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<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt"><FONT face="Times New Roman">Human Rights Reader
124<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office"
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style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt"><o:p><FONT
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<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt"><FONT face="Times New Roman">PEOPLE HAVE RIGHTS EVEN
WITHOUT ANY SPECIFIC LEGISLATION SAYING SO.<o:p></o:p></FONT></SPAN></P>
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style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt"><o:p><FONT
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<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt"><FONT face="Times New Roman">1. Every person, anywhere
in the world --irrespective of citizenship or territorial legislation-- has
rights which others should respect. (A. Sen). <o:p></o:p></FONT></SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt"><FONT face="Times New Roman">Further, human rights (HR)
are blind to nationalities and are internationally mandated. Ultimately, HR are
value-driven principles that ought to --but do not have to-- become normative
and legislative instruments. Likewise, the many legal arguments wielded against
HR are theoretically unfounded and, for all practical purposes, cynical. Here,
one also has to bear in mind that the fact that something is regarded as a right
does not always mean that it should be tax-financed, e.g., the access to
adequate nutrition is a right, yet nobody argues that it is wrong to charge for
food. (G. Kent) <o:p></o:p></FONT></SPAN></P>
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style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt"><o:p><FONT
face="Times New Roman"> </FONT></o:p></SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt"><FONT face="Times New Roman">2. But despite of the
above, what reality has taught us is that, even if poor people are informed
about their rights, they often have little means to have them enforced. This,
because the overwhelming forces of Capitalism deny people, not only a whole
range of their rights, but also their dignity. <SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN><o:p></o:p></FONT></SPAN></P>
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style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt"><o:p><FONT
face="Times New Roman"> </FONT></o:p></SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt"><FONT face="Times New Roman">3. Under current-day
Capitalism, the prevailing social contracts still result in HR violations; they
are the result of a historically unfair bargaining situation in which poor
persons --whose rights are not respected-- do not have (and never had) a chance
to negotiate the fate of their situation as equals… and if they did, Capitalism
has made sure the explicit or implicit clauses of such contracts lose legal
force. In too many countries, the political system simply works with the lowest
possible common denominator of social responsibility and social consciousness;
in these countries, the limited knowledge of leaders of the true social reality
continues to breed distorted subjective presuppositions.
<o:p></o:p></FONT></SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT
face="Times New Roman"><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt">For example, bourgeois and
religious allegories have become part of the fabric of this
social-reality-as-seen-from-above --and living in that made-up reality makes
millions of people pretend-they-are-getting-better-off (or going to heaven…).
This is the true, authentic portrait of a myth. The truth is very different
though. </SPAN><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt">Rural districts, the world over,
share a common thread of poverty, weak formal institutions, weak civil society,
and sometimes of violence; none of them possesses a middle-class of any
significance.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</SPAN><o:p></o:p></SPAN></FONT></P>
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style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt"><o:p><FONT
face="Times New Roman"> </FONT></o:p></SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt"><FONT face="Times New Roman">4. Many of the so-called
pro-poor-policies promoted by Capitalism are actually not based on ignorance,
but are deliberately blind to the true realities and HR violations faced by poor
persons, especially rural. No wonder, then, that equity continues to be the big
absentee in most anti-poverty strategies. Governments and their partners are
simply not amenable to come up with pro-poor policies that have any chance of
redistributing wealth and power and of ending HR violations. But this is not the
full story: Pro-poor-economic-growth alone --even if happening-- is not enough
to effectively help the chronically poverty-stricken.
<o:p></o:p></FONT></SPAN></P>
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style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt"><o:p><FONT
face="Times New Roman"> </FONT></o:p></SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT
face="Times New Roman"><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt">5. Counterintuitive as it
may seem, t</SPAN><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt">he urge to eradicate poverty is
not as prevalent in developing countries as one might expect it to be and as it
actually should be. The affluent and rich there --the winners in nature’s and
history’s lottery-- do not, in general, feel responsible for the misery of the
rest of their fellow citizens… and they are the ones that pull the strings of
the majority of governments.<o:p></o:p></SPAN></FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt"><o:p><FONT
face="Times New Roman"> </FONT></o:p></SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt"><FONT face="Times New Roman">6. If the prevailing
political system does not give an advantage to a significant part of the
majority-groups of society, so-called ‘democracy’ is <U>un</U>likely to work
--especially not to eradicate poverty. There is no other way: democratization
will always mean that the ruling elites lose power as majority actors gain
influence; herein lies the fear of the ‘haves’ that democratization will have a
destabilizing effect. In that sense, the Gramscian view of civil society as the
site of the struggle to transform social, economic and political life is right
on the dot. <o:p></o:p></FONT></SPAN></P>
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style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt"><o:p><FONT
face="Times New Roman"> </FONT></o:p></SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt"><FONT face="Times New Roman">7. The lessons for HR
activists to learn here are two: a) beware of democracy-in-form that is not
really democracy-in-fact, and b) it must be ensured that more vocal interest
groups are not allowed to ‘represent-the-poor’ in the democratic discourse;
organized poor persons groups have to represent
themselves.<o:p></o:p></FONT></SPAN></P>
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style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt"><o:p><FONT
face="Times New Roman"> </FONT></o:p></SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT
face="Times New Roman"><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt">Claudio Schuftan,
</SPAN><?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns =
"urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" /><st1:City><st1:place><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt">Ho Chi Minh City</SPAN></st1:place></st1:City><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt"><o:p></o:p></SPAN></FONT></P>
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style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt"><A href="mailto:claudio@hcmc.netnam.vn"><FONT
face="Times New Roman">claudio@hcmc.netnam.vn</FONT></A><o:p></o:p></SPAN></P></DIV>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt"><FONT face="Times New Roman">Mostly adapted from Review
of Radical Political Economics 37:2 , Spring 2005, D+C 32:6, June 2005, F&D,
42:1, March 2005, D+C 32:8/9, Aug/Sep 2005, and Dev Pol Rev 23:5, Sept 2005,
F&D, 42:2. June
2005.<o:p></o:p></FONT></SPAN></P></FONT></DIV></BODY></HTML>