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ACTIVITIES ACHIEVE OUTPUTS. PROGRAMS ACHIEVE OUTCOMES. BUT TO ACHIEVE HUMAN RIGHTS IMPACT, CLAIM HOLDERS HAVE TO BECOME DE-FACTO CLAIMANTS.

Food for thought potpourri

Human Rights Reader 267

-For the HR paradigm to impose itself, small is beautiful, but big is necessary. (F.H. Abed)

-The thinking that created the problem cannot be the same as that which will solve it. (Albert Einstein)

1. For this Reader, allow me to get back to my files and put together a few not necessarily connected ideas extracted from different sources.

2. As this Reader has argued before, the (not so) veiled attempt to castigate the emerging human rights (HR) paradigm is but one more aggression of the ‘Development Establishment’ that adds insult to injury to the debate on how to achieve real sustainable development.

3. But the debate and our struggle continues its relentless advance. Here is just a sample of the issues it comprises.

A. When can we expect the widespread introduction of HR standards and principles to become a reality? … When most players agree.

4. The most facetious response I ever heard from a recalcitrant duty bearer was: “Yes, hmmm, human rights… we think it is urgent to wait”. This is just one extreme example of how the elites have failed to connect the ivory tower they live-in to main street. Whether they are based on reason, conjecture or delusion, they embark in a string of patch solutions that may be partially effective, but ultimately, effective only to buy the haves some time. Let us be clear: In HR work, trite, banal or cliché as it may sound, a cookie-cutter-approach does not work.

5. Being basically silent about HR violations is to-all-intents-and-purposes accepting HR violations as a fait-accompli. It is a political fact that the height of indifference, of lack of social consciousness and of concern has no known ceiling.  (J. Koenig)

6. For example, as self-interested-outsiders to the development process, transnational corporations (TNCs) are simply not adhering to the ‘triple bottom line’ of profit, planet and people they say they are willing to abide by, i.e., trying to improve environmental and workers conditions as they make a profit. Although they claim to abide by this triple bottom line in their glossy brochures (full of value-laden words and ambiguities), this is yet another example of one of those empty buzz phrases of corporate social responsibility for which TNCs are so well known.

7. Two further examples come to mind here: a) many of our rulers defend the idea of immigration, but hate immigrants (don’t they?), and b) on top of that biased inconsistency, yet another one: when they talk about citizens rights, they  invariably leave out migrants and refugees. (I. Allende)

(This, of course, goes against HR principles).

8. The fact that key duty bearers do not really care is not intuitively appealing. But this is the reality we face. The evidence is there to show it. Therefore, given the current gap between people’s aspirations and the results of past and current development initiatives, we have no choice but to rise to the challenge, i.e., we have to embark in a critical tactical counterattack –an attack for equality*, for social justice and for dignity ergo for human rights. (A. Gomez)

*: Note that equity is a justice term; equality is the equivalent human rights term.

9. The problem with such a counterattack is our own hesitant attitude towards it and, in general, the way we are. Whether we call it a lack of commitment or a  lack of will is irrelevant here; it is just a semantic difference. (I am aware this causal argument of mine may well be only partially true, but I am here just expressing an inconvenient truth that flies in the face of the argument that most of our fellow development workers are indeed adopting the HR-based framework in their work. The truth is they are not –yet.

10. This brings us to consider what we are told versus what is really happening with the current development process. The fate of what is ‘true’ in development work is quite sad: variously manipulated, it too often ends up being a lie**. (But although not really a consolation, deep down, for the liar, every lie implies a tacit recognition of the truth). (A. Gomez) The problem is that many of our colleagues do not mind being lied-at, as long as the lie does not affect them directly…and that, I am afraid, is the problem with some of our fellow development workers.

**: Note that myths are not necessarily lies (even if many are…). They can be great stories that entice us to believe we can actually achieve what we set out to do. (S. George)

11. At this point, it is worth borrowing from Albert Einstein. He reminded us that “the real purpose of [human rights] is precisely to overcome and advance beyond the predatory phase of human development”.*** (He actually used socialism instead of human rights).

***This reminds me of an old joke: Here is a definition of dialectics: Hello, is this the Hegel residence? … “Yes and no”. (A. Gomez)

12. Jokes aside, what it all boils down to is: We may be intelligent, but do we have the right experience?  If we do, have we learned from that experience? (F. Stern)  Does that experience tell us that the HR-based approach is the strategy whose time has come? Do any of you hesitate? If yes, why?

13. I contend that too many of our colleagues are not rescuing what is substantial from the things they have experienced to apply it to what matters for HR. Maybe this is an exaggeration, but it is becoming part of the local folklore in our guild in many places the world over. (Z. Acevedo Diaz)

14. For instance, in terms of experience: What have we learned from the corruption of the ‘hambourgoisie’? (If you pay peanuts, you get monkeys; if you pay truffles, you get pigs). What have we learned from public-private-for profit partnerships (PPPPs)? (Best characterized by two brothers who own one cow: one feeds the cow, the other enjoys the benefits of milking the cow).

15. We have to bring such experiences (and many other) to a level of ‘impertinent consciousness’ (Sub-comandante Marcos) where we will be so disturbed that we will act. The crucial role of Human Rights Learning cannot be emphasized enough here.

B. Earth Rights.

16. A topic I have hardly covered before in the Readers is that, along the lines of HR, one can speak of the rights of nature. Nature is also being neoliberalized. As a consequence, we can say we are living in a planet that has already started to die –faster than its inevitable cosmic fate.**** (Faced with such a fast degradation of the environment in our little planet, one can say the relentless process is like a child sitting in a chocolate house who starts to eat its walls without understanding that at any time, if anything is left, the house will collapse on him/her. (C. Castoriadis and A. Gomez)  A new tough-hitting Green Movement has emerged strongly though. Indeed a welcome development in the direction of the rights of nature.

****: Il n’y a que le provisoire qui dure. (F. Stern)

17. But beware: As a matter of fact, some tendencies in the ecological movement can also sometimes be quite reactionary –not always in sync with  HR standard and principles. This controversy has a clear ideological tint to it and is not meant in a judgmental sense here…I think outlier tendencies like that will eventually die out.

18. Bottom line: I am actually an optimist. Nature’s protection drive will win over its abuse. (…As hopefully also the movement for women’s rights will displace patriarchy).

C. Science and human rights.

19. Just for your  reassurance: The new HR paradigm has a strong foundation in the philosophy of sciences: It can be soundly and scientifically applied to achieve veritable social change.

20. Now, because the dynamics of change is often different for science (and technology) than for society*****, we do need a drastic change in this domain. (Just consider how many scientific conferences where the best meet the brightest have become so awfully elitist and disconnected from society’s urgent needs. Also, and not facetiously, keep in mind that to steal ideas from one person is plagiarism; to steal from many is research).

