wow. i can't believe the term is over already. this has been a really interesting course. i hadn't previously given that much thought to the discourse of Human Rights and their development, and this course offered the opportunity to do that. i still don't think i could answer the question "what use are human rights," but that's not the entire point, right? the discussions we've had on this topic over the past term were valuable and i'll remember those more than definitive answers anyways i think. and in terms of course content and format, i found the case studies a really useful and interesting exercise.

i'm really looking forward to class with Stephen Toope tomorrow night. i think it's great that a person in his position makes the time to visit lowly undergraduate classes.

i'm not sure if the questions i have in mind are entirely relevant or on topic with our class, but i guess i'll leave it up to you guys.
first of all, considering that one of the issues we've discussed in class is land claim rights and rights of indigenous peoples, i'd be interested in what Prof. Toope has to say about the existence of UBC - point grey campus, on traditional territory of the Musqueam People. i'm also curious about Prof. Toope's opinions regarding "Global Citizenship" in relation to the universality of Human rights. Finally, i'm interested in hearing what he thinks about what he has to say about the universal right to education, specifically in relation to corporate sponsorship of education, and the construction of "the UBC town."

yeah. should be a good class.


tag: last301

today was the first day of the 12th international anti-corruption conference, being held this year in Guatemala. officials from all over the globe have gathered in Guatemala to discuss the anti-corruption pact that has been signed by several Central American leaders in an effort to acknowledge and address deep-seated institutional corruption. A BBC article (found at http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/6153088.stm) discusses the resistance that some feel towards the conference, stating that it is "simply a cynical attempt to paint themselves as whiter than white while corruption continues unabated at home." the article goes on to discuss corrupt leaders and situations in Central America.
The theme of the conference this year is: "Towards a fairer world: why is corruption still blocking the way." the conference website is found at www.12iacc.org. a mission statement on the conference website discusses the idea that "There is an urgent need to reflect and regroup, to look beyond our traditional coalitions, to find new voices and new faces, to energise this vital fight, upon which justice and the welfare of the global community depends."
on paper this seems well and good. how can fighting corruption be bad? the challenge is clearly getting the ideas off paper and into action, which will be beyond challenging. i couldn't find anything relating to how participants are accountable to the committee, which to me is key to the level of commitment that can be expected from nations and their leaders. the cynic in me is really doubtful that this is possible, but hey, there's nothing wrong with a conference, and at least the topic is being acknowledged and recognized as an important issue that needs attention.
the conference ends on the 18th. maybe we'll have time to discuss it in class on monday, as the subject matter seems pretty relevant to our recent readings.

tag: last301

The article i read this week is about anti-government student protests in Chile. Students in chile are protesting recent government actions and demanding that the promises of increased funding to education and public services are fulfilled. After occupations of educational sites, and a month long strike, students are shifting their tactics to focus on protesting outside of prestigious schools.
the article can be found at www.americas.org
i'm really interested in political student movements, mostly because i wonder when/if it will ever happen here. with tuition steadily increasing, students really have a lot to protest, yet nothing seems to be happening. organizations like the Canadian Federation of Students, and even our own AMS at points have organized around this issue, but what seems to be lacking is the commitment and passion for change. there are some students groups that are doing amazing work, and i don't mean to minimize their accomplishments, but i wonder how far canadian students will let ourselves be pushed before fighting back. what do you guys think?


tag: last301

Marguerite Feitlowitz's critical analysis of the importance of language leading up to and during The Dirty War in Argentina identifies clearly how "language became a form of torture" (20.) The careful use of words in government issued statements, women's magazines, and in the secret detention centres themselves contributed to the dehumanization of The Disappeared, or The Subversives, as the military/government would say.
I found these readings very informative and a few things really surprised me. for example, i didn't realise the extent to which Vileda and his followers were borrowing ideas from the Nazi Regime. i was also really fascinated in the media campaigns targetted towards women, specifically mothers. Women as carries of culture and nationhood is a common concept. The way women were held accountable for 'subversive' acts or thoughts, and at the same time encouraged to be leaders of the new generation follows this theory.


