AFRO-NETS> Neutral food for non-neutral thoughts

[Claudio Schuftan <aviva@netnam.vn>]

Neutral food for non-neutral thoughts
-------------------------------------

Human Rights Reader 43

The ideological neutrality of human rights is its greatest strength, 
but its proponents should not be neutral in engaging to achieve them.

There is no neutral territory in combating poverty and oppression. 
Those who believe in such neutrality more often than not become prey 
to the agendas of dominant social forces. (F. Manji)

The principle of neutrality --being indifferent-- is increasingly ob-
solete; it is immoral and short sighted. (J. Foster Dulles)

1. An undeniable contemporary fact is that, too often, our political 
leadership is dissociated from moral and ethical considerations. But 
essential for their legitimacy is precisely their ability to trans-
late prevailing social and ethical values into politics (or 'ethical 
praxis', if you want): politics is the translation of all our scien-
tific, ethical and historical knowledge into a fair management of so-
ciety. (D. Najman, P+QLI Commission)

2. So, not trying to be facetious, if our leaders do not know how to 
equitably distribute wealth and justice, shouldn't they at least eq-
uitably distribute poverty and injustice...?

3. Consequently, in human rights (HR), stepping from the 'ethics of 
principles' to the 'ethics of responsibilities' means that our lead-
ers must be made to stand by their signatures and made to keep their 
promises, basically because they made them...of their own free accord 
(or convenience at the time...).

4. In today's world, the life of a person who lives by her ethics is 
not easy: it is rather a crusade. For her, certain principles are 
non-negotiable.

5. In the human rights-based approach, rights are not negotiable. 
Therefore, we have to pin down the HR-expected outcomes --100% of 
them-- as non-negotiable (in a way, a zero tolerance stance). It is 
this, then, that has to become our point of reference to judge which 
Assessment, Analysis and Action (AAA) processes in society are posi-
tive and needed in our endeavor, and which of them we have to chal-
lenge, because they do not lead to such outcomes (i.e., are negative 
and/or neutral AAA processes for the achievement of HR).

6. In the same way, by now, we know that Respect, Protect and Fulfil 
all represent HR obligations of states: they thus have the connota-
tion of a social contract! Carrying it a bit further, some people 
consider Respect to be a passive obligation, Protect to be an active 
one, and Fulfil to be a proactive obligation. So, for instance, when 
governments only respect and protect, but do not fulfil state obliga-
tions towards, say, the entitlement to food, to care and/or to Health 
For All, they should be actively denounced and confronted by us; neu-
trality is not an ethical option.

7. One can ask: is it not commensurate with cowardice to live an un-
committed life in a world of growing polarization? We need to criti-
cally examine our commitments of all sorts. Uninformed innocence in a 
ravaged world amounts to pain and suffering that can be counted as 
dead bodies and children handicapped for life. We cannot be fundamen-
tally unengaged on HR issues. Detachment has to be challenged. De-
tachment can come from our early training, disappointing experiences 
or mere indifference. We simply cannot selfishly shun commitment. A 
world of choice and action opens before us. We have to make choices. 
We have to take sides to remain human.... (A.A. de Vitis).

8. In troubled times, a vocal identification with ethical principles 
needs to be forged. Silence is a strategy to avoid commitment, in our 
case in HR work. Silence compromises the future of what we stand for. 
Silence is speech; it is a willed act in the furtherance of one's ob-
jectives. (Is it self-deception?)

9. We cannot attempt to disengage; political involvement in HR mat-
ters and, in final instance, is humanizing. Of course, the choice can 
be made to act as a 'sympathetic outsider'; from such a position, re-
ality-out-there remains but a picture on the canvas. (Z. Pathak) [I 
recognize that people exist as dismembered bodies; we are constructed 
as complex, fragmented subjects, in part because there is a dialecti-
cal relationship between the personal and the political...].

Can Human Rights advocacy be overdone?

10. All people have equal rights, but are indeed very different -- 
and want to be different... (J. Rau, German Federal President, 
13/5/02)

11. Because HR pertain to all people, everywhere, one danger is that 
the term "human rights" be used for many disparate things, if not for 
everything under sun. The fear is that, eventually, the term be 
abused so that it gets diluted to the extent that it loses all its 
original meaning and becomes empty rhetoric --like so many other 'big 
words' we have seen abused -- from democracy to freedom to equity...

12. Human rights has actually become a 'convenient' moral term, so 
useful and effective in advocacy that, to be on the safe side, every-
one (friend and foe of HR) throws it in...just in case. And that is 
where the danger of abuse and dilution lies.

13. While I am aware of the efforts to expand the traditional HR con-
cept and expect that HR will play some role in areas such as the en-
vironment, I am wary that if everyone keeps stretching HR into every-
thing under the sun, within ten years, we risk seeing a huge backlash 
in the HR arena: whoever mentions the term "human rights" will be 
suspected of being a dinosaur or a fanatic. In the next five years we 
will see expansion, but what in ten...? This, of course, does not 
mean that linking HR to environment issues should not be pursued... 
(Tran Dinh Hoang, personal communication).

14. The caveat here is that we ought to advocate for a faithful ad-
herence to the established and already sanctioned international legal 
human rights concept and principles; expansion from there should be 
cautious, well justified and long-term. If something is good, use it 
carefully, consistently and with care...

Claudio Schuftan
Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
mailto:aviva@netnam.vn
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