*****: In society, all we describe as reality is always an interpretation since ideology plays a key role in finding what one looks for. (A. Gomez)

21. As opposed to the one way flow of charity, if we apply the HR principles of universality-inalienability, individuality, interdependence-interrelatedness, equality-nondiscrimination, participation-inclusion, accountability-rule of law and empowerment, our actions in development work will not be open to ambiguous interpretations; these principles are scientifically sound and are clearly established in international HR law.

22. Moreover, as you know, we are called to make sure HR are respected, protected and fulfilled (facilitated and provided for). In other words,

• Respect means to do no harm to others.

• Protect means to prevent harm to others by third parties.

• Facilitate means to help others to meet their own rights.

• Provide for means to meet others’ needs when they cannot do that themselves.(G. Kent)

23. The bottom line here is that, for progress to be made in HR work, what we really need then is research-for-HR as opposed to HR-research. The former, importantly focuses on the multi-tiered actions needed to achieve HR impacts using HR-based processes.

Epilogue

24. To quote Isabel Allende yet again, by now, I have lost the arrogant certitude I had in my youth. I have learned the hard way that there is a distance between what is necessary and what is indispensable. I nowadays go for the latter. As Leo Tolstoi did, I now understand that every human tragedy is unique for those who suffer it –and this is what is at the core of the HR-based approach.

25. Due to its vital force, in our youth, we are inspired more by hope than by confidence. (Ortega y Gasset) If there is one thing I have gained as I reach the golden age, that is confidence. The question is: Have I been plowing in the ocean though? I see a future not so bleak; I do not dare to be pessimistic. (D. Acheson)  Reason will eventually be instilled into ‘homo sapiens/demens’ and (as the song goes…) we shall overcome….some day. (L. Boff)

Claudio Schuftan in Ho Chi Minh City

cschuftan@phmovement.org

____________________

Adapted from D+C, Vol.35, No.11, Nov 2008; The Broker, Issue 9, Apr 2010, Issue 15, Aug 2009, Issue 16, October 2009, Issue 20/21, July 2010 and  Issue 22, Oct/Nov 2010; and  Development in Practice, 19:8, 2009.

Postscript: For those of you who have followed these Readers, you know that, basically, I am a ‘hunter-gatherer writer’. This explains the potpourri in this Reader. Potpourri or not, I write to fight (or try hard to speak Truth to Power).

THE REAL POTENTIAL OF HUMAN RIGHTS LIES IN ITS ABILITY TO CHANGE THE WAY PEOPLE PERCEIVE THEMSELVES VIS-A-VIS THE GOVERNMENT.

Food for staging a thought

Human Rights Reader 266

Human rights are intrinsic values that give all human beings dignity.

1. Human rights (HR) are a foundation of the UN. Therefore, the UN has a core mandate to institute international HR mechanisms worldwide. “HR are foreign to no culture and native to all nations”. (Kofi Annan)  HR are legally guaranteed by HR law. Governments are thus obliged to do certain things and prevented from doing other. Yes, but are they faring well at this?

2. In 2000, the Millennium Development Declaration was signed by 189 member states. But the MDGs that came from it, stripping it to the bone, do not underscore HR sufficiently thus absconding from one of the main purposes of the United Nations. Since HR and the MDGs both clearly confer obligations on governments –but do not fully succeed in it yet– they are to be considered two sets of interdependent and mutually reinforcing commitments: I wish I could say they were.

3. Readers should be aware that, in the UN 2005 World Summit, Member States in the General Assembly resolved and agreed to mainstream HR into their national policies and that UN agencies were to assist them to do so.*

*: More than 20 multilateral HR treaties have been formulated since the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. What HR treaties have done is to put into legal language the obligations of states (principally) and other duty bearers to do certain things, as well as to prevent them from doing other. The full body of international HR instruments consists of more than 100 treaties, declarations, guidelines, recommendations and agreed principles. The 1993 UN Vienna Conference recognized all rights as equally important; there is thus no hierarchy in HR: all HR have equal status.

4. To instrumentalize all the above, the HR-based Approach to Programming was born. [Together with some others, I personally prefer to speak about the HR-based framework, but we are in a minority. In this Reader, for once, I will yield to the majority].

So, what is the Human Rights-Based Approach (HRBA)?

5. At its simplest, the HRBA is defined as the process furthering the realization of HR, being guided by HR standards and principles and developing the capacities of claim holders and of duty bearers to change the approach to development programming. In short, today, it is the right approach to follow –both morally and legally. Given the complexities involved, the HRBA prompts claim holders and duty bearers to think differently and to ask a different set of questions. But it does not automatically give them the ‘right’ answers as, often, in fact, there is more than one right answer.** Conversely, what the HRBA is not is a panacea to the world’s development challenges.

**:The HRBA offers us a process and guides us towards which questions to ask; it does not provide easy answers; to some degree, we are still left with the challenge of embarking in trial and error.

6. So, what are the Human Rights-Based Approach’s attributes:

• The HRBA alters the way that programs are designed, implemented, monitored and evaluated –it is a veritable new roadmap.
• It moves development action from benevolence into the mandatory realm of law.
• It considers the individual as an active agent.
• It recognizes each development challenge as a HR challenge –or as several unfulfilled or violated HR that need redress.
• It provides a mechanism for renaming problems as violations making it clear that violations are neither inevitable nor natural, but arise from  deliberate decisions and policies. (!)
• It exposes the hidden actors and structures behind violations and sets out to change them face-on.
• It focuses on analyzing the unjust power relations that are the root cause of HR violations and of maldevelopment. It thus gives insights into the unfair distribution of power. (!)
• It imposes limits on excessive power and addresses all economic inequalities and their causes.
• It is the prime vehicle for governments to fulfill their HR commitments.
• It is directed at reducing the vulnerabilities of the most marginalized, i.e., it has a special focus on groups subjected to discrimination and suffering from disadvantages and exclusion. It thus gives the disadvantaged special priority.
• It sets out to impact prevailing norms, values, and structures –thus the development workers’ practice– and it shapes their relations with partners in a new way.
• It entails consciously and systematically paying attention to HR and HR principles in all aspects of program development.
• Making the needed situation analysis HR-based, it identifies the primary claim holders and duty bearers and their corresponding rights and obligations. i.e., it asks who is affected and who needs to be involved in solving the problem(s). Ergo, it looks beyond just the numbers (i.e., on what, how, who, why, and not just how many).
• It can invigorate NGOs by helping them recognize their roles as duty bearers as opposed to seeing themselves as strictly charitable institutions.
• It takes concrete steps to identify and combat social stigmas.
• It requires devoting time to capacity building activities (HR Learning) for both claim holders and duty bearers (includes forming HR trainers and mentors on how to use and teach the HR framework).
• It involves addressing areas that are highly political. (!)
• It opens up space for public dialogue, and
• It is not a rigid plan; it is an extremely flexible approach that consists in asking key questions, applying key HR principles to the program’s processes and outcomes, and in framing the program being designed around the realization of HR –a realization that governments are legally obliged to secure.

