human rights, peace and

democracy - agenda and debates

August 18, 2008

May 18th Memorial Foundation
Francis D. Lee
 Key Impact of Globalization

 Emergence of global politics - multilayered

governance and the diffusion of political
authority
 Expansion of organized violence: military,
war system, global arms dynamic, etc.
 Global trade, global markets
 Global finance
 Corporate power and global production
networks
 Migration of people
 Communication and environmental impact
of industrialization
 About Peace
 Threat, Protection, Static…
 Threat from ouside
 Threat from inside
 뭘 얘기해도 합의가 안되는 가족이 있지만 ,
안 그런 가족의 경우 다른 사람의 의견을 들으며
차분히 상의한다 . 이해하려고 노력한다 .
 결국 결정을 내려 모두 기분좋게 된다 .
서로 등돌리지 않으며 , 그럴 경우 곧 화해한다 .
이유는 서로 존중하고 사랑하기 때문 .
그렇지만 항상 서로 고함치고 싸우는 가족도
합심하는 경우가 있는데…
바깥으로부터 어떤 위협을 받을 때 .
여러 사람들의 집단도 마찬가지
함께 일하거나 놀거나 관심사를 공유하는 사람들은
경쟁집단을 상대로 단결하지만 ,
더 큰 상대를 만나면 경쟁집단하고도 단결하게 된다 .
 국가간 분란이 일어나면 우리는
우리의 국기와 제복과 신념과 역사와 전통을 걸고 단결한다 .
그리고 단결한 마음으로 병사들을 내보낸다 . 상대방도 마찬가지 .
 상대방 견해를 잘 들을 수 있다면
싸우지 않고 논란을 해결할 수 있는 경우도 많은데
그리고는 피해위에 상처가 , 모욕위에 경멸이 ,
거짓말위에 사기가 겹겹이 쌓인다 .
 국가는 패전을 애도한다 . 그러나
승리한 국가 역시 쓰라린 진실에 직면한다 .
시간이 지난 후 슬픔과 분노 , 쓰라림과 죄책감을 느끼게 된다 .
 그렇지만 같은 실수를 왜 반복하는지 .
왜 전쟁에 나갈 준비를 하고 위험한 지도자들에게 무기를 대주는가 ?
위험이 존재하는 한 싸울 태세를 해야 하는 국가… 가장 어이없는 면이
다.
 Key Points from the slides

 Team/Identity  Source of unity or

violence

 Dispute  Not always a conflict

 Internal order  by external threat

or something else
 Leader’s role  envisioning or
pointing fingers to outside

 Reconciliation or revenge

 Different views on sacrifice, bravery,

contribution to one’s country…
 Peace Agenda

 Questions (problematizes)
 What?
- ‘violence’ and ‘violences’
- things and attitudes that make
violence

And, makes an ethical choice, in

relation to victims
 Them/Stranger/Enemy

 Object of threat is socially created

(educated).

 Antagonism is educated and

internalized.

 Dominant forces use people’s

threat-feeling and antagonism.
 Social Enemy Construction
 War experience re-interpreted
 Dehumanization, demonization,
exaggeration of the enemy
 Binary identity formation:
Us vs Them, Superior vs Inferior
 Psychology of ‘we alone”
 Vertical hierarchy of belief and
obedience
 Obsession with order and unity
Globalization and New Forms of
Violence
 “Globalwarming is a weapon of mass
destruction.”

 “Violence of Debt” (Debt Bondage)

 New conflicts…

 We need a stop, a break.

 HR as a break, why?
 Universality

- non-derogability

 Indivisibility

 Interdependance
 Int’lhr laws are directly mainly to
public authorities: weak in regulating
the social effects of international
business

 Liberal economics: market entities

are for-profit. Human rights are for-
people. A clash. International trade,
investment, corporate institutions
are designed to promote economic
gains, not social values.
 Do you agree or disagree?
“It is only the world hegemonic
powers and their elite who are
benefiting from human rights
agenda, and the actually suffering
people around the world have not
much benefited.”
 Big Corporations with Human
Rights?
 TNC’s enormous power, sometimes translated in
political power, is sometimes beyond the effective
control of national governments.

