PHA-Exchange> Food for a never-aging thought

[Claudio]

Human Rights Reader 125

 

BEING A HUMAN RIGHTS ACTIVIST IS NOT AN ILLUSION ONE SHOULD LOSE AT AGE 40.

 

The goal of providing human rights to all in the world is as inspiring and formidable a challenge as any extraterrestrial adventure. (J. Cohen and D. Bloom) 

 

1. As sad as it may be, after 40, many of our peers join the asylum-of-political-convalescents. At any age, it is OK to have doubts, but one should not, because of that, stop acting. Just having moral convictions without engaging in political criticism and action is weak and passive. Too often, we do not measure the moral and political consequences of our non-acting. Certain things we just have to do (like breaking the gospel of the civil neoliberal God) even knowing that we may fail this time around. Battles have to be fought inside the system ("with which one is during the day --as much as one is against it at night"). Just keep in mind that politics is 'the art of swallowing frogs without making faces'. It is the art of compromise. What counts are the questions asked more than the responses received. 

 

2. After 10 years of well publicized anti-globalization movements, we simply cannot show fatigue now. Disillusion is the best ally of vested, pro-status-quo interests. It manifests itself as a feeling that our work is marginal, that the work needed is too intense, too long and subject to severe ups and downs. (But are protracted bumpy roads avoidable in this struggle? No. Negotiations we have to get involved-in are like bluffing in a card game: with imperfect information on our opponents and on our own cards, we can move forward only at a turtle's pace; but forward we move!). 

 

3. Our work is not yet widely supported and, if not careful and shrewd, what we do, in the end, favors the powerful.  Slow progress is OK; inertia or regression is not. We need a grand vision --one that takes a long-term view and enables us to take a leadership role. The People's Health Movement (PHM), for example, is a forum that has defined and pursues one such legitimate grand vision for the world. (check www.phmovement.org) 

 

4. Respect for human rights (people's rights) is not a task to be assumed as easy, brief or time-saving. Human rights (HR) envision the liberation of the oppressed from situations of domination and exploitation. The struggle for HR helps people advance in their liberation process.

 

5. We therefore need a systematic drive to train skilled HR activists who can analyze the pros and cons of adopting certain positions, and can boost the movement using their newly acquired negotiating skills to foster HR-oriented strategic alliances and to seek needed technical cooperation. 

 

6. HR activists can neither stand-by without taking sides in the power struggle nor can they take science as objective and neutral when it really sustains the status-quo. They cannot use 'tourist-approaches-to-HR' as 'tarmac-professors' do in their ivory towers. HR activists are expected to go and listen to the problems from the horse's mouth of the marginalized. (L. Justo) 

 

7. HR activists should neither only pursue the violations-denunciatory-approach-to-rights nor should they put all their efforts in increasing membership in the HR movement; that would be a mistake. They should rather build organized participation. and membership will follow. To continue this list of 'dos and don'ts', HR activists should document HR violations, yes, but should not see writing reports on these violations as an end. They should also advocate for policy changes, denouncing old and new policies that negatively impact on HR; they should raise awareness and educate, as well as establish alliances. HR activists should further use the right language to address the different sectors and groups they deal with. When holding governments accountable, it is the HR activists' job to reempower the state for it to meet its economic, social and cultural rights obligations towards its people. 

 

8. In the international arena, HR activists will have to move towards achieving a consensus that International HR Law has to take precedence over trade laws and WTO trade rules; achieving this will, by itself, be an immense victory for developing countries.  (L. London)  

 

Claudio Schuftan, Ho Chi Minh City

claudio at hcmc.netnam.vn

Mostly adapted from Carlos Fuentes, Los anios con Laura Diaz, Santillana  Ediciones Generales, Madrid, 2001, and F&D, 42:1, March 2005.

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