7. The caveat here though is that there is still little solid evidence to fully demonstrate the HRBA’s effectiveness; it has, so far, been difficult to measure success and widely shared indicators are still in their development phase. (But a growing body of evidence is indeed amassing).

You may think you are already applying the HRBA, but are you really?

8. Among other, this begs the following questions:

In your work,

• do you identify the HR claims of claim holders and the corresponding HR obligations of duty bearers, as well as the structural causes of the non-realization of HR?
• do you consistently assess the capacity of claim holders to claim their rights and of duty bearers to fulfill their obligations?
• do you design programs around strategies and plans to build these capacities?, and
• If you are a donor, are you according the highest priority to addressing the needs of the most vulnerable in the least developed countries?

9. Bottom line, the HRBA is a process with a myriad of different challenges –all of them surmountable with the right attitude, the right programming tools and the right determination.

We can truthfully talk of ‘the art of staging HR-based initiatives’.

Claudio Schuftan in Ho Chi Minh City

cschuftan@phmovement.org

____________________

Adapted from UNFPA’s  A HRBA to Programming: Practical implementation manual and training materials, 2010.

Postscript: In typical HR-based programming:

• People are recognized as key actors in their own development and not as passive recipients of commodities and services.
• Participation is treated both as a means and as a goal.
• Activities planned are empowering, not disempowering.
• The situation analysis to be carried out includes all stakeholders and is used to identify the immediate, underlying and basic causes of development problems.
• The program focuses on the marginalized, the disadvantaged and the excluded groups. It demands accountability of all stakeholders and aims at reducing disparity.
• The development process proposed is, in last instance, locally owned.
• Top-down and bottom-up approaches are used in synergy.
• The capacity-gaps of all stakeholders is assessed and support is given to fill these gaps.
• Measurable goals and targets are used in the programming.
• Strategic partnerships are developed and sustained.

HUMAN RIGHTS ACTIVISTS OPPOSE ANY ALTERNATIVE PARADIGM THAT FINDS ITS PLACE WHERE TRADITIONAL DEVELOPMENT PARADIGMS HAVE ALREADY BEEN. (part 2 of 2)

Food for a campaigner’s thought

Human Rights Reader 265

- When one leaves behind problems without solutions, one does not leave, one absconds.  (J. Koenig)

- A powerful interest of a few has the potential to sway the situation for many.

- The truth of the activists does not coincide with that of the ones that accumulate wealth. (Doing good for the cause of justice requires personal, unselfish commitment; doing good for any other cause requires incentives that buy commitment). The words of truth are not written with gold, but with blood, with tears, with mother’s milk and/or with excrements.  A society happy in its anesthesia does not need activists. Actually, such a society has found the way to silence activists. Activists are the denouncers of inertia –of no action on human rights. Human rights are thus an attitude. (C. J. Cela)

19. On the normative side, HR activists are expected:

• To stand behind two imperatives: a refusal to lie about what they know and a fierce resistance to oppression. (Albert Camus)
• To paint the big picture that conceptualizes and contextualizes reality.
• To recognize that everybody shares a responsibility for the human rights (HR) issues identified.
• To carry out seven key roles to address issues of equity, namely the roles of  educator, watchdog, resources broker, community developer, partnerships developer, advocate and catalyst. (R. Labonte)
• To fight for more equitable distribution of state resources to the historically marginalized groups.
• To detect violations or situations which pose a risk of HR violations.
• To realize that claim holders take a lot of things for granted –often myths that need to be debunked.
• To put pressure on duty bearers by aligning claim holders’ interests, identifying and working with ‘champions’ in the community and by going for early wins to reach tipping points –since delayed decisions have a cost.
• To assume a leadership role in their communities.
• To develop trust so that new roles and greater responsibilities are taken up by claim holders so that they come away with a different frame of mind regarding their ability to successfully claim their HR.
• To oversee the implementation of the collective decisions arrived at.
• To channel people’s demands into veritable people’s movements.
• To provide some key answers, and to oversee the implementation of actions agreed upon –including the placing of concrete demands and the negotiation of needed time frames. (Remember: Action unites, words and procrastination divide).
• To negotiate agreements between competing interests and to act as brokers allowing the community to solve their differences and to take the initiative in pushing them to demand their HR.
• To assess the state’s HR efforts in terms of its legal structures (constitution and laws).
• To assess the measures taken and not taken by the state in the realm of HR (what is being done) and to assess outcomes (what has been actually achieved).
• To choose areas for their own further learning and engagement*, and
• To co-opt important allies ** (the middle class, the media, political parties, trade unions, public servants) and to neutralize opponents of the HR-based framework.

*: Often, the training of HR activists is not necessarily based on a reflection generated by what they read in history or social sciences books, but is based on their own personal history; their thinking can be said to be ‘anecdotally-analytical’. (A. Gomez)

**: But by interacting with new allies, they also risk being co-opted themselves or losing direction or momentum. Or, otherwise, their positive motivation can fast turn into frustration.

20. HR activists are further expected to determine:

• Whether any HR elements have been incorporated into the country’s development agenda and whether additional elements still need to be introduced.
• Whether HR elements are being implemented by the state at all.
• Whether implemented HR actions are making progress as quickly as possible.
• Whether specific HR policies are being effective and have eliminated prior HR violations.
• Whether non-discrimination is being universally ensured and how.
• Whether international cooperation is playing a positive role in fostering HR.
• Whether victims have the possibility to assert their rights and have access to mechanisms of redress.
• Whether what should be getting done is not being done.
• Whether what is being done is done incorrectly and/or inadequately, and
• Whether steps are being taken towards progressively realizing specific HR with appropriate benchmarks being achieved.

What are the determinants of success of human rights activists in implementing human rights reforms?:

21. Normally, the content of a reform is less important in determining whether or not it receives policy and/or legislative approval than, among other things: the timing of the proposal; the way in which the reform proposal is presented; the discussions that are spurred between those with roles of claim holders and of duty bearers; the power relations between these two groups; the existence of appropriate HR-watch institutions to support HR reforms from decision to implementation to monitoring.

22. When demanding reforms, it is important for HR activists to keep in mind the following:

• The expected impact on, and the reactions of those affected by the reform.

