[afro-nets] Food for a questionable thought

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

Food for a questionable thought
-------------------------------

MORE ON THE POLITICS OF HUMAN RIGHTS

Human Rights Reader 65

SO, WHAT HAVE WE ACHIEVED IN THE LAST FEW YEARS? HAVE WE BEEN
USING THE APPROPRIATE STRATEGIES, TACTICS AND TOOLS IN THE BAT-
TLE AGAINST HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATIONS? (Part 11 of 16)

108. As I had said earlier, factors such as foreign debt, inter-
national and national income maldistribution, the exploitation
of the primary (agricultural) sector, the commoditization of ag-
riculture, overt or hidden un- or underemployment are some, but
by far not all, of the causes at the root of human rights (HR)
violations looked at as a social disease. This, for instance,
means that poverty rather than any microbe, parasite or worm is
the key vector of preventable diseases and malnutrition.

109. But more often than not, we get involved in providing pat
solutions that hardly dent the basic problems founds worldwide.
(One often wonders if things would have been any worse without
all these interventions...). It has been argued that what we
have been witnessing (or been actors in) is rather a process of
'modernization of poverty' in which a myriad of new approaches
have been tried that have mostly only complicated the problem.

110. All bilateral and multilateral development institutions
channel their aid through governments. The state, in Third World
capitalist-dependent countries where most of the aid flows to,
is too often sustained by the local dominant class that has
shown and shows little genuine interest in altering the status-
quo beyond keeping the overall situation in the country politi-
cally under control.

111. Foreign development aid models are thus enthusiastically
adopted by these ruling elites of recipient countries, basically
because they do not erode their power base and still give them
an aura of commitment. If this aid would somehow dent their
power base, governments would flatly reject it even if grants
would have to be foregone.

112. Short of an overt class struggle, a number of grass root
organizations (sometimes called people's development organiza-
tions, PDOs) have begun springing up taking their fate and fu-
ture into their own hands --some more successfully so than oth-
ers. Cooperatives, labor unions, consumer unions, popular or-
ganizations, women's organizations of many types and purposes
have started to directly or indirectly look into HR issues. It
is to this phenomenon and its potentialities that we should de-
finitively be paying more attention to. Bringing together these
individual experiences and distilling their successes in tack-
ling common challenges face-on is to become a higher priority
for all of us so they can be replicate manyfold.

113. We are otherwise being used in one way or another and are
thus, knowingly or not, at the service of status-quo. We do get
involved in pat solutions, often dreamed up in a vacuum. We of-
ten even begin to believe in these solutions coming from our own
ideological biases which are sometimes not too different from
those of Northern donor agencies. In so doing, we legitimize
this process. Ideological barriers act as a stained glass
through which all of us look at one reality, but nevertheless
draw different conclusions. Worse even, many of us never leave
our ivory towers to look outside and see what is happening in
the real world.

114. We have not succeeded. HR violation have not really de-
creased. We have even failed to show a more decisive support and
to speak up for the more successful experiments in countries
trying to tackle these violations with actions directed at the
basic level. Some of them are even right now in jeopardy through
external aggression and would need our full support.

115. We thus need to revise our role as advocates and genuine
change agents. Our own personal political inclinations may be
hampering us to become such agents. As HR activists, we can ill
afford having split allegiances when we are out there trying to
solve the problems of disease; hunger and malnutrition. We can-
not afford to say "this is what science has taught me to do, I
do it and anything beyond is not up to me and thus, none of my
business". Who are we cheating? Ourselves? The people we pretend
to work for? Both?

116. But beware. We should, not primarily aim at developing a
political- economic approach to the study of ill-health and mal-
nutrition and other HR violations. Together with the affected,
we need to come up with a concrete and sensible set of solutions
and with a renewed commitment to see them through.

117. HR violations surveillance systems have, so far, served
more as an instrument to keep a log about (mostly) deteriorating
conditions and have seldom been used as a base to put in motion
commensurate solutions to reverse the recorded trends when these
have been negative. The same can be said about limited HR educa-
tion programs: alone, they end up teaching people to do what is
not in their power to do (as claim holders); these programs thus
have only limited potential; they somehow reflect an attitude
of: "Keep them poor, but teach them".

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