PHA-Exchange> Food for a thought whose time has come

[Claudio Schuftan]

Human Rights Reader 165



HUMAN RIGHTS ACTIVISTS ARE NOT SOCIAL ENGINEERS; THEY ARE PUBLIC MOBILIZERS.




It is unlikely that the naysayers and nitpickers will be able to overrule
committed human rights activists.



It is difficult to be an actor, but easy to be a spectator.



1. Human rights activists' claims are often (reluctantly) tolerated by
regimes long trained in the art of uttering a two-faced-human-rights-speech
and who see themselves threatened by the strategies of genuine participation
being proposed by progressive development workers. (CETIM)



2. At the grassroots, though,
individuals-seeking-to-protect-the-rights-of-poor-people are undeniably
making great and often successful efforts to act on people's  justified
claims. But, collectively, we have not managed to coordinate and agree on a
joint political strategy;  our dispersed efforts are thus greatly hampered
by the powerful and continuous impoverishing impact of ongoing unjust
institutional arrangements. This begs the question: Is this the best we can
do? And the answer is: NO. As someone in PHM India said: ...for we are
condemned to act collectively…



3. The bottom line is: As human rights activists, we need to neutralize some
of this headwind coming from these unfair institutional rules. We cannot
continue to speak with a myriad of voices putting forward a heap of
half-baked reform ideas, many of which are politically unrealistic --even if
we managed to organize behind them. (T. Pogge)



4. Poor people are affected by events of which they have never heard of….but
WE have --and *that,* morally, calls for our activism!  Or, as CETIM says:
…we need to mobilize politically at all times and in all fronts.
5. ["…We are in the middle of a process of moral corruption: those in power
are literally trying to break apart our ethical backbone; to dampen and undo
what is arguably our civilization's greatest achievement: the growth of our
inborn moral sensitivity." (Zizek)].



6. But the moral call to action is underpinned by yet another key question:
If on the ethical issues we can agree, can we also get one step closer
ideologically and thus politically?



7. Agreeing on the latter is needed, because changes will only occur if each
of us promotes or participates in steps leading to an active engagement and
mobilization of claim-holder constituencies, as well as of duty-bearer.



8. Many solutions are being proposed by different proponents; some of them
are good and are politically realistic. But how are we going to blow life
into them? What are we to do concretely?



9. Because of this dilemma, we need to re-discuss our collective role as
human rights advocates and as change agents. All of us, worldwide, need to
get 'one step closer politically'. In a political world, we, most probably,
need to go from accommodation to confrontation.



*A kind word to our colleagues, the scholars, activists-to-be:*

* *

10. Have you ever asked yourself why it is that when scholarship and
activism compete for our time, it is activism that tends to be pushed aside?
Everybody seems to have her/his pet excuse for this.



11. But technical and scientific erudition will have only limited influence
if it is restricted to classrooms and professional journals…or to Readers
like this one...  Being a good scholar is not sufficient. Our colleagues
cannot stop at science. It is simply not enough to make the world we live-in
a better place. Just talking about ending poverty or HR violations makes our
scholarly-inclined peers feel good, even if nothing good comes out of it.



12. As I see it, the problem is that  too many among us keep dreaming they
can reverse the malady of their respective societies…'if only they do their
technical work better and more efficiently'. But, who are they really
fooling?



13. Technical and scientific cures for human rights violations may hold
moral virtue for doing the right thing but, politically, it simply is
applying cures with-minimal-inconvenience-to-the-haves-of-the-world.



14. With scientific cures alone one does not solve the problems of people
whose rights are being violated. Doing so rather makes one  accomplice in a
process of 'modernization of poverty' in which a number of new (and numbing)
variables have been introduced that mostly confound the problem.



15. Therefore, activist-scientists need to critically analyze the measures
being applied in development work that actually perpetuate the problem(s)
and, at the same time, contribute to demobilize the poor through the use of
a combination of technical interventions, populist rhetoric and programs
that leave the exploitative and HR-violating structures intact.



Claudio Schuftan, Ho Chi Minh City

cschuftan at phmovement.org   NEW ADDRESS

__________________________**
Partly adapted from J. of Health and Development, Vol.1, No 4, Oct-Dec 2005,
F+D, Vol. 43, No.2,  (IMF), June 2006 and F+D 43:3, September 2006.
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