• The content of the reform agenda, its timing and its expected effect on other policy areas, and

• The support received from international organizations to sustain the reforms.

23. A number of stages in the demanding-for-reforms-process need to be covered before the demand can be placed successfully; failure in one of them will generally lead to failure of the reform.

Issues particular to the health sector, for instance, include taking into consideration:

• The position assumed by the professional monopolists in the provision of health services (physicians and their associations).

• The role of available information on right to health violations, whether disaggregated or not and who has access to it.

• International comparisons with the functioning of HR-compliant health systems in other countries.

• Matching the design for the proposed HR-based health R-nbasd HR-basedreform with a clear, realistic diagnosis of the actual violations of the right to health in the country.

• Taking advantage of political ‘windows of opportunity’.

• The engagement of both claim holders and duty bearers –especially of those duty bearers holding veto power.

• The use of incentives, to align the interests of all affected by the reform.

• Securing sufficient resources to ‘oil the wheels of change’.

Epilogue:

24. After chronicling over two Readers about all the nice attributes of HR activists, the truth is that the biggest chunk of our work is still to be done. So, paraphrasing the Communist Manifesto, I say: Proletarians of the world, forgive us.

Claudio Schuftan in Ho Chi Minh City

cschuftan@phmovement.org

All HR Readers from 1-211 can be found at www.humaninfo.org/aviva under No.69

_______________________

Adapted from Development in Practice, 19:8, 2009; A. Gomez, Ultimo Patio, Ed. Turmalina, Buenos Aires, 2009; D+C 37:7-8, July/Aug 2010; F+D, 47:2, June 2010; and A. Gomez, Despojos y Semillas, Editorial Belgrano, Buenos Aires, 1997.

Postscript: The tactic used by the strategic enemies of HR is to demoralize, to put-down the self-confidence of claim holders. Depressed people do not win fights against social injustice. This is why HR activists face the challenges ahead cheerfully. Nothing big can be achieved in a sad mood. (A. Jaureche)

IPHU Bronx 2011: An Introduction to the PHM

Today we came together on this first day of the IPHU from all over our small planet:  Ghana, Guinea, Haiti, Kenya, Lebanon, Puerto Rico, Russia, Rwanda, Thailand and the United States.  The day begins with introductions that are more than asking this group of inspiring and eloquent agitators the bland recitation of names, organizations and what are you interested in; we are asked to speak of ourselves through our personal and social mandates, or, what is the change you wish to see in the world and how do you see it?  As  brothers and sisters, we respond with a passion born of being fed up with a global system that perpetuates inequality and injustice at the cost of the health of our communities, and speak of our hopes and common threads of the need for advocacy, speaking truth to power, and alternative models and ways of thinking about health and health care that is people centered, not profit focused:  “Health for all Now,” “Love Solidarity,” “Access,” “Health Activism,” “Meaningful Participation,” “Progressive Work,” “Mental Health,” “Englightening,” “Bright Future,” “Visual Healing,” “Cultivate Love,” “Health Education,” “Awakening,” “Education Action.”

Next, David Legge gives a comprehensive overview and history of the People’s Health Movement, International People’s Health University (IPHU) and the People’s Health Charter (PHC).  We go over this radical document, a unifying, organizing vision that views health as a right for ALL.  This profoundly simple understanding is so fundamental, that some of us in our small group discussions ask, “Why Not?” Not “Why Not” as this is a good idea, but “Why Not” as in why is this socially, economically and just idea not implemented and what do we as advocates and activists need to do to push this forward, use this in our work, and what do we need to include (LGBT rights, more emphasis on gender inequality, and a suggestion to create a handbook on how to use the PHC)?

Laura Turiano follows with a presentation on using a Human Rights based approach to advocate Health for All Now.    Next follows participants’ big task:  group work on our projects that advance the idea of Health for All in our communities.  Our task at hand:  present our projects with our compadres in small groups where, over the course of the week, we will support each other to: analyze, re-think, re-fine, conceptualize, strategize, and put into action our vision of the world and communities in which we wish to live.

The “formal day’s agenda” concludes with a brief introduction of the Theatre of the Oppressed by John Sullivan.   Free form movement and human sculptures is what we are and mold ourselves into as we attempt to convey the fundamental values and concepts of the days proceedings:  Hope, Inspiration, Thinking, Motivated…all conveyed through our bodies, expressions, and movements.  The consensus over dinner discussions and late night debates, rabble rousing, getting to know you sessions, is:  this is going to be a great, learning filled, intense, memorable week.

HUMAN RIGHTS ACTIVISTS OPPOSE ANY ALTERNATIVE PARADIGM THAT FINDS ITS PLACE WHERE TRADITIONAL DEVELOPMENT PARADIGMS HAVE ALREADY BEEN. (part 1 of 2)

Food for a campaigner’s thought

Human Rights Reader 264

In dedicated human rights work, it is not about being a bit more leftist or a bit more centrist than others, but it is to offer a viable and better perspective for the future –one in which human rights activists are willing to engage-with actively. Activists do thus dare to boldly and fearlessly presenting the problems at hand, as well as presenting the fairest and most equitable way to solve them. This often implies adopting a matching ideology* This is why good human rights activists are feared more by their foes than by their followers. 29

*: In human rights work, there is no zone of an ‘ideological zero’.

[Note: These two Reader do not intend to be ‘self-congratulatory’ by aggrandizing the image and the role of human rights activists. I here only explore what human rights activists do, can-do, have-to-do and need-to-do --adaptable to the specific settings they work in].

1. As human rights activists, we do engage in combating the inertia rooted in many of our fellow development workers (including those that do not believe in anything, or that believe that everything is useless). But at the same time, in our work, tolerance wins over rigidity and over personal interests. [Note here that tolerance should not mean or be understood as indifference, but as an attitude, one not avoiding conflict (B. Sarlo)].

2. We all do strongly feel we have to act in the name of a vision that is motivating, that goes along with our moral duty, that is not rooted in any dogma. We all also strongly feel that we cannot just cross our arms and do nothing.

3. We further do call on supporters of the idea of human rights (HR) to change their own rules of engagement by switching the political outlook of their work.  For example, turning a researcher into a HR activist involves a reorientation towards a social and political engagement rather than towards academic achievement; it also requires the researcher acquiring new skills, such as building multidisciplinary HR teams and pursuing a different range of civil, political, economic, social and cultural processes and outcomes. For this to become a reality, researchers have to, first, stop being embarrassed of exposing damning evidence.

