Work in human rights: As the late US representative John Lewis used to say:

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Written by schuftan@gmai.com   
Saturday, 21 November 2020 15:10

 

Human rights: Food for a non-troubling thought  ‘HR activism’

 

Human Rights Reader 554

 

[TLDR (too long didn’t read): This Reader is about the practices HR activists and public interest civil society organizations are expected to implement and the implications this has for the fulfillment of human rights. For a quick overview, just read the bolded text].

-Activists must transform every ‘it was’ into an ‘I willed it thus’! That is, take hold of the situation, accept their responsibility in it, and set a commensurate goal worth pursuing. (Friedrich Nietzsche)

-The penalty of inaction and of apathy often is destitution, marginalization, illness and death. (Amatya Sen)

[What follows may well fit into my iron laws category]

1. Activists beware

 

2. A last beware here: The challenge we face as HR activists has been described as now having reached base camp --knowing that still to be climbed is the Everest peak…

 

3. Activists, do consider these good practices/this advice

 

 

4. A last advice: Manage to develop a political project of as-a-universal-an-appeal-as-possible by tapping on the various social and political opportunities at hand and by using the resources available in a HR significant and productive way. You will find that a major difference is brought about by claim holders’ determination to do something about their many deprivations.

 

Public interest civil society activism

5. Keeping the state, governing and funding bodies and other vested interests honest can be a tenuous path for many activists. Of necessity, public interest civil society activism* must adapt to different circumstances across countries. It has become clear that these civil society activities must be ‘proactive’ rather than ‘reactive’. For them, activism has to go to the ‘nitty-gritty’ and that is hard work that may not appeal to those who lack the ideological motivation. [So, ‘if you are looking for glamour, join a corporate bank’…]

*: The definition of civil society refers to the broad collectivity of non-official, non-commercial and more or less formally organized groups that seek to reinforce or alter existing rules, norms and social structures. (J. A. Scholte) [I would add there are conformer, reformer and more radical CSOs]. The definition of public interest civil society refers to voluntary associations, organizations, movements and/or networks that live and act in the social space outside of the state and of the private sector(!).

 

6. Most importantly, public interest CSOs see claim holders, not merely as victims, but also as active agents of change --and work according to this premise.

 

International NGOs activism?: An altogether different set-up

-Congruence between ‘a mission’ and value-based/value-guided programs is only achieved when the values development organizations stand-for actually carry their everyday practice. Yes, institutional NGO cultures do not change overnight, but can and do, on occasions, change.

7. Here are a list of my yeses in this dispassionate assessment:

**: The People’s Health Movement’s (PHM) is not an NGO; it is a global network of networks. Its distinctive niche in the above is that it pays particular attention to campaigning on structural issues since its members are convinced that focusing on single issues risks ignoring the inequitable underpinnings of the respective national and the global economy. In response, some of the activities of PHM, and especially its International People’s Health University short courses, are designed to politicize NGO and other health and social service workers to encourage them to go beyond the provision of curative health services and to extend them to prevention and advocacy for structural changes to economic and political systems. Its motto is that Health for All has always consisted of an outward global looking approach to addressing health equality. (www.phmovement.org)

 

8. Finally, let me leave you with a question: Are international NGOs a convenient green light to the privatization of social services? I ask this because, in the global context, often privatization equals denationalization --and the latter leads to deeper inequalities and further HR violations. …Food for thought.

 

Claudio Schuftan, Ho Chi Minh City

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All Readers are available at www.claudioschuftan.com

 

Postscript/Marginalia

-You should dream more. Reality in our century is not something to be faced nihilistically. (Graham Greene, Our Man in Havana)

-It is ‘generator generations’ that make the needed breakthroughs; ‘Translator generations’ only apply them. (Alberto Pradilla)

 

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