HRR 650
THE READERS EXPLORE HOW WE CAN GIVE HUMAN RIGHTS MORE CLOUT SO THAT USING THEM WE CAN CHALLENGE THE EXISTING UNJUST SOCIAL, ECONOMIC, AND POLITICAL SYSTEM.
[TLDR (too long didn’t read): This Reader is about the art of writing, my motivations and tribulations when I write them (I do this about every fifty Readers). For a quick overview, just read the bolded text]. Note: You can easily translate the Readers to many languages. Use the app deepl.com and it is done instantaneously. It takes seconds to download the app into your computer or phone and translations are of high quality.
What, over the years, the Readers have been for me
1. To start with, a couple of one-liners:
• For me, writing is a concentrated way of thinking. But, at the same time, I want to believe and feel that the Readers are also a form (my form) of action.
• The Readers are independent in all things and neutral in nothing. (Azikwe)
• I have always wanted you to take the Readers as an intellectual sandbox to play-in, not only by interacting with others, but also to surprise and enjoy yourself. (Tara Thiagarajah)
• The Readers will ultimately be judged by deeds, not by what they say. Today it is necessary to expose; tomorrow, all of us together, must simply and inescapably act. (Gabriel Boric)
• I know, what we need is deeds not just the words in the Readers; I wish I would be in a position to stop posting platitudes and much more start fixing the problems I expose.
• I aim the Readers at activists working for economic justice who are interested in incorporating human rights (HR) strategies and narratives into their work for systemic change.
• In the Readers, I use a lot of quotes and paraphrasing that come from others; that of lesser importance has been mine. …and this is not a form of bluffing. (Louis Casado)
2. The Readers also explore how activists and organizations can push for fiscal and other policy transformations that address inequality and poverty. They deliver strong arguments to push back against austerity measures and propose HR tools to more equitably share our planet’s wealth and to ensure dignity for all. They are written for anyone fighting for social, cultural and economic justice and who are in need of new inspiration, motivation and tools to bring about change. Their ultimate aim is to shift narratives and to shift power in the political scene.
3. Activists, organizations, and everyone interested in learning more about the power of HR can draw on the Readers to explore relevant issues. The Readers further break down complex topics for readers keen to unlock the power of HR to build just and sustainable economies and societies. (CESR)
4. For me, writing the Readers is a slow and steady process that begins with measured respect for the wording I use. This is a commitment that, for me, is for life. My love for incessant reading (an 'unpunished vice') is what helps me to find the right words... (Edmundo Moure) Someone once told me: “You do a lot of reading and summarizing for us”. That is right; I do a lot of reading and summarizing. To be a good writer, I have to be a ‘scrupulous noticer’. In the end, the challenge is to arrive at a short, direct, easy-to-understand text that inspires action. (Alberto Portugheis).
5. In short, I am not pretending the Readers are an academic, scholarly endeavor; I am an ‘academic harvester’, disseminator and popularizer.
6. Principles I keep patent in the Readers
• A great first line or title can spur intense readerly attraction --provoke a compulsion to know more. I call this: love at first sentence. (Literary Hub)
• In terms of spontaneity, a text, even if it has many drafts behind it, must read like it was written in one sitting. (Leopoldo Lugones)
• For Confucius, refined speech (or writing) was the embodiment of refined ethics.
• Generalizing is always a double-edged sword; on the one hand, it is useful because it orders and simplifies but, on the other hand, it is risky because complexity and nuances are lost. (Alfredo Serrano).
• It is not bad to lose an argument, because we end up enriched. (Albino Gomez).
I like to call the fusion I use in the Readers ‘inspiresting’
-When I hear what I hear and see what I see, I am happy that I think what I think. (San Antonio)
7. Stylistically, the inspiresting is earnest and carefully planned. It is: smart, but not quite intellectual or elitist; personal, but not populist; sarcastic, but not ill-intentioned. Politically, the inspiresting performs a certain kind of progressivism as it is concerned with making the world a better place, however vaguely or utopian. The Readers ultimately attempt to move you and fill you with an expanded sense of possibility and excitement. (Chris Andreson)
8. Even if I do not know that much about geopolitics or about macroeconomics or about any of that nonsense, (Anibal Malbar) I feel I cannot just remain silent I cannot remain still. I have to tackle the issues hitting us face-on. (George Parker)
9. Not really being a doctrinaire in anything, my arguments, do go to positions that are controversial in some leftist quarters. Sometimes, those leftist currents scramble our moral expectations, our tidy accounts of good and bad, of heroes and villains. There are perils in identity politics, moral and political. My Readers hope to find a common-sense radicalism as they try to help radical thought and common sense to recognize themselves in each other. (Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò)
10. The world needs those scrupulous noticers inside the system. Keeping myself in, I become one who struggles for a moral state. If our lot does not do our job, what hope is there for the rest of society? OK, but does the system need me? No. Do I change the system? No. I write Readers that only a selected few look-at, I am keenly aware, and I over-and-over suggest action that is seldom, if ever, taken. So, do I deceive myself totally? The fact that I work within the system must force me to reflect. I cannot accept the system’s lies; on the contrary, I must reject and denounce them. The system itself must be forced to accept it is lying or it has no business to exist. Hence, is it better to be inside the system fighting it or being outside howling at it? (John Le Carre, The Constant Gardener) …Food for thought.
11. While we certainly do not live in a black and white world, the grey is getting harder and harder to tolerate full-well knowing the consequences. I used to be more accommodating and even accepting of common ground, but when my printer ran out of grey ink, I feel I have become more one-sided. I now understand that compromise can be an evil word despite its centrality in politics; it only leads to destruction at a slower pace and buys more time for the you know who.(i) Care to get out of the grey zone? (David Zakus)
(i): Yet my radical hope, I admit, is thinning. I very much feel that I am trying, week after week, to perhaps be just a great storyteller, one who knows that the key to a good story is to keep rewriting it until you get the ending you are looking for.
12. Ultimately, it is a David vs Goliath struggle we are all in. Take, for instance:
• Global health vs. a pandemic and many other diseases causing social disruption and suffering around the world;
• environment(alists) vs. big oil, big plastic, forest destroyers, illegal fishers and irresponsible and HR-violating mining companies;
• indigenous people vs. colonizers;
• truth/fact and science vs. lies and ignorance…
13. Being a David myself, and swinging the Readers slingshot against great odds for over 15 years, I know we must and will win. We have to smarten up, take cues from the brave, stand up for our principles, counter the mis-information, accept change in our lives and get everyone on board. The slingshot is loaded. Let's take aim. (D. Zakus)
Claudio Schuftan, Ho Chi Minh City, public health doctor, militant of ideas, frank observer and writer …and always reminded that old age starts when our memories are stronger than our hopes. (A. Gomez)
Your comments are welcome at schuftan@gmail.com
All Readers are available at www.claudioschuftan.com
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