Food for an engaging thought
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Human Rights Reader 104
How aggressively should governments be put under pressure in the
struggle for Human Rights?
It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong.
(Voltaire)
1. An activist cannot only be an intelligent-open-minded-
teacher; s/he also has to be an advocate-and-active-change-
agent-and-leader.(*)
(*): Do not deceive yourself here though: I used to think that
ideas and words would be sufficient. How wrong I was. The ideas
I write about human rights (HR) are maybe essential, but if they
are not accompanied by resolved actions by the victims of HR
abuses, the beautiful words will go up in smoke and will never
rise from the parlours of intellectuals. We often think that
printed words denouncing evil will be enough to set in motion
social change. But, at best, this is a form of anger-without-
sufficient-follow-up-enthusiasm-to-see-actions-through. The fun-
damental is not what is written --it just puts people to sleep a
pleasant sleep; what is fundamental is changing society. Compro-
mise creates synergy. In the best of cases, written radicalism
may end up replacing some government policies by other (some-
times a bit better) policies, without really changing the po-
litical system. In the worst of cases, it provokes government
repression. Our focus ought to be to change the power!
balance in the political system, not just to make grandiose po-
litical declarations.
[If people could eat international resolutions and summit agree-
ments, Africans would be among the best fed people in the world.
(IFPRI)].
2. An activist has to engage opponents in debates about HR-based
alternatives for action. But that is not always easy. (Who has
not been tormented by the little devil blowing in our ear the
devastating argument we failed to use on time in our last de-
bate? Time and exposure will minimize this shortcoming). (G.
Garcia Marquez)
3. Today, in many countries, fellow activists are already seri-
ously fighting for constitutional rule, to check corruption and
check abusive power. As such, they are directly pleading for
changes toward greater democracy and, therefore, implicitly
pleading for the wider respect of HR; what is now needed is to
explicit this HR pleading.
4. The good-news is that the various existing covenants and
treaties on HR increasingly make it possible to hold-
perpetrators-of-HR-violations-liable, but the not-so-good-news
is that, in most places, there are no good preventive-means-in-
place-to-address-HR-violations. Experience tends to show that a
society will not observe HR standards until it adopts them as
'normal' in day-to-day life. It is thus important to consider
customary law and to link the key HR norms to it; this will con-
tribute to HR being perceived as being-in-accord-with-the-local-
culture.
5. Public-interest-litigation and social-action-litigation are
key elements of the rights-based approach. In them, un-
represented, disadvantaged, deprived and dispossessed people use
courts for the restoration of their basic, fundamental rights.
Courts need to be lobbied to accept petitions sent-in in infor-
mal formats as, for example, letters from the affected and the
'rightless' seeking restoration of their rights. HR activists
like us are to bring this situation of 'rightlessness' to the
attention of the courts. We are aware that enforcement of court
orders may not be guaranteed, but the moral boost favourable
rulings can bring to social mobilization cannot be emphasized
enough. Even symbolic pronouncement by a court are invaluable.
We know that, when determined, a court can have its will en-
forced. Social-action-litigation has indeed led to some impor-
tant reviews of laws and to the creation of a new HR-responsive-
governance-culture as, for example in India, where an impressive
jurisprudence of incorporation of HR standards into laws and
regulations already exists.
6. So, a new era can dawn where marginalized people freely re-
course to courts and 'have-their-day-in-court'. Governments will
thus have to eventually explain and, at times, fully redress
acts-of-commission and acts-of-omission in the HR domain. All
this does not amount to an emancipation of the marginalized; but
judicial activism can make those in power a little more account-
able. At stake in this process is, not so much the legal, but
the political correctness of the judiciary. (U. Baxi)
7. Moreover, the internet is beginning to change things, also
for HR; civil society groups have begun to use cyber platforms
(e.g., the People's Health Movement or this very same HR
Reader). The www serves to inspire confidence in people's power
to make a peaceful difference and to connect claim-holders
worldwide to the global-anti-negative-effects-of-globalization
and pro-HR campaigns. The internet is thus serving the democ-
ratic and HR discourse. The question though is: Faster and more
effectively than the undemocratic forces are using it?
8. As regards the media, it certainly should become more of a
public witness of successful outcomes of civil-society-activism
of all kinds. (.Success always seems to happen in private; fail-
ure in full view.) But unfortunately, there is little independ-
ent press these days to keep a watchful eye on civil society, on
the government and on dominant political interest groups. It is
for us as activists to engage them.
10. So, in conclusion (is a conclusion the place where one got
tired of thinking?), it will indeed take organized-concerted-
and-aggressive-grassroots-pressure --as well as concerted-
action-at-the-global-level-- to bring about the profound social
and political changes that are needed for the HR cause to make
faster headway.
Claudio Schuftan
Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
mailto:claudio@hcmc.netnam.vn
--
Mostly adapted from Insights 51, Dec 04 (id21); F&D, 41:1, March
2004 and 41:2, June 2004; IFPRI Forum, March 2004; Mario Vargas
Llosa, El Paraiso en la otra esquina, Alfaguara, Madrid, 2003;
D+C Vol 31, July and Aug/Sept 2004; and Perspectives in Global
Development and Technology, Vol 3, No. 1-2, 2004.