PHA-Exch> Food for a human rights learning thought

[Claudio Schuftan]

Human Rights Reader 189



*IN HUMAN RIGHTS WORK, WHEN YOU DEAL WITH SYMPTOMS YOU GENERATE SYMPATHY,
WHEN YOU DEAL WITH CAUSES YOU CREATE SOCIAL CHANGE.*



1. When implementing human rights learning strategies worldwide, the process
followed in each location may be different, but the end point must be
roughly the same.



2. In such a human rights learning (HRL) process, human rights (HR) are to
be presented as 'the' alternative of hope. This, basically because the HR
framework currently offers the most credible and coherent system capable of
putting-battered-societies-back-together-again so as to get them working
anew along HR principles. The HRL process is to help people find what is
inalienably *theirs* so they do not have to go begging for it. (It counters
the "gim'me-help, poor me" mentality).



3. In this context, HRL is about evoking needed critical thinking, about
stimulating a more systemic analysis with a gender perspective and about
raising pertinent political, economic, civic and cultural concerns --all
this based on the holistic HR framework that invariably leads to action. (S.
Koenig)



4. Therefore, because HRL looks at the structural causes of HR violations,
it will, by necessity, go hand-in-hand with political consciousness raising
so that it can be readily used as a platform to inform a strategy plus the
needed tactical steps to reshape current power relations. Becoming an active
practitioner of the HR framework gives us the chance of self-expression, of
creating our own personal visions, of telling our own stories.



5. The ultimate challenge in HRL is thus to make learners
feel-the-power-of-HR by linking its principles with strategies and action
plans.



6. As can be suspected, HRL needs to be launched widely and massively to
reach the oppressed, the marginalized, the awakened-potential-allies, the
indifferent, the complicit bureaucrats, and the active oppressors (so as to
change their hearts and minds). They all have to see that HR is not
yet-another-'approach' to development. It is a worldview and an organizing
paradigm here to actively oppose and replace the prevailing development
paradigm.



7. It is said that the above conception of HRL changes the pedagogical focus
from *'teaching HR'* to *'doing HR'*. This Reader agrees. Therefore,
priorities have to be retooled. Because of this, teachers must be willing
and prepared, in the HRL process, to be transformed themselves --this
importantly meaning they will have to become a part of the struggle for HR.



Because there is a time to build and a time to get out of the way *, as HR
teachers, each of us has to be an insider and an outsider at different
tactical times. But, often, to get started, we must go to areas where we are
outsiders. (…the latter does not absolve us from also taking-on the
challenge of *promoting HR wherever we are local ourselves….).*

*: We acknowledge that endings are always more difficult than beginnings… (P.
Coelho)



Claudio Schuftan, Ho Chi Minh City

cschuftan at phmovement.org

[All Readers can be found in www.humaninfo.org/aviva  under
No.69<http://www.humaninfo.org/aviva%20%20under%20No.69>
]

Adapted from Capitalizing on the Power of HRL - Moving from Theory to
Action,  a retreat with the view to change the practice of HRL as a
framework for social, political and economic transformation, Graz, Austria,
November 2007.
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