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<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><font face="Times New Roman"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt">ACTIVISTS’ ACTIONS ARE NORMALLY MORE ENDURING WHEN DRIVEN NOT ONLY BY SELFLESS INTEREST, BUT ALSO BY A CERTAIN SENSE OF SELF-INTEREST.</span></b><span style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt"> </span><font size="3">(A.R. Ghatak)</font><span style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt"> </span></font></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt 2in"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt"><font face="Times New Roman">Most of us are passionate about what we do. But the truth is that a good part of what we do does not matter to what we are passionate about...and matters little to those we are passionately working for or with.</font></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt 2in"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt"><font face="Times New Roman">Activism is about taking direct action to achieve an end….a social and political end in our case.</font></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt"><font face="Times New Roman">1. At the highest level, the debate on our role as activists has to be centered around the premise-that-interests-us-most, namely, the explicit acceptance that dignity has to be a human right (HR) available to all human beings. Period. (J. Saramago) </font></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt"><font face="Times New Roman">2. Keeping this in mind, we need to be keenly aware that palliative solutions are ultimately more costly than more radical action. (Rudolf Virchow)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>[As a rule, actions towards the realization of HR that try to please every-one while displeasing no-one my lead to rather ineffective results. (A. Shukla)].</font></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt"><font face="Times New Roman">3. To ‘matter’ more, we thus actually need to slot-in more quality time to engage in reversing the current ‘invisibility’ of the HR paradigm at the grassroots level; this is the absolute prerequisite of human rights learning *. Many say that such an engagement requires each of us to amass sufficient creative anger so that we de-intellectualize the HR discourse and politicize its praxis: not a bit, but quite a lot, I daresay.</font></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt"><font face="Times New Roman">Our appropriation <u>and</u> our teaching of the HR discourse are thus intimately <u>linked and should be inseparable tasks.</u></font></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><font face="Times New Roman"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt">*: </span><font size="3">Note that we here insist on HR <u>learning</u>; education needs no personal commitment; learning does. (J. and S. Koenig).</font><span style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt"> </span><font size="3">Setting up such HR learning in a meaningful way thus involves translating HR information into a language that is understood by different groups, different sectors and country leaders (duty bearers) without losing the essence of the HR message that is being conveyed. (FAO)</font></font></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt"><font face="Times New Roman">4. As this Reader has argued before, what this means is that, in these times, being only a passive observer is unacceptable. Or put another way, conformism is a senseless form of life. You simply have to give your dissatisfactions a channel of expression --and the HR framework is an exciting universal channel to do so. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></font></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt"><font face="Times New Roman">5. Among other, we are also supposed to monitor the duties to respect, protect and fulfill HR using appropriately disaggregated data and suggested benchmarks --of which we have more than enough if we look for them in the literature: Google them. But the question is: Is this ‘desk monitoring’ worth much without social mobilization?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Without our active involvement in the latter, as monitors, we risk becoming mere chroniclers-of-human-rights-violations…</font></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt"><font face="Times New Roman">6. We cannot, therefore, <span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>passively ‘wait-for’ in the expectation that the State will ‘soon’ enforce HR. So, where does that put us?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Squarely back into promoting an informed social mobilization --ergo propagating HR learning a thousandfold.</font></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt"><font face="Times New Roman">7. Dr V. Chokevivat of the MOH in Thailand speaks of “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal">the triangle that moves the mountain</i>” as diagrammed herebelow:</font></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt"><font face="Times New Roman"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Political commitment</font></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt"><font face="Times New Roman"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Knowledge<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>social support</font></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt"><font face="Times New Roman"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>of the evidence</font></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><font face="Times New Roman"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></span><font size="3"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>(about which we should </font></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><font size="3"><font face="Times New Roman"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>feel passionately)</font></font></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt"><font face="Times New Roman">8. To move the mountain, he is of the opinion we do not do enough in all three corners, and gives as examples the following: </font></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt 0.25in; TEXT-INDENT: -0.25in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list .25in"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt; FONT-FAMILY: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol"><span style="mso-list: Ignore">·<span style="FONT: 7pt 'Times New Roman'"> </span></span></span><span style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt"><font face="Times New Roman">we do not meet enough with union and congress members (both those pro and con our HR cause),</font></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt 0.25in; TEXT-INDENT: -0.25in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list .25in"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt; FONT-FAMILY: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol"><span style="mso-list: Ignore">·<span style="FONT: 7pt 'Times New Roman'"> </span></span></span><span style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt"><font face="Times New Roman">we do not establish an ongoing dialogue with them (we ought to be soft spoken yet firm in this dialogue, he adds), </font></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt 0.25in; TEXT-INDENT: -0.25in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list .25in"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt; FONT-FAMILY: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol"><span style="mso-list: Ignore">·<span style="FONT: 7pt 'Times New Roman'"> </span></span></span><span style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt"><font face="Times New Roman">we do not call press conferences with the results we achieve in our dialogue with these and other important duty bearers,</font></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt 0.25in; TEXT-INDENT: -0.25in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list .25in"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt; FONT-FAMILY: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol"><span style="mso-list: Ignore">·<span style="FONT: 7pt 'Times New Roman'"> </span></span></span><span style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt"><font face="Times New Roman">we should be more proactive, e.g., publish letters to the editor, send open letters and/or prepare a white paper highlighting key contentious issues. </font></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt"><font face="Times New Roman">9. He reminds us there is a difference between denouncing HR violations or being anti-HR-violators (i.e., when violators are accused and exposed as the enemies) and promoting the principle of no-HR-violations (where violators can be brought in as allies).</font></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt"><font face="Times New Roman">10. So, <span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>this Reader thinks you cannot continue keeping a distance on these issues; you have to engage. (…and this is not what some belated socialist may be demanding --it is the stand of all those who care about dignity being a HR available to individuals in all social groups). </font></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt"><font face="Times New Roman">11. It is thus morally wrong to just have a ‘bias-pointing-towards-hope’ without contributing your grain of salt to make hope a reality.</font></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><span lang="IT" style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: IT"><font face="Times New Roman">Claudio Schuftan, Ho Chi Minh City</font></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><span lang="IT" style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: IT"><a href="mailto:cschuftan@phmovement.org"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US"><font face="Times New Roman" color="#0000ff">cschuftan@phmovement.org</font></span></a></span><span style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt"><font face="Times New Roman"> </font></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 8pt"><font face="Times New Roman">[All Readers can be found in </font><a href="http://www.humaninfo.org/aviva%20%20under%20No.%2069"><font face="Times New Roman" color="#0000ff">www.humaninfo.org/aviva</font></a><font face="Times New Roman"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>under No. 69] <span style="COLOR: red"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Note that the website was updated in March 2009</span></font></span><span style="COLOR: red"></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><span lang="ES" style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: ES"><font face="Times New Roman">_____________________</font></span></p>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt"><font face="Times New Roman">Partly taken from J. Saramago, Las Intermitencias de la Muerte, Alfaguara, Santillana Ediciones, Buenos Aires, December 2005 and<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Five Germanys I have known, F. Stern, Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, New York, 2006.</font></span></div>
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