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<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt"><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt">Human Rights Reader
81<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office"
/><o:p></o:p></SPAN></P>
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style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt"> <o:p></o:p></SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt"><B
style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal"><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt">ON NGOs AND THE RIGHTS OF
WINNERS AND LOSERS<o:p></o:p></SPAN></B></P>
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style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt"> <o:p></o:p></SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt"><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt">1. NGOs became players on
the political and human (or people’s) rights stage (HR) long ago --both at the
national and the international level. As such players, in the Third World, many
of the Northern NGOs have unfortunately too-often-and-for-too-long worked with
authoritarian regimes. Anyone who, too-often-and-for-too-long, backs the wrong
partners without criticizing them creates her/his own reputation. Only having a
strong moral vision does not per-se result in having moral
influence.<o:p></o:p></SPAN></P>
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style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt"> <o:p></o:p></SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt"><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt">2. Going back to their
origins, many NGOs working on development issues were, from the outset, linked
to economic liberalism (perhaps also to feminism and religion).
<o:p></o:p></SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt"><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt"> <o:p></o:p></SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt"><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt">3. Coming from a
moral-theological perspective, these civil society organizations stand for
securing ‘civilized social contracts’; they thus further tolerance and plurality
in thought. Nothing wrong with that. But perhaps the time is over for this path,
because, on the basis of existing socio-economic inequalities and widespread HR
violations, much of civil society itself contributes to the reproduction of
these inequalities and the persistence of these
violations.<o:p></o:p></SPAN></P>
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style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt"> <o:p></o:p></SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt"><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt">4. So, the question is
whether, today, the NGO concept has the potential to deliver the structural and
HR changes needed under the current ‘conditions-of-Globalization’. These
conditions are destroying livelihoods. Globalization is neither a natural
process nor an inclusive one; it is rather a planned project, and one of
exclusion. More than anything, Globalization is completing a project of
re-colonization. Growth through Globalization is importantly based on the theft
of people’s resources, knowledge and economies. In the Globalization paradigm,
the protection of people and the protection of nature are replaced by corporate
protectionism.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>The rules of this
imposed market- competition-dogma simply transform all aspects of life into
markets. (V. Shiva)<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Moreover,
social and employment concerns are never brought to the forefront in the process
of Globalization. Globalization does not create jobs; as a matter of fact, it is
a hotbed of anti-union activity.<o:p></o:p></SPAN></P>
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style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt"> <o:p></o:p></SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt"><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt">5. Under Globalization,
change creates both (a few) winners and (an army of) losers. It therefore
behooves NGOs (now being euphemistically renamed civil society organizations by
the World Bank) to work on strategies to revert this process and to find ways to
work with the current losers in interventions that more proactively distribute
the benefits of change more equitably.<o:p></o:p></SPAN></P>
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style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt"> <o:p></o:p></SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt"><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt">6. Because of this, there
are those who now dissociate themselves from the NGO concept and opt for a more
radical and militant perspective: one of
social-mobilization-cum-political-consciousness-raising (a-la-Paulo-Freire).
<o:p></o:p></SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt"><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt">Where in this continuum
would you place yourself?<o:p></o:p></SPAN></P>
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style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt"> <o:p></o:p></SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt"><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt">Claudio Schuftan, Ho Chi Minh City<o:p></o:p></SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt"><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt"><A
href="mailto:claudio@hcmc.netnam.vn">claudio@hcmc.netnam.vn</A><o:p></o:p></SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt"><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt">-------------------------------------<o:p></o:p></SPAN></P><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA">Mostly
taken from the German development journal D+C, 31:2, 2004 and from Poverty,
Health and Development, Health Cooperation Paper No.17, AIFO, Bologna, Italy,
2003.</SPAN></DIV></BODY></HTML>