Chilean Student Protests

http://www.cnn.com/2011/09/23/world/americas/chile-student-protest/index.html

This article is about student protestors' encounters with police forces who were ordered to break up the students' demonstrations. The students have been protesting for many months now over privatization of education in Chile. Students demand education to be more "accessible" and privatization limits the ability of poorer families ability to send their children to school.
I believe the Chilean government is only shooting themselves in the foot by attempting to privatize education. Sure for now it might save the government some extra money and force parents to pay for their children's education. Down the road however, they are going to realize this actually costs them MORE than it benefits them as they are going to have a whole generation of children who were unable to attend school due to cost limitations. A generation of undereducated youth will be a nightmare for the Chilean government as they will have a workforce that is unskilled and will be a heavy burden on the welfare state. Therefore, the government's attempt to privatize education (and basically take away the right of education from poorer families by taking away their ability to benefit from public education) is an ill-advised move indeed. Sending in the police to forcefully stop these demonstrations is just icing on the- human-rights-abuse-cake.

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Capital Punishment and Women's Rights

While reading the "Social Contract" by Rousseau, one section that particularly stood out for me was chapter five, "The Right of Life and Death." In this section Rousseau discusses the legality of the death penalty, specifically as the punishment for killing another man. Rousseau contends that, since man gives up some of his "natural" freedoms when joining the social contract (the contract that basically gives order to society), and acknowledges this fact by living in a society governed by law, he similarly acknowledges the punishments set out for breaking the laws of that society. It Rousseau's time, fact the penalty for murder was capital punishment. Therefore, by committing murder, the murderer has broken the social treaty agreed upon by the sovereign (the people as a collective) and has become an enemy of the state. Rousseau believes that an enemy of the state and the state itself cannot coexist, and so the only reasonable solution to resolve this problem, other than the dissolution of the state, is to exterminate the enemy.  Given the fact that the murderer understood the societies' punishment for murder, before he committed the crime, it is logical and fair for the killer to be executed by the state. 

The reason I was particularly interested by this section is because of the current debate going on now about the use of the death penalty, specifically in the United States. In light of a couple of capital punishment executions last week, there has been an international backlash against the use of such punishment, especially in a so-called "first-world" country. Personally, I have always been against capital punishment simply because I think it is almost a gentler to punishment to kill someone and put them out of their misery, rather than to subject them to a life-long sentence in a maximum security prison, where they will be treated incredibly harshly for the rest of their miserable lives. That aside however, after reading Rousseau's understanding of the legality of capital punishment, I was almost convinced to change my opinion. For me, Rousseau's explanation of the use of capital punishment makes complete and logical sense. If the known penalty for murder is state execution, and someone commits first degree murder anyway (I'll limit this argument to the case of first degree murder), it seems reasonable for the state to convict the criminal and sentence him to death. Punishments are in place to deter people from breaking laws. If a society decides that they want their punishment for murder to be capital punishment, that is their right as a sovereign society. That is the social contract they are entering into and agreeing upon and it is therefore the right of the government to execute a murderer, as they are adhering to the common will.  Therefore, if a person knows the consequence of breaking a law, and yet does so anyway? Society has every right to punish them, in the way they agreed upon when creating and agreeing upon their social contract.

Another document that was intriguing to me, as I'm sure it was to many others simply because it is so unlike anything we have read thus far, was the "Declaration of the Rights of Woman and the Female Citizen" by Georgia de Goughes.  The feminist document was quite interesting to read because it is the first time we see a woman sticking up for our rights as equal human beings. What was most interesting to me however was the fact that, unlike all of the documents which prescribe strictly to the rights of man, de Goughes does not exclude the opposite sex in her Declaration of Rights, but merely surmises that men and women should be equals. Rather than writing a vindictive diatribe against men as payback for being left out of centuries of rights documents, de Goughes is the bigger person and includes, perhaps for the first time, both sexes in one document. Furthermore, she doesn't believe women should get preferential treatment (as say, every other document written before hers did with reference to men). Rather she is merely campaigning for utter equality in all matters of the law-- "No woman is an exception; she is accused, arrested, and detained in cases determined by law. Women, like men, obey this rigorous law." I greatly appreciate and respect de Goughes document and cannot imagine the courage it must have taken for her to put out such a radical and progressive statement, at a time when women were still regarded as secondary citizens.  We owe the success of the women's rights movement to de Goughes and others like her that kicked the status quo in the butt and demanded equality in an unequal world.