4. The challenge we do face every day is to try to share the HR belief system that better interprets the shortcomings and injustices of our contemporary world ….and using the HR framework we can do (and do) this by using the HR language in the logic of the possible. (R. Piglia)

5. As HR activists, we do have the ambition of power for the HR movement; it is not enough to complain all the time; we do always project to the future and do aim at surpassing any limited universe of action that does not change power relations and their reproduction. (Not being facetious here, tactically speaking, “between divorce and divorce, it is sometimes OK to be married with power”). Things are complex, but that does not push us to work in small little corners; our horizon is the future… (A. de Negri)

6. We do thus create circumstances for change –circumstances in which, for a change, somebody else now wins and somebody else now loses.

7. We also sometimes do assume the role of proxies for active citizens groups or individuals –advocating on their behalf, particularly on behalf of those who must remain invisible.

8.If we do underestimate people’s no-nonsense intelligence, HR principles will never be respected in society –our own ideas will then risk working against the realization of our ideals. That is why not departing from where people actually are is a grave mistake.

9. As HR activists, we do not deny the complexity of the political and social facts behind what we are struggling for; we also do not believe that ours is an absolute truth. (We do admit that error is always possible). What we ask for is for people to look more lucidly and less arrogantly at the bleak,  discriminating social and political reality that surrounds them.

10. We do not pretend to be ‘illuminators’ by defining the objectives to be pursued in HR work. But we do aim at performing a protagonist’s role in the search for ways out.

11. We do not fear confrontation. Confrontation has been with us for time immemorial: confrontation between force and weakness, between the future and the past, between unity and disintegration, between good and evil.

12. And finally here, we do not confuse obfuscation with firmness.

13. Overcoming many barriers and being humble about what the HR-based framework can deliver, HR activists still need to find a way to primarily fight the reluctance (or incapability) of many to understand that their Welt-Anschaung needs to change towards a HR perspective. Despite all the barriers, policies can be steered towards HR principles **.

**: But HR activists are also keenly aware that policy change does not always lead to actual change.

14. The ‘climate’ or outlook in policy-formulation-processes is constantly changing, so HR activists need to continually adapt their strategies in response to this, especially as donors are under increasing pressure to justify their spending –and even sometimes to adopt the HR-based framework in their ODA/aid. This requires active negotiations and partnership building. It is a necessary investment to engage with ongoing processes and to make sure the funding available is channeled in a HR-responsive way. Therefore, HR activists need to make the monitoring-of-opportunities-to-influence-policy a full-time job. This said, in a way, the role of HR activists is one of ‘advocate-guardians’. But, beware, being advocate-guardians may cause tensions for HR activists arousing the ire of local authorities. (M. Clarke)

15. Furthermore, to increase their understanding of HR issues, HR activists need to work on developing personal bonds in the direction of becoming globally connected***. To raise awareness, develop common agendas and joint solutions, as well as to plan needed collaborations, they need to develop skills of leadership, of personal expression and of communication; they need to listen and learn more about/from  people’s ideas to intimately understand their needs so as to integrate them into a HR-based process. Furthermore, to make action plans together with claim holders, they need to foster this group’s self-esteem by fostering action-oriented HR working groups that can start placing demands, can set agendas for further learning, and can actively engage in mobilization activities in their own communities and beyond.

***: Global issues do have a local and individual dimension. Claim holders must understand they can have an influence on global issues and vice versa; they need to know what they can learn from and contribute to the global experience –and how.

16. Finally here, HR activists need to know when to blend-in as opposed to taking an adversarial role any time it is needed (e.g., when state responsiveness is weak or non-existent).

17. Among many other, here are some practical tips human rights activists can follow in their advocacy:

• Invoking the principles of ideology, enthusiasm, commitment and of social justice without emphasizing good organization, is not enough.
• The use of compelling human stories/testimonies that present current concerns using personal examples is of prime value in HR work.
• Placing demands on online web platforms and on email products have proven to have an impact as have framing messages in ways that better suit target audiences, making presentations in public fora and partaking in petitions or special drives.
• Also, messages are to reach duty bearers through multiple routes and channels.****

****: For instance, periodic lunches with journalists, with legal activists, with parliamentarians, with members of HR commissions, with members of the judiciary, of traditional, of religious and of women’s organizations, with civil society coalitions and with the media are a tactic to be considered seriously.

18. Bottom line, as HR activists, we all the time keep asking ourselves: what are we doing here? What have we done so far? What do we need too do better? …and we keep thanking those anonymous voices that keep driving us.

Claudio Schuftan in Ho Chi Minh City

cschuftan@phmovement.org

_______________________

Adapted from A. Gomez, Tiempo de Descuento, Editorial El Fin de la Noche, Buenos Aires, 2009; A. Gomez, Despojos y Semillas, Editorial Belgrano, Buenos Aires, 1997;  Health Insights, IDS, Issue 78, Oct 2009; D+C, 36:12, Dec. 2009, Development in Practice, 19:8, 2009; and Z. Acevedo Diaz, La Dama de Cristal, Fondo Editorial Casa de las Americas, La Habana, 1999.

HUMAN RIGHTS ARE NOT A TOOL THAT ACCEPTS POVERTY; HUMAN RIGHTS ARE A WAY TO FIGHT IT. (Julius Nyerere)

Food for a tipping point thought

Human Rights Reader 263

-The fields of the poor may yield much food, but the same is swept away through injustice. (Proverbs 13:23)

-If the rich could hire others to die for them, we, the poor, would make a nice living. (Mordechai the inn-keeper, in the musical ‘Fiddlers on the Roof’). (cited by A-E. Birn)

1. What is generously distributed in the world is poverty. (A. Gomez) But poverty is not genetic. Poverty is the result of disempowerment and exclusion. Poverty humiliates. (Z. Acevedo) Poverty itself most often is a result of the violation of human rights (HR). Actually, HR violations occur both as a cause and as a consequence of poverty. Poverty, in its political dimension, shows the inequality in the enjoyment of HR among members of our societies. (W. Benedek)

2. Regrettably, poverty is progressing faster than the laborious international climate negotiations. We cannot eradicate poverty by decree. Putting band-aids on the problem of poverty has become an industry for the rich. (R. Thurow)  Chicken and miserly handouts have not reduced and will not reduce poverty. The end of extreme poverty will only come when masses of individual citizens around the world demand an end to the HR violations that come with extreme poverty and things reach a de-facto tipping point. (W. Smith)

3. Impoverishment as an ongoing process –and not just poverty– should be the focus of HR work, because impoverishment (i.e., the persistence and reproduction of poverty) is the process that actually reflects the destitution that results when some actors deny others their HR. This is why we say that ‘poverty lines’ really represent  ‘destitution lines’.

