PHM-Exch> Food for a snowballing thought

[Claudio Schuftan]

Human Rights Reader 215



SPEAK TRUTH TO POWER**

* *

The struggle of man against power is the struggle between memory and
forgetfulness. (Milan Kundera).



1. We do not live in a just world. Delivering justice to those who are
oppressed and have no voice is, therefore, a noble cause. It is when justice
is (systematically) used as a political tool against the marginalized and
the  discriminated, violating their inalienable human rights (HR), that
things become edgy. Actually, the act of delivering justice becomes unjust
itself when it is not immune to power asymmetries and is unscrupulously used
against the weaker parties.



2. We have, for long, been witnessing this trend where justice is made
subservient to a power-asymmetric-world where, for example, the rich and
powerful  developed countries have a lot more possibilities to wield the
tool of (their brand of) justice than the poorer and weaker developing
countries. (V. Nath) [Of course, the same applies at national levels].



3. To keep in mind here is the fact that the moral foundations of social
justice overlap with the moral foundations of HR; social justice and HR are
thus complementary and synergistic. (K. Hessler)



4. Where does this put us? Making those who control power relinquish some of
it certainly requires active/mobilized citizens --since those-with-power
have ‘reservations’ about entering into binding obligations with long-term
structural consequences that can disempower them. [Many of their
pronouncements to the contrary are hardly more than politically correct
rhetoric…].



5. Therefore, in HR work, we need to go ‘from making-a-snowball to
creating-an-avalanche’. The question is: How does a snowball become an
avalanche? Can *you* tell me…?



Claudio Schuftan, Ho Chi Minh City

cschuftan at phmovement.org

[All Readers can be found in
www.humaninfo.org/aviva<http://www.humaninfo.org/aviva%20%20under%20No.%2069>
under No. 69]  Note that the website was updated in March 2009
Partly taken from D+C No.1, Jan 2009.
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