PHM-Exch> Food for a wrongly chronicled thought

[Claudio Schuftan]

Human Rights Reader 275



*THE HISTORY OF HUMAN RIGHTS IS NOT A CONTINUOUS STRAIGHT LINE OF PROGRESS.
IT IS MARKED BY PERIODS OF ADVANCE, OF MORE OR LESS INTELLIGENT REFLECTION
AND OF DEAD STAGNATION. *





*Understanding history for what it is*
Making sense of current and recent history is a subjective, value-driven
activity; we do make historical errors of interpretation, i.e., judging
what is true or false in history is a value-laden process. Myths have had
and have the bad habit to conquer and dominate. There thus always is a
historical relativity in the judgments people (and historians) make. The
powerful can always boost their honor for posterity by buying themselves a
good pair of historians and  making them deliver; it is just a matter of a
good pay-off.  In this same vein, I like the quote: History negotiates its
terms and collects its dues, i.e.,  a ‘history enlisted by commerce’.
Historians,
then, are the only individuals that can (and have) modify(ied) the past. Most
probably, from the claim holders perspective, worse things than have been
chronicled have happened…and keep happening.

 *History and Human Rights*

What leaves me with a bad aftertaste is realizing that, as a group of HR
activists, we still are in the periphery of history. Today, we have to
serve not those who purport they are making history, but those who suffer
from the way it is made. We thus have to refuse lying about what we know to
be true and in so doing resist oppression.

 To read the full Reader, go to

http://wp.me/plAxa-1wB

Claudio
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://phm.phmovement.org/pipermail/phm-exchange-phmovement.org/attachments/20111106/ee2a45f7/attachment.html>