 Particularly difficult: TNC’s move

around/regulations come later, their huge
influence in national political system, difficulty of
multiple states’ action, difficulty of assessing TNC
impact on persons and their human rights)

 A regulation in one country may be seen as

curtailing the competitiveness of “its”
corporations vis-à-vis others.
Economic Policies: Impact on
HR
 Debt, Loans, and Structural Adjustment Programme
(SAP)

 Reducing government expenditure, by making public-

sector redundancies, freezing salaries, and making
cuts in health, education and social welfare services;

 The privatisation of state-run industries, leading to

massive lay-offs with no social security provision and
the loss of inefficient services to remote or poor
areas;
 Currency devaluation and export promotion,
leading to the soaring cost of imports, land use
changed for cash crops, and reliance on
international commodity markets;

 Raising interest rates to tackle inflation,

putting small companies out of business;

 Removal of price controls, leading to rapid

price rises for basic goods and services.
 Isit possible to reconcile the tension
between security and human rights?
Which agenda takes priority, when, why
and how?

 Can the need to have economic

development override human rights
obligations? Why or why not?

 What are the key requirements for human

rights to go beyond being just a set of
hopes?
 HR and Justice
 Do not discriminate
 Protect the minorities
 Empower to say no to wrong
authority
 Challenged Areas of HR

 Capitalism oriented
 Right to Private Property
 Right to Development
 Right to Peace
 Right of Peoples to Control Economic
Powers
 HR is… HR does…

a break

dignifies a person

an ethical standpoint

makes things happen

globalizes our view…

 Peace and PM
 Violences (not just wars)
 Respecting differences
 Empower to say no to resort to
hatred, threat and violence

 Two ethical bases of Justice today:

Peace and HR (in global context)
 State, We and Security
 Security is the core of modern
politics and power relations.
 Security is a language about threat,
danger, fear, we, them, life-death,
and protection.
 Security is ‘politics’ of securitization
with the purpose of domination.
 With security politics, little
democracy
 A New Agenda
 How de we dismantle ‘security
politics’?
= how to de-securitize?

 Redefine threat (make voice)

 Dissolve security expertise (become
one)
 Redefine ‘we’ and ‘them’
 Care and coordination to replace
protection
 Visions for New Democracy

 New Vision for Development

 Deep Democracy
 Guarantee of Peace
 Redefine Civil Society
 Question the status of religion
New Vision for Development

Looking at development as democracy: In

judging development it is not adequate
to look at only the growth of GNP or
other national indicator as well as it is
not fruitful to rebuke development as a
concept of progress, but rather it is
important to look at how economic
development impacts on the lives and
capabilities of people including
expanding social and cultural rights. How
to make development as a key
component of democracy?
 Deep Democracy

As it is clear from past experience

across Asia, instituting a multiparty
democracy and an electoral process
at local, regional and national level
doesn’t ensure economic justice
and social justice. So, how to
envision a new structure of
governance which will ensure
justice?
 Peace+Democracy

Looking at long lasting peace (not just

absence of conflict) and democracy
as intertwined process. Which
means addressing entrenched
societal structure which violates as
being basic tenet of democracy and
how to address them in a
democratic framework?
 Re-think Civil Society

How to re-imagine and re-

conceptualize civil society in an
Asian context to make it more
inclusive which will transcend the
parameter laid by the state so as to
make democracy more inclusive
and vibrant?
 Religion and Secularism

Considering the fact that all countries

in South Asia today face a challenge
from majoritarian religious
mobilization. The need is to bring
back secularism as a key tenet of
democracy i.e.: striving not just for
a secular State but also how to
constantly secularize societies.
 Sensitivity of ‘Power
Relations’
 Visions for change of power relations
starts from many things… (HR,
Peace, Justice, Ethics, Democracy,
Poverty Eradication… etc)

 But,
it also starts from myself, here
and now… to build deep democracy
from here and now!
 How?
 Think of power/powerless in daily life
 Power resources: capital, position,
gender, race, status, age, voice,
weapon, passport, language,
knowledge, frame of thinking
(scientism…), colonialism…
 Who are those that lack these?
 Are they powerless because of that?
 Redefine ‘power’
Dignity of human person is
the foundation of peace…
only if…
 We keep on thinking and acting
critically…