4.  There are unfair things in our societies: There are those that are born with a life that has been comfortably preset for them and those who will have to fight for every inch of their future. (Z. Acevedo) A couple of ‘iron’ laws’ apply here: i)  Suffering from hunger is terrible, but much more so when our hunger is due to our neighbor eating at leisure, (A. Gomez) and ii) Shantytowns, lost cities, favelas, villas miseria…are all the same; you either live there or you are one of the guilty ones that they exist. (C. Fuentes)

5. Malthusian arguments obscure the real roots of poverty, of inequality and of environmental degradation in capitalist societies. This, with the result that people who happen to be poor are blamed for environmental destruction rather than treated as the victims of the capitalist development mode at the base of such degradation.

6. In an apparent paradox, poor people and other marginalized groups*, are perfectly capable of ‘modernizing’ demographically while still remaining poor economically.

*: Among other, the marginalized are those living in extreme poverty, ethnic minorities and indigenous people, disadvantaged adolescents and youth, women survivors of violence and abuse, out of school youth, persons living with HIV, women engaged in sex work, men who have sex with men, persons living with disabilities, refugees and internally displaced persons, women living under occupation and a good portion of the elderly population.

7. It is no news to you that those who happen to be poor are disconnected from gainful employment, from access to clean water, from electricity, from feeder roads, from transport, from calories and micronutrients, from health care, from education, from banking, from telecommunications, from the internet, from justice, from security… –all related to the denial of their HR.

8. The potential contribution of HR to development remains the largest overlooked and wasted resource on earth.  It is mainly claim holders demanding access to productive work that will enable marginalized groups to ‘buy’ themselves solutions to many of the HR challenges they face –and these solutions involve the creation of jobs. To address a number of the HR violations affecting them, claim holders thus need to demand employment generation preferably with terms negotiated by strong labor organizations.

9. In the World Bank’s widely promoted Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSPs), an open, truly participative discussion about how to reduce poverty (to be understood as reducing disparities) has not really taken and does not take place despite it officially being the stated goal of the entire exercise. No wonder the PRSPs approach has made little difference. (T. Siebold)

10. The poverty that surrounds those that live a marginalized life devoid of dignity has too often seeped-in into their souls; this lethargy needs to be interrupted. (Z. Acevedo) This attitude of submission stays dormant in the back of poor people’s gazes; the attitude gets stirred up every now and then though. It is then when we have to capture it so as to turn it around. The concept of justice remains unquestioned, but quiescent in their minds, making it look like downtrodden people have a lack of social and political consciousness. Nothing further from the truth!

11. Analizing the nature of the social relations brought about by the prevailing market is crucial to understand who wins and who loses.  The current globalized, unfair market keeps poor people stuck in poverty traps. Losers simply have to more aggressively start demanding equal access to justice as an important component of any poverty eradication process.

12. Let us be clear: Better governance –as so often is called for– will simply not automatically lead to governments combating HR violations, blatant disparities and poverty with greater urgency.

Claudio Schuftan, Ho Chi Minh City

cschuftan@phmovement.org

__________________

Adapted from The Broker, issues 15, 16, 22 and 24, Aug.2009, Oct 2009, Oct/Nov 2010 and Feb/March 2011 respectively; F+D (IMF) 47:1 and 47:2, March and June 2010 respectively; D+C 37:12, Dec 2010; and Getting the MDGs right: Towards the founding of an operational framework for the MDG-Human Rights Nexus. Copenhagen , Nov. 2010.

WHAT IS THE PROBLEM WITH THE HUMAN RIGHTS DISCOURSE THAT IT HAS SO FAR BEEN UNABLE TO BECOME AN AUTHENTIC MASS RENEWAL MOVEMENT?

Food for an alternative thought to follow

Human Rights Reader 262

A contemporary philosopher asked himself: Is it easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism?

1. According to the same philosopher, we tend to ignore existing social conflicts and contradictions thus avoiding a political mobilization against the excesses of capitalism. In this vision, human rights (HR) are too often presented as a (carefully depoliticized) global-humanitarian-cause disjointed from the existing critical political and ecological discourse, and not as our best current alternative to follow that covers that discourse.

2. It is argued that, in order to fix the  shortcomings of capitalism, one has to acknowledge that it is technological transformations that are necessary –and this is deemed beyond questioning. We have, of course, to change this attitude radically. The global social threat of epic proportions we face affects not only a few, but everybody. That alone calls for global actions carried out in many little places at the same time.

3. The notion of humanity, of a global-human-subject, is a fiction, because it presents to us social actors without serious contradictions, without conflict. It negates very real serious antagonisms. In a true democratic environment, it is these internal contradictions that are at the center of not recognizing there are social groups with different, social, cconomic, political and environmental interests to defend.

4. Ignoring this, leads to avoiding the questioning of ultimate interests of the ruling class and, in so doing, ignoring the needed transformation of the socioeconomic and political order. Conversely, it leads to asking the rulers to implement actions that allow the situation to basically continue unchanged.

5. Under such circumstances, any HR movement risks being apolitical and reactionary. Current political leaders respond to calls from their constituencies by assuring them that capitalism can solve the HR problems just “by doing some course corrections” over what has been done for the last 200 years in development work: “A couple technological innovations and management measures should do…”  Within such a vision, they only create an illusion that we are moving forward only to stay put in the same place with the HR problems remaining unresolved.

6. The underlying assumption is that HR and capitalism can both be achieved by developing and introducing such new technologies and applying stricter management standards. Political action is thus negated and instead replaced by a better-management-logic where decisions are, more and more, considered the business of experts that position themselves strictly outside the political domain.  Can one then honestly say that HR-projects-thus-structured can lead to a better, more just, society?

7. Seen another way, political-decision-making, confrontation-of-opposing-views or projects-for-a-different-social-order are discounted as legitimate democratic objectives by the elites. They are replaced by ‘the administration of the possible’, meaning that confrontation is placed in the realm of existing mercantile relationships. Consensus then really means crashing dissent, i.e., reaching ‘agreement’ without negotiation.

8. Moreover, we have to be aware that the strategy of seeking a consensus by instilling fear about any confrontation, is also part of the capitalist discourse. In this discourse, ideological confrontation, divergences and class struggle, as said, are replaced by techno-administrative planning processes that stay aloof of conflicts and disagreements.

9. The result of all of this is a world that shies away or represses public confrontation and liberty of expression of anything that is not part of the consensus. A ‘deal’ with civil society organizations, trade unions, popular political parties, community organizations, student unions, women’s organizations is out of the question. Instead, deals are struck with state agencies, experts, sympathetic NGOs, charity and interest groups –as long as they back the neoliberal order. Otherwise, discussions and disputes are recognized as democratic rights only as long as they do not question the prevailing system.

