Some questions that are seldom asked...

Human Rights Reader 131
SOME QUESTIONS WITH HUMAN RIGHTS IMPLICATIONS THAT ARE SELDOM ASKED.
1. To start with, on matters of our time:
1.1. Does the war against terror not really divert the world’s attention from the underlying causes of growing global insecurity (and the underlying human rights situation…?)
1.2. Should we not transcend old adversarial models and processes of seeking solutions (defining ourselves by what we stand against) and bring more light to these processes by encouraging the development of a more positive way of relating to the problems as they exists today (defining ourselves rather by what we stand for)? (J. Buderer)

2. On Health:
2.1. With Health For All by the Year 2000 having failed, should we be content with Health For Half by 2015?
2.2. Why is it that decentralization of health services has often led to privatization and fragmentation along socio-economic lines, exacerbating the class divide?

3. On Science:
3.1. Does the use of statistics by any science make it beyond dispute or are statistics merely just one method of measurement? [Somebody said that, if you torture the data long enough, they will create the evidence you want; they call this ‘evidence making’].
3.2. And, have you ever heard of ‘stadigraphy’? [It actually is a new, but minor science; a novel way to tell lies…]. (C. Fuentes)
3.3. Do you feel that science, more often than you want, keeps off the path of ethics and politics? If so, is that right? Would you agree that the teaching and practice of values and of an ideology is what gives our lives and words their full meaning?
3.4. Ergo, do we have (or have not) the responsibility to profess political principles to govern our respective professions? (G. Cannon)

5. On the Media:
5.1. Why do many of the media we are exposed to no longer inform us, but only create the illusion of doing so?
5.2. As general public, are we being manipulated?
5.4. Have you noticed that wars are a bit trivialized and that Western victims are more important than others?
5.5. Why is the focus of news more on drama than on the big picture?
5.6. Why if there are no images, increasingly, there is no news report?
5.7. Would you agree that rural audiences stay out altogether of the public debate? --are they the ‘deliberately unheard’? (A. Roy)
5.8. Is the press thus, with few exceptions, ‘partisan’ and often even unethical in a subtle way?
5.9. If the purpose is ‘to minimize the noise and maximize the signal’, are internet mailing lists and websites a powerful means of establishing a common alternative space in restricted and often repressive media environments?
5.10. Can this medium become a space for open public debate for the expression of dissenting political opinion, for constructive criticism and a space for social and political mobilization --a space to act ‘glocally’? (D+C 32:5 May 2005, F&D 42:1 March 2005).

6. On poverty:
6.1. What is more appropriate to speak of: ‘the feminization of poverty or the ‘povertization’ of women?
6.2. Should development objectives be specifically stated in distributional terms and as poverty-redressing objectives?
6.4. Why have we, both in the North and in the South, not been able to deprive tyrants of their ability to finance themselves against-the-interest-of-their-own-people who always end up poorer?
6.5. Should international debt not having been used in the public interest be legally enforceable? [Many think no, and they call this type of debt ‘odious debt’]. (F+D, 42:2, June 2005)

7. On human rights:
7.1. It has been said that basic needs are about ‘having’ while human rights (HR) are about ‘being’. Think about it. Would you agree? (U. Jonsson)
7.2. To state the obvious, those who have the power are not those who have the problems: What is the best response: weakening the strong or strengthening the weak? [Note that HR work is about both --and that is the right approach!] (G. Kent)
7.3. Should we not get the street protesters (e.g., at WTO or WB/IMF meetings) from the barricades and have them join us in an organized, common, creative and constructive HR cause? Is there untapped young energy there?
7.4. Should a rights-based approach now be used to frame public policy?
7.5. If yes, does this call for a social contract that would then have to be given political expression in both legislation and in public policy?
7.6. How do you interpret the following?: ‘HR are not just something that society or governments simply achieve: they are an imperative which citizens have to actively demand for’.
7.7. What are and how can we seek viable ways of strengthening citizens’ claims to such rights in highly inequitable and poor societies?
7.8. How can we build a social consensus regarding those rights and set up/strengthen institutions that will act upon that consensus? [Economic, social and cultural rights have to be internalized first by all the various actors so that day-to-day practice and policy decisions are all geared towards a rights-based society].
7.9. Have you noticed that the results of the ballot have virtually no impact on the actual conduct of state economic, social and HR policies?

8. On the semantics of human rights:
8.1. Are we witnessing a process of ‘neutering’ and denigration of basic HR language by those who are still for a status-quo? (G. Cannon)
8.2. Should we not talk about ending rather than reversing HR violations?
8.3. Should we not talk about ‘neoliberal global restructuring’ or ‘global marketization’ instead of just ‘globalization’ --as one of the important causes of HR violations?
8.4. Does not charity --e.g., giving out handouts-- allow the giver to maintain control, i.e., on what to give, to whom, how and when? Is charity thus not disempowering to recipients and antithetical to HR? Is that why some have called for not talking about aid, but rather about ‘restitution’?

Did some of these questions make you feel uncomfortable? Or confused as to the better answer?
There is no pass-or-fail in this quiz; but remember:
It is OK and important to have your own opinion on the importance of HR; Why not proactively share it then!?

Claudio Schuftan,Ho Chi Minh City
claudio@hcmc.netnam.vn