tag: last301

i found this week's readings really emotionally charged, which isn't surprising given the subject matter. The article about the mothers at the Plaza de Mayo was the most interesting to me, because my educational background is mostly in women's studies and gender relations. The way these women used the stereotypes of typical mothers to their benefit is fascinating to me. Using the characteristics and expectations of mothers in a machismo society, the mothers at the Plaza de Mayo peacefully protested the disappearances of their children, for the most part without being penalized (although there were exceptions to this, as we read in the article).
the personal account given by Hebe de Bonafini is exceptionally charged, especially in context with the personal accounts of people that reappeared and gave their testimonies as part of the Never Again document. just like all of the mothers, we can only imagine the terror faced by their children, and all other persons that were disappeared during this era.


tag: last301

The article i read this week was about Veronica Cruz, an abortion activist that is being honoured by the Human Rights Watch for her work in the area of abortion access for survivors of sexual assault. The article discusses that in Mexico rape victims are legally entitled to get an abortion, but that this process is made difficult and unsafe for many due to social and religious stigma. Cruz advocated and organized rallies around access to abortion, as her state faced a potential law change, which would overturn 30 years of legal abortion for rape victims.
The article then explores the social and legal issues that make access to abortion so challenging for women in Mexico. The definitions of rape, assault, incest, and the age of consent all act as further restrictions for women seeking legal abortion, and lead women in desperate situations into back alleys and illegal and unsafe 'clinics'.
This topic is a Human Rights issue because "When abortion is criminalized, as it generally is in Mexico,... the rights to equality, nondiscrimination, life, health and physical integrity [are threatened]."
This article was pretty interesting and progressive. you can check it out http://hrw.org/english/docs/2006/10/17/mexico14404.htm
Cruz is receiving her award on November 2nd.


tag: last301

“ARTICLE 7: No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman
or degrading treatment or punishment...” (United Nations International
Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.)

As someone that has never experienced the gross violation of my human rights, I tread carefully around discussions of other’s experiences of these tragic situations. The humiliation and trauma experienced and felt by so many during the process of colonizing The Americas and the political unrest and corruption that followed is undeniable and inexcusable. For this reason I believe academics and artists alike must take caution when recounting or telling of experiences of their own or other’s torture, detainment, and other abuses that too many have suffered beginning in the 15th century, occurring up until this day. Using texts we have studied in class in comparison with “The Little School,” by Alicia Partnoy, I will analyze the different approaches used to discuss the tragedies faced by victims and survivors of human rights violations, specifically relating to violence and detainment. Specifically, I will discuss writings from first and second hand accounts, the role of gender, and the author’s intent behind writing specific pieces.
The Dirty War in Argentina took place from 1976 to 1983. The people that came to be known as The Disappeared were citizens taken from their homes, offices, and schools, often in the middle of the night, and detained, tortured, and often killed in “secret government detention centers” (www.globalsecurity.org). Alicia Partnoy spent three and a half months at the Little School, in the year 1977 (Partnoy, 15). Her work, she writes, is a tribute to her people, and all those Disappeared:
“Today, while sharing this part of my experience, I pay tribute to a generation
of Argentines lost in an attempt to bring social change and justice. I also
pay tribute to the victims of repression in Latin America. I knew just one
little school, but throughout our continent there are many “schools”
whose professors use the lessons of torture and humiliation to teach us
to lose the memories of ourselves” (18, emphasis added).