10. As a result, radical disagreement, political criticism and class conflicts are extricated from the political arena and equated with terrorism, criminal activity and illegal violence.

11. It is the raising consciousness about this scenario that explains a part of the HR movement rise in the last decade. I ask, have we not all preferred participating in policy negotiations centered on patch solutions rather than sticking to our principle of organized action, of militant disagreement centered around an alternative social vision? Some may ask, so what? Anything wrong with that? What is wrong is that negotiation of a non-political consensus rests on the idea that social problems that we face today are collateral, external effects and not something inherent to the economic relationships of capitalism.

12. In the capitalist paradigm, humanity and nature are elevated to the realm of a universal order. This then closes the space for social groups and social classes to contest the ‘universal order’. The obstacle that we are supposed to overcome, because it is constantly threatening us, remains unnamed, empty,  vague, external and can only be dealt-with through a consensual, depoliticized dialogue within a socioeconomic order for which humanity has, so far, been incapable of providing a better alternative…

13. Our HR movement can be transformed into a reactionary movement that turns its back to new socioeconomic alternatives. The idea of a society with respect for HR without modifying the capitalist order remains a neoliberal project that only is a fiction at best or a swindle at worst.

14. We need a different narrative. A sequence of events capable of mobilizing and seeking the compromise of claim holders to make the HR narrative come true. The current HR debate is the opportunity we have to transform the narrative, to foster debate about democracy and its deeper meaning; a democracy where contradictions can be expressed and class conflicts and disagreements can lead us to a better world.

Claudio Schuftan, Ho Chi Minh City

cschuftan@phmovement.org

__________________

Adapted from an article by Nieves y Miro Fuenzalida.

CLAIM HOLDERS HAVE HUMAN RIGHTS ‘INSIDE THEM’. HUMAN RIGHTS ARE NOT JUST GRACIOUS CONCESSIONS OF INTERNATIONAL LAW.

Food for a yet to be claimed thought

Human Rights Reader 261

-We cannot take scarcity-of-resources as a reply to claim holders’ demands without asking why scarcity.

-They may be able to cut all the flowers, but they will never stop spring. (Pablo Neruda)

1. An individual is seldom either a duty bearer or a claim holder;

individuals and groups enter into claim holder and duty bearer roles. Strictly speaking, it is therefore misleading to talk about a meeting of claim holders and duty bearers; key actors are to meet to discuss and agree on their respective roles as claim holders and duty bearers. (U. Jonsson) *

*: Depending on circumstance, duty bearers have a set of global, but also more applied, local human rights obligations (all covenant-related).

2. A warning about the claim holders’ role is that, from the claim holders’ organizations side, it does matter whether rhetorical endorsement of human rights (HR) action in their midst actually materializes into political action.

3. We say this, because our efforts in HR work can (and have) be(en) subverted by traditional community norms and rules of patronage that stand in the way of claim holders’ action. Our work will have to face this challenge creatively and in a culturally sensitive way. Clientelism (that requires reverence and submissiveness) plays an important role in this and is in direct conflict with the notion of HR; HR challenges the dominance of clientelism and of patron-client relationships. (J. Cox)

4. Do not forget that HR is about giving authority to claim holders to hold the state accountable. Among other, two possible ways to do this are: a) to give citizens the chance to use report cards that ultimately call on the state to take key needed measures immediately, and b) to nominate an independent ombudsperson with formal sanctioning powers –including community-based mechanisms to ongoingly assess their performance.

5. Ultimately, the struggle for HR needs to be made attractive-and-urgent-enough to claim holders and to our peer professionals so as to be seen as a struggle for-all-of-us-to-be-part-of. (C. Roche)

6. Ultimately, those whose rights have been adversely affected by the actions of someone else have a right to hold that person or institution to account for the way they have been treated. As we know, though, lacking are the effective means for such a redress. At this point, let us just say that amassing the needed creative anger is never possible in the absence of a specific feeling of impotence.

7. A tool for claim holders we have often recommended in HR work is an a-posteriori-budget-analysis which really deals with a fait-accompli. It is actually upfront participatory-budgeting cum public-expenditure-tracking that really is the better approach.

8. Staying in the economic realm, in HR work, we uncompromisingly call for ‘GDP-fetishism-to-be-abandoned’ to, instead, focus primarily on minimizing unemployment since the latter entails a huge loss of livelihoods and of welfare for affected claim holders and their families –as well as unemployment being the source of many HR violations. **

**: Furthermore, lower unemployment is likely to increase GDP. Conversely, and as historically proven, higher GDPs have not necessarily lead to more jobs!

9. Devising policies that seek full employment have thus to forget ‘constant growth’ as an objective. The relentless pursuit of growth constrains us in our attempts to find ways of improving human rights. Diminishing the role of GDP does not imply being against growth. But GDP has come to be used as a measure of welfare simply by default on top of being used very uncritically. Nevertheless, our fellow economists seem reluctant to abandon GDP. They cling to it almost instinctively and dogmatically; it is emotionally difficult for them to criticize it. *** (J. van den Bergh)

***: Human wellbeing can only be defined by how it is measured. GDP is an index of production, not of consumption; it measures material wealth, but not economic welfare. The rate of increase of welfare is lower than the rate of increase of GDP. Material wealth only constitutes one of many dimensions of wellbeing –add health, education, voice, environmental and personal security… Conventional indicators overlook many of these. Rather, quality-of-life indicators should be used to asses impact so as to expose inequalities since it is inequalities that more deeply affect quality of life. (J. E. da Veiga)

10. Also instinctively and emotionally, economic, social and cultural rights are absurdly feared by those who, deep inside, do not think they can possibly be achieved. They thus either act as if  “HR are a good candy that governments can give to the naïf progressives to buy their consciences” (J. P. Feinmann) or, if more scared, they may conspire to show economic, social and cultural rights as ‘dangerously possible and against their ultimate economic interests’ so that they act with full force against them.

11. On the other hand, as relates to civil and political rights, the right to property is the priority right of neoliberals. (Here we have another opus of neoliberal ethics with a perfectly cynical script).

12. For the above reasons, in hierarchical political systems, HR are in a precarious state and/or are ‘given’ unilaterally as a privilege; but privileges are revocable! HR cannot be reduced to a bunch of privileges.

13. In all truth, the two key questions our opponents stubbornly do not ask themselves are:

• How much underdevelopment can the global security they so emphasize tolerate? and
• How much more poverty can a fragile formal representative democracy tolerate?

14. Bottom line here: To be guaranteed, HR must still be exacted from the State through decisive claim holders demands. Defeatist attitudes will simply have to be overcome. ****

****: When misery is made synonymous with the concept of HR being violated, HR will become a most powerful tool for change. (V. Hugo)  HR violations are like dry grass that eventually will, for years, feed a giant bonfire of claims.

