[afro-nets] Food for a not so hopeless thought

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

Food for a not so hopeless thought
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MORE ON THE POLITICS OF HUMAN RIGHTS


Human Rights Reader 64

PASSIVITY MAKES US ACCOMPLICES OF THE STATUS-QUO. MANY OF US,
WITH AN ACADEMIC APPROACH TO CHANGE, SHOULD NOT FORGET THIS.
(Part 10 of 16)

96. Given the present conditions, the outlook for quantum
changes in the human rights (HR) situation in the world appears
to be limited, but certainly not hopeless.

97. The room left for meaningful action has, I would argue,
shrunk due to the overt and covert repression mechanisms at play
in most of the countries where HR violations are rampant.

98. But changes are occurring everyday in the field of HR and
these changes are the result of the constant confrontation of
the different actors in this struggle, be it at the local, re-
gional, national or international levels. These actors have dif-
ferent weights and power in each specific context and include
such dissimilar groups as the organized peasants or workers, the
bureaucracy representing government interests, the local elites,
the church(es), the transnational corporations, the armed forces
or yet other groups.

99. Be it as it may, any proposed action to tackle HR violations
requires a correct analysis of the correlation of forces at the
various levels, their roles and their underlying overt or covert
interests as they shape the current, concrete situation (a part
of capacity analysis). Only this will enable us to actually
strengthen and help all those deprived of their various rights
in their daily struggle (plus their strategic allies) to promote
or precipitate the structural changes needed to ensure a more
permanent access to their rightful entitlements. This effort in-
cludes the critical analysis of the existing measures to combat
HR violations that are not really succeeding in addressing the
problem and are thus ultimately contributing to demobilize the
poor through the use of populist rhetoric and programs which
leave the exploitative structures intact.

100. The special needs of women and of indigenous people have to
be addressed explicitly as well in any forthcoming comprehensive
HR strategy.

101. Carrying out HR education only as a mostly passive activity
serves more to self justify our doing 'something' about the many
problems rather than really significantly helping the poor whose
rights are being violated. Many single-shot interventions have
been tried in the past, each depending on the prevailing theory
of underdevelopment that the international development community
shared at a specific time. Aid programs have followed most of
these theories (fashions?) in the past decades.

102. In the last 100-150 years, many underdeveloped countries
have passed from outright colonialist exploitation to neo-
colonialism in which the exploitation might be more subtle, but
still dominates their fate. The classical example for this is
the competition for farmland by cash crops versus food crops.
The underdeveloped countries have become so indebted, because of
deteriorating trends in their international trade so that the
balancing of their balances of payment has become a key issue in
their economic policies (most often pushed by the International
Financial Institutions); and when the country is basically a
cash-crop exporter this is achieved at the cost of a lower food
production and the hunger of the poor. Examples of the latter
are numerous and seen in at least three continents.

103. The UN agencies directly or indirectly involved in HR have
not escaped the fashions in foreign aid. The agencies 'neutral-
ity' has been both an asset and a burden. It has enabled them to
achieve a worldwide presence and prestige and, in some cases,
enabled them to bring governments' attention to HR problems. The
burden, on the other hand, is their inherent advisory role with
no power to implement programs along the lines of their per-
ceived priorities -- HR now centrally among them. These agencies
have become an excellent source of collected data and statis-
tics, but they can do very little to change some of the observed
trends without the cooperation of each government. Their opening
to work with civil society directly gives some reason for opti-
mism.

104. Northern development planning has thus tended to disregard
the overall revolution of expectations that modernization brings
with it, especially that of the poor rural populations. Planners
keep planning for the poor without incorporating them into the
process. I think we simply fail to ask the following type of
questions at the grassroots level: What are you and your fam-
ily's expectations? How do you see them materializing? Does the
system, with its rules of the game, allow for your expectations
to become true? If the system would not put a limit on your ex-
pectations what would your expectations be? What would your pri-
orities then be? Which of your expectations would you like to
fulfil first, and how? What in the present system does not allow
for your expectations to become true? What can be done about the
latter?

105. Too often we operate from our desks, submerged in compli-
cated schemes and organizational charts. We tend to produce long
documents for programs to be carried out by others and eventu-
ally get involved again with reality only to evaluate outcomes
which are, not surprisingly, often poor.

106. To go anywhere from here, the future graduates of develop-
ment disciplines will have to be true change-agents, HR activ-
ists, and generalists, not only experts in their own narrow
fields. Health, education, ecology, sanitation, agriculture,
management, nutrition, food technology, family planning and the
many other fields have to be seen as contributors to the assess-
ment, analysis and action on the-HR-improvement-front. More than
our generation, they will have to get involved with the people
they want to serve in community diagnosis (causal and capacity
analyses included). For this to happen, existing curricula beg
for substantive changes and this is a concrete area where many
of us can contribute creatively.

107. As an international consultant, in this context, the role
of the HR activist is beyond doubt a delicate one. As an outside
observer s/he should help the local people and local officials
see things from another angle --help them to explore their con-
tradictions, perhaps being softly critical, so they can come to
their own new conclusions, hopefully without creating false ex-
pectations. Sensitization and advocacy skills are perhaps more
important to the consultant's success than technical know how.
Paternalism, often a subconscious attitude in consultants,
should be actively combated.


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