[afro-nets] Food for dreamed-up thoughts

[Claudio Schuftan <claudio@hcmc.netnam.vn>]

Food for dreamed-up thoughts
----------------------------

MORE ON THE POLITICS OF HUMAN RIGHTS


Human Rights Reader 61

PROJECTS DREAMED UP IN A SOCIAL VACUUM MUST PLAY THEMSELVES OUT
IN THE REAL WORLD OF INJUSTICE AND CONFLICT. (Part 7 of 16)

64. The objective consequences of many a development project may
turn out to be different from their original subjective intent.
We need human rights (HR) activists who are strong and elastic
enough to ask the right questions rather than sell the wrong an-
swers. In this context, intervention strategies can, therefore,
be classified in three categories according to the principles
that govern them:

'comprehensive strategies' that are multidisciplinary in nature
and call for multisectoral cooperation --assuming that this
meeting of minds sowed differently will solve all problems;

'improvement strategies' that put-the-needed-spare-parts-to-the-
system by assuming that only some things can be changed now; and

'transformation strategies' that call for radical changes of the
environment and/or the social system.

The bottom line is that only those strategies that somehow (and
at some point in time) include the latter optic have any long-
term potential.

65. The problem with HR activism is that, too often, we try to
find reducible solutions to irreducible problems. Technological
fixes are the answer to reducible problems, but many hoped they
would solve the irreducible problems as well. Misjudgment of the
kind of problems and type of solutions needed actually compounds
the problem.

66. Good young people respond to the seduction of technology.
"It's more independent of experience and you don't have to know
much". But technology is not the origin of change; it merely is
the means whereby society changes itself. Technology comprises
not just tools and machines, but also skills and motivation. The
wrong technologies have for too long been destroying genuine
community life and have thus led to maldevelopment.

67. Technology dilutes and dissolves ideology. Political revolu-
tions always have motives --a Why. Great technological changes,
on the other hand, do not have a Why. Technology, unlike poli-
tics, is irreversible. We may be able to develop a new strain of
wheat and so cure starvation somewhere. But it may not be in our
power to cure injustice anywhere, even in our own country, much
less in distant places.

68. The obvious question, then, is: Why not changing our order
of thinking rather than trying to reverse hunger and malnutri-
tion, for example, by the use of technology? Technology is basi-
cally improvisational. It treats the symptoms; it provides no
lasting cures. Moreover, technology is part of the problem. New
policies will thus require a patient and possibly painful re-
education of us all. A technocratic utopia is the most banal of
all utopias.

69. Technical pragmatism by men of good will can build national,
regional and global strategies with no political sensitivity,
appealing to all reasonable men and capable of being imple-
mented. So, faith in technocratic warriors developing the world,
remains unshaken. This leads an outsider to see a picture of
general harmony of interests. It also leads to incoherences. We
need to drop the fallacy of this universal harmony of interests.

70. The real challenge in our present world is not to maximize
happiness (in practice interpreted as maximizing economic
growth, GNP, or the quantity of goods and gadgets), but to or-
ganize our society to minimize suffering. Human happiness is un-
definable; human suffering is concrete; it manifests itself as
hunger, sickness, unemployment, poverty, illiteracy, ignorance
and the whole host of other HR violations.

71. The power of new ideas needs to be mobilized through the
communications revolution which is upon us. New forms of learn-
ing, education, awareness creation and 'conscientization' (P.
Freire) need to be pushed in this endeavor.

72. Conflict is common where there are competing interests.
Therefore, avoiding it --as we often do-- is no solution. Con-
flict is not necessarily violence. Conflict is a necessary means
to attain true dialogue with people in authority. The poor do
not achieve this until they have shown they are no longer ser-
vile and afraid. They need to move from the culture of silence
to a position of dignified persons.

73. Success in HR work means liberation. Any action that gives
the people more control over their own affairs is an action for
HR, even if it does not offer them better health or more bread.
But this approach needs to be built from the bottom up. If this
does not take place, one has Social Darwinism: the ones who sur-
vive and whose rights are not violated are the richest, the most
powerful, the whitest and the malest.


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