do better.
Claudio Schuftan, Ho Chi Minh City
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Postscript/Marginalia
External threats and internal problems are depleting the power of NGOs to change the world
–Reversing this situation requires a serious look at power relations. The main drain on activists’ and NGOs’ power is the unprecedented attacks they are under from governments and private corporations. Just look at how the number of killings of HR defenders across the globe has reached record levels. This is accompanied by the increasing sophistication of high-tech surveillance. Human rights activists face difficulties in staying safe and strong in the way NGOs are structured and how they manage internal power relations. Power imbalances and dynamics within NGOs are repeatedly mentioned as crucial contributors to the depletion of NGOs’ political power. They struggle to disentangle themselves from the patriarchal, capitalist, and primarily scientific paradigms that hold them back. To avoid ‘paralysis-in-analysis’, activists must move beyond purely cognitive and analytical activism embracing an analysis–action paradigm. Ancestral indigenous practices are also often dismissed, even though they can/ought to be at the heart of the activism of most of us, especially in the case of those activists who have historically been subjected to discrimination. NGOs must revision and remission themselves and change their narratives –and live and act according to their values! It is through promoting co-leadership that NGOs will, once and for all, change the power dynamics within and with donors. Donors must be made to accept that they are not the ones taking the biggest risks and that bureaucratic processes to control grantees will not mitigate these risks. They must be made to abandon micro-management and trust those on the frontlines. This means nothing less than radically change and decolonize their philanthropic practices. Trust-based, high-quality, flexible, and low-burden grants are a long-standing (unfulfilled) demand. Only participatory grant-making can improve the situation: ‘Shifting power requires the haves being made to give up control’. (Lucia Nader)