15. In HR work, the adversary is thus visible and can be perfectly identified and found. Claim holders will eventually know against whom they are struggling. And they will also know why they are fighting her/him/them. Truth can be elevated to the category of a right…the right of claim holders to the truth. ***** But HR activists often are involved in too many projects that keep them (us) far from confronting their (our) real adversaries –the ones that are blocking any progress. Growing rhetorical support for HR alone will not materialize into political action.

*****: Experience shows that it is easier to arrive at grasping the truth and grasping the validity of the HR-based framework through the-road-of-ignorance than through the-road-of-claim-holders-recognizing-they-are-mistaken.

16. Remember: Even the most noble causes age…and die.

Claudio Schuftan, Ho Chi Minh City

cschuftan@phmovement.org

Postscript: As regards potential claim holders, although not an iron law, in every worthy cause, initially, there is a 10% that is on one side, another 10% that is in the opposite side and an 80% that will take the side of s/he who is winning. Thus the importance of consciousness-raising-social-mobilization in HR work.

___________

Adapted from Development in Practice, 19:8, 2009; Z. Acevedo Diaz, La Dama de Cristal, Fondo Editorial Casa de las Americas, La Habana, 1999; A. Gomez, Ultimo Patio, Ed. Turmalina, Buenos Aires, 2009; Susan George, Sus Crisis, Nuestras Soluciones (Leur crisis Nos Solutions), Icaria Editorial, Intermon Oxfam, Barcelona, 2010, (Editions Albin Michel SA,Paris, 2010); Albino Gomez, Despojos y Semillas, Editorial Belgrano, Buenos Aires, 1997; and The Broker, Issue 22, Oct/Nov 2010.

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THERE STILL ARE TOO MANY SKEPTICS AROUND REGARDING THE UNIVERSALITY OF THE MORAL IDEA UNDERPINNING THE RIGHTS OF HUMAN BEINGS.

Food for a morally responsible thought

Human rights Reader 260

-Is morality a private matter? Decency certainly is a public matter…
-Intellectuals pride themselves for their logic, but logic, by definition is deprived of moral responsibility.
-By definition, the essence of an intellectual should be her/his consciousness. An intellectual that does not deeply understand what is going-on in her/his time and in her/his country is a walking contradiction. (R. Walsh)

1. Development outcomes are determined by human rights (HR) standards (some of the MDGs, for example). But the processes to reach them should be conditioned, guided and controlled by HR principles (empowering participation, inclusion, non-discrimination, accountability, rule of law…) –nothing new here. (U. Jonsson)

2. As this Reader has also said before, in following those standards and principles, both claim holders and duty bearers have to move from an ethics-of-principles to the ethics-of-responsibilities. *
*: We all have met people of an ethical conviction and behavior beyond doubt; people that have never received any formal ethics education. But also the contrary: social, spiritual or ethical spokespersons who really do not act by their precepts and lead a double life or are nothing but opportunists when circumstances are unfavorable for what they have claimed loyalty to until then. (L. Weinstein) [This has been called ‘maybe ethics’ or also ‘moral relativism’]. Let’s face it, many people are more interested in prosperity than in human rights. (A. Gomez)

3. An ethical behavior does not imply a full endorsement of HR though. It just is that certain types of ethical behavior are closer to human rights than other. **
**: Being a nice person does not require that the person believes in human rights. However, a person who genuinely adopts the human rights ethics and lives a life according to these, will be a kind person. (U. Jonsson)

4. Basically, when the human being is left out, our objectives in development work lose their North –the needle of our compass drifts to zones of high risk; our ethics become slippery; we drift into moral inertia.***
***: Let us be honest: Many in our sphere of work often lack a moral consciousness –but less often do they lack an intellectual consciousness: it bothers intellectuals less to be accused of being immoral than being taken for being dumb…

5. Therefore, beyond strategies, at the bottom, there should be an ‘ethical reserve’ that makes us question, and if necessary oppose, the economic system we see needing to be replaced.

6. Some say that science is responsible for half the problems it tries to resolve… especially when it tries to analyze moral problems with ‘scientific impartiality’. Moreover, key for HR work is to be aware that, additionally, in moral matters, con-science must always prevail over the content of outdated laws and policies.

7. The two questions this all leaves us with are: i) Can one be immune to moral responsibility? (Dan Brown, in Angels and Demons), and ii) Do UN Covenants and Conventions represent universal values? ****
****: The word “covenant” connotes a biblical term that speaks to a moral authority, acknowledging the sanctity of life. (S. Koenig)

8. As you know, regardless of the respective answers to these two questions, sadly, as time goes by, the memory of our rulers about the covenants and conventions they signed/ratified (as well as the morals of these rulers…) become progressively blurred. The result is that everything is forgotten and nothing is fixed; nobody then takes notice of the injustices as they are being condoned by the officialdom; all injustices are thus ultimately overlooked and disregarded. (M. Kundera) Hence the role of claim holders to ‘un-blurr’ the rulers’ memory…

9. To reinforce this, one can safely say that, in many countries, a whole litany of HR violations result from their elites’ irresponsible procrastination on HR issues. We strongly condemn letting the melodious rhetoric in the mouths of such elites gloss over HR violations! Even well drafted HR documents are of little help if our leaders do not live-up to their pledges thus becoming accomplices to a ‘HR-stand-still’. *****
*****: Bottom line, it is to no avail to have HR written in paper only. Ergo these two quotes:
i) There can be no good faith in the world if among men, and among nations, treaties are not more than a pile of papers. (S. Bolivar)
ii) We are sick and tired of duty bearers who have the ability, but not the intention to grant any given rights. (B. Kneen)

10. It is thus, again, claim holders who must sternly remind irresponsibly-acting governments of their duties. Only through that kind of pressure will the state eventually reorient its policies towards the public good.

Claudio Schuftan, Ho Chi Minh City
cschuftan@phmovement.org
___________
Adapted from Z. Acevedo Diaz, La Dama de Cristal, Fondo Editorial Casa de las Americas, La Habana, 1999; A. Gomez, Ultimo Patio, Ed. Turmalina, Buenos Aires, 2009; A. Gomez, Despojos y Semillas, Editorial Belgrano, Buenos Aires, 1997; and D+C, 36:12, Dec.2009.

Postscript: My hope is not only based on faith; faith can comfort you, but can also be based on an illusion, in something irrational and impossible. I prefer the world of reason, of common sense and morals; I recognize the possibility that I can write something to reach you, the reader, with an idea; that I can act and inspire others so they act by themselves. (taken from Susan George)