“These are not numbers, these are human beings..."

In an afternoon full of reflection on theory and practice of human rights, we addressed the role of the UN in guaranteeing the universal respect of human rights and peace-keeping worldwide. Both in lecture and debate, we questioned the conflicting ideal and reality of human rights in our own communities and the world at large.

Keynote Address: Gillian Sorensen

In an engaging and motivating speech, Gillian shared her vast experience as assistant secretary-general for external relations of the UN on appointment by Secretary-General Kofi Annan.

After briefly summarizing the history of the Declaration of Human Rights and the structure and work of the UN around the world, Ms. Sorensen shared her reflections on the importance of humanizing the cold figures and statistics used to articulate populations discussed in human rights advocacy. It is critical in our work to remember that everyone around the world has faces and voices and are human beings.

She reminded us of always sharing our stories and listening to others, where questions like “Tell me your story, how did you get here?” can help to open conversations where dialogue and empathy develop and foster our understanding of the world and our shared humanity.

 

Gillian also reminded us of the fact that human rights abuses occur not only with death but trauma. Survivors of human rights abuse carry the burden of pain and memory throughout their lives, influencing others and the generations to follow.

Because human rights belong to each and everyone us, we need to work together in what it takes to assure their respect around the world. Ms. Sorensen especially insisted in that we need leadership to make it happen. After her experiences in conflict resolution and negotiations around the world, she confidently asserted that it takes courage and strength to demand human rights for all:

-         to speak truth to power

-         to face the risks involved in this type of work

-         to call our own governments to account

-         to do our research and effectively apply human rights to every aspect of our work and lives

When finished, Gillian had to answered pointed questions regarding the work of the UN to assure peace-keeping in the world, prevention of war, and human rights abuses.

Hasn’t the United Nations itself proved too bureaucratic to work?

Does the UN act upon the interest of certain member states?

Don´t you think the UN is run by double standards?

Do you have any suggestions or recommendations on how to remove the veto power from P-5?

 

Human Rights at large: Prof. Nasila Rembe

In his lecture on the history and development of human rights, Professor Rembe defined human rights as a product of conflicts and struggles from around the world. They are steps toward a solution of realizing the values and aspirations intrinsic to human life. In the words of Boutros Boutros Ghali, the struggle for human rights is an attempt for citizens of the world to speak to one another in the “common language of humanity.” Professor Rembe reminded us that “human rights is a mirror that at once flatters us and shames us.” Inextricable from democracy, peace, and social justice, human rights cannot be fully realized without the existence of those three counterparts.

A group conversation on the universality of human rights followed, where many of us raised some questions. Some of them were:

Are the concepts of cultural relativism and universal human rights mutually exclusive?

Where is the universality of human rights when the policies of George Bush and Tony Blair are exempt from human rights law, but when developing countries execute similar policies, they are punished by the leaders of the international community?

 

After having dinner, we ended the day by splitting into smaller groups in facilitated group meetings. We were able to discuss our insights on the lectures shared today and get to know each other more.

Millennium Development Goals – Prof. Shyamala Raman

Although almost all of us were pretty familiar with the Millenium Development Goals (MDGs), kind and smiling Prof. Shyamala -dressed in a beautiful Indian fair-trade produced sari-, led us to reflect about the remaining challenges around the implementation and advancement of the Millennium Development Goals, as well as our role as youth leaders to promote them.

"Don´t look at the MDGs as planning targets, rather as inspirational goal

Progress has been varied, according to follow up reports by the UN, in spite of the global financial and food crises. However, some countries have already declared they will not be able to reach the Goals in time. Discussion focused mostly around ways in which we, as a growing human rights network, could learn and share to promote the achievement of these countries to reach the MDGs.

After sharing lots of useful links and documents on the topic, Shyamala directed her lecture towards the interdependence and interconnection between all MDGs. To quote Stephen Hawking, "the science of the 21st century is complexity," and we need to see MDGs as an interdependent system of  guiding indicators with which to navigate. 

