THE CHALLENGE FOR HUMAN RIGHTS ACTIVISTS UNFORTUNATELY OFTEN IS THAT THEY HAVE TO DRIVE THE TRAIN AT THE SAME TIME THAT THEY ARE LAYING THE TRACKS.

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Written by schuftan@gmai.com   
Saturday, 30 June 2018 15:56

 

-Activists’ work is about recruiting the heart and training the brain. (Hesperian Foundation)

 

1. For a good human rights activist, a problem well-defined is half-solved. This is why, for them:

 

Then and now

 

2. In years gone by, praise belonged to those who were able to copy (unable to have an original voice, they repeated echoes) and those who wanted to create were held in contempt. The activists we seek should not imitate, but rather ought to be original in framing their strategies.* Doing so is about reclaiming the power to decide what is important. Framing thus is about making sure they/we set the terms of the debate, using their/our language and ideas. Conservatives have beaten us progressives at this for decades. It's time for a change. (George Lakoff)

*: In the same vein, ponder: What realistic different option do activists offer/contribute-to through just wining and complaining? (E. Galeano)

 

3. Nowadays, activists are not entitled to take a view, unless and until they can argue better against the view(s) than the smartest guy or gal who holds the opposite view. The work for this is the hard part.

It sure takes humility and patience… (Charlie Mungor, Farnam Street)

 

4. Finally here, if you are going to be an activist you are going to be very busy. Get good at time management. (People’s Health Movement)

 

The human rights activist’s limitation: ‘If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together’ (old Ghanaian saying)

 

Never forget: ‘Divided we beg, united we demand’.

 

5. People are using social media for their activism; fair and fine. But would it not be better, instead, for people to join public interest civil society organizations (PICSOs) and/or social movements in person?**. To promote this move, from the other end, activist civil society groups have to reflect-on-how and act to better engage with grassroots individuals and local movements. (Luca Jahier)

**: Social movements are groups centered in the pursuit of economic, social and cultural goals that do not necessarily pursue taking over the political power, but that are decisive in achieving the latter goal or at least in influencing the decisions of the powers-that-be. These movements are multiplying worldwide every time a government infringes or postpones legitimate aspirations of the people. They are like a fertilized ground where new power germinates. (Luis Britto) In them lies our hope as they coalesce and build people’s power.

 

A new year, a new chapter, a new verse --or just the same old story? Ultimately we write the story; the choice is ours (Alex Morritt)

 

-Sometimes, you just want to give up. But, at a minimum, we have to shake the country in its values and tell it to look in a mirror. (Charles Pierce)

 

6. Whether we want it or not, the future will bring new challenges; if we seize them, it will bring new opportunities we must take advantage of. (Michael Josephson) Do not worry about some failures. Experience is a daughter of repeated mistakes. (Marianne Levos) So, I hope that in the future, you make mistakes. Because if you are making mistakes, you are making new things happen, you are trying new things, learning, living, pushing yourself, changing yourself, …changing your world. You may be doing things you have never done before, and more importantly, you are doing something for human rights (HR). (Neil Gaiman)

 

7. Although no one can go and make a brand new start, anyone can start from now-on and contribute to a brand new ending. (Carl Bard)

 

Winning is not the one important first step; what is important is the whole issue about participation and engaging and mobilizing claim holders, as well as engaging duty bearers, regardless of the far away outcome. Before the outcome, it is the doing that counts

 

8. In this regard, ‘Melucci’s Theories of Collective Action’ speak to strategies of activism, and the balance between what a small elite group of organizers (vanguard) can achieve and what mass mobilization will achieve. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_movement_theory) These theories look at the tensions concerning which of both is the most successful action to pursue. Part of this tension is whether the aim of the activism is to change government/governance and policy, or primarily to act on the more cultural and ideological aspect of change. Here is a set of questions that address these tensions:

9. So, if you do not want-to or cannot commit yourself full time to the HR struggle, can you do anything? (And I say, yes, you can; every bit helps --and this is not a contradiction!).

 

Claudio Schuftan, Ho Chi Minh City

Your comments are welcome at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

www.claudioschuftan.com

 

Postscript/Marginalia

-Facetiously speaking, team work is nothing but the possibility of faulting others. (Comedian Diego Capusotto)

-As readers of these Readers you have to realize that you are not alone; that what you do and what you believe-in is important to others as well. This is why we all have to overcome the vast and ingrained range of conscious and/or unconscious convictions that rule our lives. For the novelist Philip Roth what is ‘adequate’ is an imposed value aimed at regulating our most basic impulses. This is why it is not a value written in stone. What is considered ‘adequate’ is only a dam that time and human nature can and do end up breaching. (C. Guelfenbein)

 

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