Human rights: Food for a thought turned irrelevant  ‘A new HR learning’

Human Rights Reader 557

[TLDR (too long didn’t read): This Reader is about how to refocus life-long human rights learning along the principles of political education using a Freirean methodology. For a quick overview, just read the bolded text].

-Human rights learning’s aim ought to radically transform learning, i.e., making contents relevant and empowering so that action processes to pursue are built on dialogue and on problem posing/problem resolution (not on banking-up knowledge); transformation will only happen through a process of reflection/action; life-long learning is not neutral, it is critical and thus creative, it does not domesticate participants. (Paulo Freire)

Learning about human rights has been a bit like learning about bicycling from a book. It has not meant much until you do it (George Kent)

1. I ask the question in the title above, because human rights learning (HRL) ought to --but does not-- abide by the principles of political education, namely:

• Political education is a collective process of systemic critique intended to transform society towards a strategic goal, rooted in the experience, insights and struggles of people.
• The purpose of political education is structural change, by democratizing knowledge with processes of collective creation coming from people and communities.
• Political education applies human rights (HR) principles to the everyday problems people face focusing on where they are hurting/abused.

2. For HRL to apply political education principles, it ought:

• To be framed and designed to understand the root/systemic causes of poverty and social suffering.
• To be rooted in the insights, needs, and experiences of individuals and communities negatively impacted by the capitalist system.
• To be transformative towards systemic change.
• To use horizontal methods to foster movement building.
• To democratize knowledge including using bottom-up approaches.
• To prioritize the safety, care and solidarity of communities by including the use of ‘free prior’ and informed consent.

3. Following these principles it is imperative to understand and put in perspective the history of HR thus guiding the participants’ collective action. (Fostering collective thinking-action processes is different from having participants lectured-on or having them just read).

4. To empower local and global HR thinkers-doers we must give them space to reflect and share with others. We must thus:

• Overcome ingrained biases in our own education such as giving a new dimension to Global South/Global North relations.
• Identify common areas and understand local realities as part of what is a global phenomenon, i.e., “let the real world into the classroom”.
• Create a common local/national/global narrative for all participants.
• Sow the seeds for collective action.
• Pursue a process of in-formation that may be subjective, but points at the truth.
• Insist on the need to listen to claim holders’ complaints and learn from them treating them like ‘someones’ of value.

5. What do we, then, hope to achieve in HR within 1-2 years through efforts using this political education process?:

• A homogenous narrative and understanding of the inseparable history of capitalism and how it has impacted HR.
• A shared global vision that highlights regional and local struggles.
• Ultimately, future economic, social and cultural (ESCR) rights activists having a common, shared ground for their present and future actions.

6. Who are we engaging in this activity or who will lead these efforts?:

• As HR activists we first need to identify local partners and then have a timeline developed and available online as the vehicle for increasing participants’ capacity in pursuing claiming strategies, clearly starting with the setting-up and strengthening of HR organizations and networks.

7. Let us now look at some of my iron laws related to empowerment in HR capacity building/HRL [I note here: a) it is not always about capacity building; it often is about capacity enhancement, and b) capacity development is not merely the acquisition of skills, but also the capability to use them]:

• HRL is intended for participants to sharpen each other.
• Is empowerment a process or an outcome? Actually both.
• For capacity building to be HR empowering it must share with claim holders the HR strategic vision and must build the mental determination for social mobilization to tackle the myriad HR violations.
• An empowering HRL means inculcating the power in participants to, first, redirect their own life to then, as leaders, make realistic and effective choices in the direction of HR.
• It also means both improving their use of existing resources, as well as staking articulated demands for additional resources.
• Empowerment in HRL is a process of involvement with others to make community changes, but also implies a goal and an outcome to be reached. It implies believing in the participants’ ability to eventually exert some degree of counter-power and control.
• An empowering HRL further implies exerting influence on the larger social system.
• It ultimately implies moving beyond personal to social actions.

Strengthening human rights learning for the next generation is imperative

8. Human rights have influenced the development discourse, yet rarely are HR directly employed in policy and practice. It is not enough that HR law defines what governments must or must not do to ensure the equitable enjoyment of HR by all. Yes, international HR law obligates governments to realize specific rights through national laws, policies, regulations and programs. In preparing the next generation of leaders, only aggressive HRL campaigns will provide the necessary foundation for the needed claim holders’ and duty bearers’ de-facto engagement to change a reality gone sour.

9. Only a massive new approach to HRL along the lines of political education will develop the critical capacity and mass of participants, as well as provide them with a global consciousness --both indispensable for a new breed of global citizen-activists. (Federico Mayor Z.)

Claudio Schuftan, Ho Chi Minh City

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All Readers are available at www.claudioschuftan.com

Postscript/Marginalia

-Learning is finding out what you already know. Doing it is demonstrating that you know it. Teaching is reminding others that they know it just as well as you do. (R. Bach)

Note:

I repeat a footnote from many Readers ago: Are these Readers sometimes repetitive?  Yes and No.

No, in the sense that they look at the many aspects of HR work, some new, some old, but the latter always from different perspectives and angles.

Yes, in the sense that they always reinforce key concepts of the HR framework.

This deliberate duality is considered indispensable for the readers to progressively internalize the concepts in such a way that they can then comfortably use them in debates and in teaching HR.

In that sense, this is no apology.

[Moreover, all the good and wise in these Readers has come from others; that of lesser importance has been mine].