[hr-education] Re: HRE and activism

Dear all, Ellie, thank you for this. I'll insert some responses below.

 
On Apr 5, 2006, at 7:21 AM, Ellie Keen wrote:

> Thank you for opening (and continuing) this discussion. I want to 
> respond to your last message, but I'd like to make clear from the 
> start that I don't believe we have a principled disagreement.

What makes you suspect that there is any disagreement anywhere here? My
last message was a response to an email from Dan Jordan, not to yours. I
have no disagreement with Dan.

> I am a great admirer of the work you do in the area of food rights, 
> and I would be very interested to make use of a couple of your 
> articles in my own HRE work, in order to raise the question of global 
> poverty (if you don't mind!).

I certainly don't mind. I write this stuff in the hope that it will be
used. My most comprehensive statement on the right to food is my recent
book on the topic. There's a flyer for it at
http://www2.hawaii.edu/~kent/flKent.pdf

In the last chapter of that book I complained that most of the discussion
about the human right to adequate food has focussed on the obligations of
national governments to people under their own jurisdiction. To remedy
that, I am now leading a collaborative project intended to help clarify
international obligations in relation to the human right to adequate food.

> So now for the areas of non-principled disagreement...
>
> I wholly concur that it is not for outsiders to tell others to go out 
> and lobby their governments, but I think my message may have been 
> partly misunderstood. I wasn't speaking about what sort of education 
> should take place in countries where poverty is a serious problem. I 
> was actually speaking about my own country and other richer nations, 
> where it seems to me to be an essential element of any HRE programme 
> that children come to realise not only the terrible conditions in 
> which other young people in the world are living, but also the 
> interconnectedness of the world economy. We as educators should surely 
> be pointing up those areas where our own governments are actually 
> contributing to human rights violations in other parts of the world -- 
> either through aggressive trade policies, or by propping up harsh 
> regimes, or by exploitation of resources and local workers.

You might be interested in my paper on "Pedagogy of the Middle Class,"
which looks at the problem of adapting Paulo Freire's "Pedagogy of the
Middle Class" to the teaching circumstances we often encounter in
developed countries. See "Pedagogy of the Middle Class," Peace and Change,
Vol. IV, No. 3 (Fall 1977), pp. 37-42, at
http://www2.hawaii.edu/~kent/Pedagogy%20of%20the%20Middle%20Class.pdf

In relation to the issue of international obligations, I would caution you
not to fall into the trap of suggesting that the obligations of the rich
to the poor arise only or mainly out of the claim that the rich have
caused the problems of the poor. That may be an important consideration,
but it is certainly not the only reason for asserting that the rich have
such obligations. There are other good reasons to claim the rich (strong)
should help the poor (weak). One reason to develop other arguments is
purely instrumental: in terms of strategy, focussing on accusations
against the rich is not like to win a sympathetic hearing from them.

> The second type of situation that you mention appears to suggest that 
> it is only a matter for citizens of a given country to lobby and 
> campaign against the national government. Again, I think that ignores 
> the interconnectedness of the world economy, and the immeasurable 
> influence that richer countries possess over that economy. It also 
> ignores Article 28 of the UDHR which, if it is to have any force, 
> imposes obligations on the international community to ensure respect 
> for human rights around the globe.

Once again you are criticizing a short, quick note in an email exchange
for omitting things you think are important. That's not very helpful.
These are brief notes intended to make simple points; they are not
comprehensive analyses.

The UDHR does not "impose" anything on anyone. It invites the nations of
the world to agree and to voluntarily commit themselves to honoring
certain values.

> The final point I would make is that I am often surprised by the false 
> dichotomy that is often set up between HRE and human rights activism. 
> Perhaps we need to discuss this... An activist, in my books, is simply 
> someone who acts in order to try to change a situation. They don't 
> have to lob grenades, and they don't have to be at the extreme end of 
> the political spectrum -- they are simply people who are concerned 
> about certain social / political issues, not content to turn their 
> back on them, and who therefore engage in some kind of action designed 
> to remove the object of their concern. That 'action' may be as mild as 
> writing a message to a listserve, or it may be simply speaking to 
> people in the local community.

I'm not sure I get your point. In a sense, all human rights work is
educational, an effort to broaden the area of shared understanding about
the meaning of human rights. However, it is sometimes reasonable to
distinguish between, say, classroom teaching and legislative lobbying or
other kinds of human rights work. I don't see any problematic "false
dichotomy."

> If HRE is about raising awareness of human rights violations, 
> developing attitudes of respect and empathy for other human beings,
> and developing critical thinking and communication skills (to name but 
> a few) -- then my experience tends to suggest that it is extremely 
> difficult to engage in HRE without (involuntarily) encouraging 
> activism. Most people, if made aware of what is going on, simply want 
> to do something, and you don't have to tell them to. That means that 
> if we are worried about young people turning into activists, we may
> need to stop educating them about human rights.

Who is "worried about young people turning into activists"? I am all for
it. However, in my earlier email I argued that we should promote activism
with great sensitivity to the fact that it sometimes can expose people to
frustration and serious dangers. If we just provoke local people into
getting angry with their leaders and then get ourselves out of town, we
may be doing those people a disservice.

I hope I have now been clearer.

Aloha, George

 

 
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