MDGs are helping governments to implement human rights and hold each other accountable. “Each one of us has to become the agent of change and influence people around us, politicians, scholars, business men, the media," she said.

Shyamala mentioned three qualities we need to have as human rights activists in the contemporary world:

1)    GLOBAL AWARENESS: “Know what´s going on outside of your village!”

2)     GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE: “Always bare in mind the impact of things, how what happens in one country, affects other places and many times your own country”.

3)     GLOBAL CRITIAL LITERACY: “Dig deep into facts and info you hear; think of the underlying aspects of events, reports, news. Learn about country backgrounds. Make critical reflections”.

From a personal perspective, we could ask ourselves a few simple and poignant questions: How am I linked to others? How do my actions influence others? What can I do when I figure this out?

She also suggested three resources for us to consider in order to advance on those qualities:  virtual activism, linking local  and global, and deepening our social justice perspective, for which she particularly recommended reading Amartya Sen´s “The Idea of Justice”.

As a final exercise, Prof. Raman shared these two questions with the group so each of us could shortly respond among ourselves:

 i. “How do you as youth leaders see your role, between now and 2015 in regard of MDGs?”

ii. “How do you envisage building a post-MDGs consciousness?”

Links and documents shared by her can be found here.

As an example of what Prof. Shyamala encouraged us to do, the following is a video made during the 5th Edition of this Forum in 2009, by some participants to informally raise awareness on the MDGs:

Sunday, peaceful Sunday...

We started today with diverse and interesting lectures, a keynote speaker throughout the morning and afternoon, followed by time to raise questions and hear other people´s opinions and cases.

The topics addressed today were: Peace culture and education, Millennium Development Goals, the role and work of the UN in the world and the Universality of Human Rights.

Culture of Peace: Dr. David Adams

"No enemy, no war" Dr. Adams said.

Professor Emeritus and former Director of the UNESCO Unit for the International Year for the Culture of Peace, Dr. David Adams, started the lecture by giving us a bad news as well as good news: the bad news is that global economy and system today are not stable and will crash, bringing enormous suffering and confusion. The good news is that in times when communications are more fluid between people around the world and we enjoy of the greatest global consciousness in History, we can make a new civilization on the planet earth on the basis of culture of Peace, instead of culture of War. We were challenged by Dr. Adams to realize that this good news could be the most dramatic transformation in the history of humanity, and reflect on the role we can play on anticipating and preparing ourselves for such transformation. "What are we going to do when the culture of war crashes? We better be prepared!"

We spent an important part of the session conceptualizing the Culture of War, and in turn the opposite idea, the Culture of Peace, as an alternative. After brainstorming about both terms, we came up with the following concepts. The Culture of War is defined by Oppression, Enemy, Competition, Weapons-Military, Control of Information, Male Dominance and Male Led Conflict, Profits, and Power. The Culture of Peace is defined by Human Rights, Solidarity-Tolerance-Understanding, Cooperation, Disarmament, Free flow of Information, Equality of Men and Women, Sustainable and equitable human development, Democratic participation, and Education for Peace.

David continued his lecture by mentioning problems like the lack of awareness of the Culture of Peace, the marginal support of the UN to achieve it, and the monopoly of violence by states. "You are not allowed to kill anybody, unless you work for the State". Some participants found his statements idealistic and controversial, particularly those related to the monopoly of violence by states, and came up with the following questions:

Is a culture of peace possible in Middle Eastern countries, where powerful officials in control of the state are appointed, not elected, and therefore alienated from the consensus of the populace? Is the police force a manifestation of the culture of war?  What can students in universities do? Can the state bring peace?

As part of his presentation, he presented some notable links and resources:

Report on the Decade for a Culture of Peace,  directed by attendee to the forum Marcos de Oliveira.

Decade for the Culture of Peace website

Culture of Peace website - created by David Adams, with online access to his books and articles.


He ended his lecture with the motivator that "Peace is in our hands"