PHA-Exch> Food for a thought to put human rights on top of your tool box

[Claudio Schuftan]

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Human Rights Reader 198

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*TO DEFINE YOURSELF AS A HUMAN RIGHTS ACTIVIST MEANS INITIALLY GOING AGAINST
THE CURRENT. *

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Right now, for the oppressed to "become" and to "be", they can use our help
as activists. (M. Benedetti)

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*We* are the ones we have been waiting for. (Health Care Now).



1. The so many times eagerly accepted wisdom of time --the one that tells us
that there will always be a tomorrow to solve  the
problems-or-dilemmas-that-today-seemed-to-have-no-solution is a fallacy.
"Better to do nothing", say the optimistic philosophers, "problems of the
future, the future will solve"… The bad thing is that the future is already
today!  [What actually characterizes true dilemmas is that their final
resolution is not always the same. Outcomes will depend on what we do or do
not do. Therefore, "we better do something"!].  (J. Saramago)



2. But beware! Depth of your own feeling about the need of adopting the
human rights framework is not enough; passion alone may nurture bias of its
own. As human rights activists, we need, first and foremost, to master the
principles of this framework. For four years plus, this Reader has attempted
to help activists do that.



3. This begs the question: What have we been doing, not doing or doing
wrong? As members of civil society, have we influenced decision makers to
adopt the human rights-based framework? Have we reached out enough to
communities
to do the same?  Whatever the answers, we cannot start our response with
(yet more) excuses.

4. An often overlooked point in our striving to get where we want to get-to
is that we do not make a clear distinction between *human rights education*and
*human rights learning*. This is not to diminish human rights education, but
to understand that reaching possibly 1% to 2% of the communities in the
world will *not* bring to grass roots communities the holistic changes
deemed needed. Unless we understand human rights as a powerful tool in the
hands of people --everywhere in the world-- human rights will stay captive
in the hands of experts, teachers, and professionals, but will not find its
way to be relevant to people's daily lives --for, let's not forget, it is
people's lives to which human rights are primarily directed to.

5. So what are the arguments about the difference between "education" and
"learning"?   The word "education" has been co-opted by those who determine
what is to be taught to whom --not just schools, but any authority who has
control over information.  The purpose is usually to get people to
believe-what and think-as the "education authorities" want them to.
Learning has not yet been so co-opted.  Learning can still be what happens
to those who are presented with ideas, issues, values and queries about
problems. It is through reflection and cycles of assessment, analysis,
action and evaluation of actions taken that people come to understand and
hold independent ideas about their societies and about the world.
Education has become mainly inputs; if and when it has any authentic output
it can be learning, but mainly education is about
socialization-to-conformity-and-indoctrination.

6. Authentic learning happens in (and at the will of) the learner.  Human
Rights learning is more consistent with the fundamental purpose of human
rights concepts and standards.  It begins with giving the learners the right
to decide by themselves what they will believe; it then develops means
through which the learners can acquire information while forming their own
opinions and determining their own course of action.

7. We note there are still some places in which education is centered on
learning, but these are few.  Education, provides basic information:
agreed. So, for the reflective person who can resist indoctrination, it can
be the beginning of learning…and where people have no other tools of
acquiring information, it is better than nothing. (B. Reardon).

8. We live in a world where a multitude of organizations work to solve the
enormous problems humanity faces --one project at the time, in a
compartmentalized way. We believe that the human rights framework is more
encompassing, and if known and internalized by women and men at the
community level, does hold the promise for a meaningful and more holistic,
positive change. Local groups and organizations simply have to learn to look
at the whole range of social and economic justice issues affecting their
lives. Such two-way learning programs have to be developed to encourage
people to participate in the decisions that determine their lives. People's
critical thinking is needed so they can differentiate between symptoms and
causes* of everyday issues such as lack of clean water, violence against
women, poverty, poor education, food insecurity and unemployment. These are
issues that can be solved if the decisions made by *communities are guided
by* the human rights framework.

*: We must distinguish between *symptoms* such as violence against women,
discrimination against minorities, low wages, unequal access to services and
*overarching basic causes* such as patriarchy,  globalization, poverty and a
non-viable, discriminatory economic system.  We have to look at symptoms as
an opportunity to create solidarity and understanding; then, by analyzing
the causes, the people have to be mobilized to bring about the needed
economic and social justice changes, step by step, free from fear and with
international human rights law fully backing them.

9. A human rights educator thus is a person who is capable of evoking such
critical thinking and, in a two-way dialogue, carrying out systemic analyses
covering political, civil, economic, social, and cultural concerns with a
gender perspective and guided by the human rights framework which invariably
leads to action.

…Only dead fish cannot go against the current. (J. Hightower)



Claudio Schuftan, Ho Chi Minh City

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



In part adapted from Shulamit Koenig, PDHRE, New York.
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