Partnoy writes of her experiences at the Little School, noticing and recording poetic details, while (at times) subtly recounting the horrific violence and torture that she witnessed and endured.
Constructing images of war and political movements surrounding it, Alicia Partnoy uses a unique writing method to convey the terror and pain that permeated the Dirty War in Argentina. Her personal, autobiographical piece of literature presents the reader with reproductions of gender, violence, and symbolism. One of the main strengths in Partnoy’s writing is the way she confuses the reader as to whose story they are actually hearing. Partnoy goes back and forth between using first and third person narratives in a way that does not always align with writings of her own experiences and the experiences of her fellow disappeared. While reading The Little School I’ll admit that I was often confused as to whose story Partnoy was narrating. This challenged me to ask the question: does it matter if the stories she writes are her own? And are the stories any less ‘real’ if they belong to other people? On the broader subject of (auto) biographies, I wonder if the strength of Partnoy’s writing comes from her own personal experience, or if her writing would still be as strong had she never been Disappeared, and was writing based on other people accounts. I am torn between these two concepts. Partnoy’s stories are so affective and moving, because of her personal experiences.
Bartolome de Las Casas is another thinker that has witnessed and written on human rights violations in the form of torture and detainment. However, unlike Partnoy, Las Casas did not experience this torture and detainment himself, but rather witnessed it occurring to others. Las Casas’ stories and memories of colonization are also very graphic. On page 15, in his discussion of Hispaniola, Las Casas creates an exceptionally graphic image of the atrocities committed against indigenous peoples, as he describes the attack on a native settlement. Different from Partnoy’s writing, Las Casas seems to have an almost casual tone in some of his descriptions. While Partnoy writes with emotion and from a place of being traumatized, Las Casas gives descriptions that seem free of emotion and pain. For example on page 32, when he describes the role of wild dogs in the torture of native people.
Gender is an aspect that cannot be ignored when reading texts of human rights violations. In parts of The Little School, Partnoy graphically describes violence occurring at the Little School. While she makes reference to sexual abuse, and being molested by the guards, she does not disclose many details of these accounts. On page 70, the women in the Little School discuss their fear that they might be pregnant. It is unclear if the women suspect the conception to have occurred with their partners’ prior to abduction, or if it is a result of rape inside the little school. Trying to establish the timeline in Partnoy’s narrative was challenging, but rape as a weapon of war is too common of a situation to be discounted in this scenario.
What Partnoy leaves unsaid is powerful. While it is impossible to be sure of her intentions, I propose that Partnoy did not include graphic accounts of sexual violence because it would be harder to reproduce without entering into a problematic arena. While the torture occurring within the Little School is, with small exception, limited to situations of war and imprisonment, sexualized violence against women is a daily occurrence, a true epidemic. From my perspective, responsibly reproducing images of sexualized violence against women cannot be done in isolation from politics, because this form of violence is not personal, but rather reflects the politics of a world that is violent towards women. Perhaps representing these images would take The Little School in a direction that Partnoy wished to stay away from, or maybe the memories were simply too difficult to recount, let alone publish.
In a different way, Eduardo Galeano also shows the strength and power in his writing through what he chooses to leave out. Like Partnoy, he tells the small, untold stories, that could be passed off as insignificant, but that map real people and real lives onto numbers and statistics. The writing is not graphically violent or harsh, but is true and poetic, and has great value.
The last major topic I wish to cover is ‘intent.’ Inciting change was definitely one of Partnoy’s goals: “By writing literary works accessible to the general public, Partnoy hoped that the tales of disappearance and survival would reach a wider audience that could condemn the atrocity” (Dianna Taylor, 166). I wonder then, how we can interpret this, considering that The Little School was published in English, not Spanish. If the book was only published in English, and directed at a North American audience, can we suppose that Partnoy believed that outsiders would be in a better position to politically challenge the corrupt government and trial proceedings in a country recovering from war? Or is it more important to look at the quidelines/restirictions placed on Partnoy by her publishers?
In this paper I have made a conscious choice not to include quotations that reproduce violence and torture. While the representations created by Partnoy, Las Casas, and Galeano were effective and critical in their own ways, I do not believe that I would be able to reference these representations in a way that was not problematic, simply because of my positioning. I am referring here to my position as a Canadian, that it, an outsider, but more importantly as someone who has never experienced war, this extreme violation of human rights, and as someone who is only beginning to comprehend the surface of this complex and traumatic series of events.



Works Cited

No author. “Argentina’s Dirty War.” www.globalsecurity.org

Partnoy, A. The Little School: Tales fo Disappearance and Survival. Midnight Editions: San Francisco, 1989.

Taylor, D. Disappearing Acts: Spectacles of Gender and Nationalism in Argentina’s ‘Dirty War’. Duke University Press: Durham and London, 1997.

“United Nations International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.” The Human Rights Reader. Revised Edition. Ed. Walter Laqueur and Barry Rubin. New York: Meridian, 1990. 225-233.

Las Casas, Bartolome de. A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies. Trans. Nigel Griffin. London: Penguin, 1992. 3-70.

Galeano, Eduardo. Memory of Fire II : Faces and Masks. Trans. Cedric Belfrage. New York: Pantheon, 1987. 158-229.

tag: last301

there was a lot of information in this week's readings and i struggled with pulling out one solid theme to discuss, so i'm just going to give a little description of the articles and some of my opinions on them. Starting with "In Defense of Human Rights in Latin America" by Silvio Zavala, we learn more about the christian voices of dissent that rose during the massacres and colonization of aboriginal peoples in Latin America. What is lacking, of course, is the voices of indigenous peoples themselves. the voices that were never recorded and i imagine rarely heard to ears outside their own communities, for obvious reasons. Zavala's article discusses the religious aspect of 'civilizing' and controlling indigenous peoples, and reflects on the life and works of Las Casas. I found this first reading the most challenging of the week, simply because it was really dense.

"The Angostura Address" by Simon Bolivar (i don't know how to use accents on my computer, sorry,) was a more lyrical and poetic piece. The opening paragraph in which Bolivar states "I number myself among those most favored by divine providence," (page 31) i felt set the stage for how we were to read this document. it positions the author yet i wasn't exactly sure how to interpret this statement. Bolivar is clearly anti-slavery and is one of the first authors we have read that challenges categories of racial distinction and argues for a more fluid definition of race and culture. Bolivar goes on to discuss systems of government, throwing his support to democracy.

I found "The State and the Individual in Latin America: An Historic Overview," by Margaret Crahan, the most interesting article this week. the overview was really useful and i think it will be an article i will be able to refer back to in future assignments. One aspect that concerned me about this reading was that the author had a very narrow outlook relating to revolution and the gaining of independence. On page 30 she states "The gaining of independence in the early nineteenth century did not substantially modify the structure of colonial society, nor the political isolation of the bulk of the population. Independence was actually the outcome of the struggle to expand the autonomy and privileges of the colonial elite within the imperial structure." Some discussions i've had in other classes contest this statement. I feel like in this statement the author is erasing some of the struggles by the lower classes and slaves/freed slaves, but i'm not exactly sure.. another concern i had about this article was it's publishing date. this article was published in 1982, 24 years ago. i wonder if there aren't more recent articles written on this topic, perhaps with new historical outlooks or theories in place. Can we look at this article as being outdated?
ok. this is getting too long. i'll share my thoughts on the last reading will you all in class tonight.
tag: last301

so i've been trying to follow the 'race' as Venezuela and Guatemala both compete for the coveted seat on the United Nations Security Council. An article on the BBC (by the way, does anyone have any insight into the BBC? i've been told that it's fairly progressive as far as 'Western' news sources go, but haven't read it enough myself to make that judgment) discussed the position available, comparing the situation to a similar one in 1979 when Cuba and Mexico also went head to head for a position on the council. The article states that with many important issues on the agenda over the next few months, "victory means the ability to influence key decisions." i don't really know enough about the united nations to agree or disagree with this, but i'm curious about the real impact the council has in it's decision making. Being a sub-group of the United Nations, i'm curious as to what extent it's decisions are binding and enforced. We all heard about the statements made by Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez last month, and the BBC was unsure if calling George Bush 'the devil' would hinder Venezuela's success or not, especially when taking into account that the United States is throwing their support to Guatemala.
The BBC article i read was pretty short, so i looked up the United Nations Security Council for a little more information. the vote, which happens today (monday, oops) apparently, is done by secret ballot by council members, and to win a country must get 2/3 of the vote. it'll be really interesting to see how this turns out.
the articles i read can be found at
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/6053984.stm
http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=20257&Cr=general&Cr1=assembly

tag: last301

i found both of the readings this week really engaging and at the same time very challenging in different ways. i have had the opportunity to do reading on latin america and slavery, but the Las Casas reading was the first document i have read that addressed the massacres that occured prior to the slave trade that followed. Las Casas creates graphic images for the reader as he describes the erasue of entire populations during the colonization of latin america by the spanish. themes of christianity, capitalism, and most of all violence permeate his plea to the 'most might prince of spain' to end the massacres that continued to occur under spanish rule.

the poetic nature of the Galeano reading made it easy and enjoyable to read. covering four decades of events and lives, the author tells stories that otherwise may have gone untold. i found that certain snippets left me wanting to know more about the people and places he discussed. i admit that the format of this reading confused me a bit, and perhaps having an introduction or preface to this piece would have been a useful guide to it's understanding and interpretation.

this isn't a very critical analysis here, but i'm looking forward to discussing these readings in class and hearing what you all think.
tag: last301