Tweeters in Mexico

http://www.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/americas/09/07/mexico.twitter.analysts/index.html

This article is about a couple of Mexican twitter users who falsely "tweeted" about attacks occurring at a couple of schools. The tweets caused such a reaction, as parents desperately rushed to their children's schools, that the city was in a bit of a state of chaos and numerous traffic accidents and other minor calamities resulted. The tweeters were discovered and the government is seeking to charge them on accounts of terrorism and sabotage--crimes that warrant upwards of 30 years in Mexican prison. However, the lawyers, and civil rights activists, are arguing that such a sentence, or any sentence at all, is completely preposterous as the tweeters were merely exercising their right of freedom of speech (or tweet as the case may be).
When I first started reading the article, I was appalled that the Mexican government would so blatantly disregard such a "fundamental" human right as freedom of speech. But then I got to thinking that maybe it wasn't so black and white. The tweeters (indirectly) caused bodily harm to those parents who got into accidents in their rush to get to their kids. The "fundamental" freedoms of humans are granted only so long as they don't cause harm to other human beings. Therefore, it seems fair to conclude that the tweeters were partially responsible for causing chaos in the city and should therefore receive some sort of punishment. Make the punishment fit the crime however, thirty years in prison seems a bit steep. Community service or some other form of minor punishment does not seem an outrageous infringement on human rights--the tweeters did something bad, and following logic, such an act deserves some sort of retribution.
This article brings out the much larger question of how technology and social media sites play into our basic rights. Because of the anonymity the internet and social networking sites afford users, it is becoming increasingly easier for people to anonymously hide behind what they say on the internet--all you need to do is create a pseudonym and you have instant ability to say whatever you want, without anyone finding out who you are. This has positive and negatives consequences which I will not get into. At what point can we keep granting freedom of speech, especially when it starts to physically harm others? Something to consider...
 My main point is, however, when dealing with issues such as human rights infringements, it is never black and white. You have to take into account the whole picture, examine it from both sides, and then decide, for your own self, if a human right has been violated. It is highly unlikely that everyone will ever fully agree on what constitutes human rights abuses.

Human and Civil Rights

One of the first things that struck me while reading these documents on human rights was the number of times that God was mentioned, especially in the earlier documents. While I understand and am happy to recognize that the time period most of these documents were written in was one where God was placed above everything else in society, I do not see the logic or necessity of including "Him" in some of the more recent documents. Take for example our own Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, written a mere 29 years ago. At the very beginning it declares, "Whereas Canada is founded upon principles that recognize the supremacy of God and the rule of law" and then continues to list the various human rights awarded to all Canadian subjects. This inclusion of God simply bothers me for some reason. It's like saying, we as Canadians have been granted these so-called undeniable human rights, not by our government, but by God, some elusive, intangible being. And then, the very first article under the fundamental freedoms of Canadian citizens is, "a right to conscience and religion." Really?? Then why is there a mention of God not two sentences before? What if, God forbid, someone is agnostic or an atheist? Then the mention of God, in their charter of rights and freedoms, seems kind of hypocritical. It reads to me that there IS freedom of religion, as long as you pick one--none of this atheist, non-believer nonsense. The inclusion of God, in a legal document, seems so unnecessary and even discriminatory as not all people believe in God. So then, are these nonbelievers not deserving of the same rights and freedoms as the good worshipping folk? I guess what really bugs me is that we, as a society, have claimed to have established a separation of church and state and yet some of our most important documents still have mention of God and simply assume that everyone has a faith (whether it be Christianity, Islam, Judaism Buddhism, Sikhism etc.) when this is simply not the case.

Another point I wanted to think about, which, as I skimmed briefly through some of my peers responses they also seem to be questioning, is what is the point to drawing up these documents? What actual purpose do they serve? It's all very nice and comforting to write a series of declarations, trumpeting the various "fundamental" or "unalienable" rights we enjoy as human beings. But to what avail? Sure as a society we pat ourselves on the back, and commend ourselves for being an enlightened nation that cares about not only Canadian, but other nationalities' human rights as well (as our inclusion in the UN and the resulting Universal Declaration of Human Rights we adhere to). But then what? After those papers are signed and then given to the public to read, does that really change anything? Is reading about the clauses of non-discrimination going to change a racist person's outlook on people with different skin color? Probably not. I believe these documents aren't going to affect the way anyone thinks or acts towards other people. Maybe I'm hugely cynical and not giving other people a fair chance, but I'm trying to be realistic and from what I've seen, it takes a lot more than a document promoting human rights to change how people act towards others that are different from them. 

Now, having ranted and raved about the shortcomings and peculiarities I see in these documents, I want to clarify that I don't think they are useless or without purpose. I think they give (especially the UN Universal Declaration of Rights) something for us, as a global community to strive for. I can't say I disagree with any of the human rights laid out (at least the ones from the 20th century) although i would include a few things (sexual orientation? a right to NO religion?). THese documents are admirable goals but I think we all know we are kidding ourselves if we think that just the shear acknowledgement of such rights necessitates that they are actually being adhered to. We've got many miles to go before we have actually attained "universal" human rights around the globe (or even within our own country). 

About Me

Hey everyone,
My name is Petra Arnold-Bowen and I am fourth year International Relations student. I am taking this course because I am interested in human rights issues around the world. I grew up most of my life overseas in Germany, Russia, Saudi Arabia, and Switzerland. Consequently, I've had the opportunity to be immersed in many different cultures and witness different countries' stance on human and civil rights. Latin America is a region I know relatively little about and so I am looking forward to learning more about the area. In the future I hope to be employed in a human rights related field and so I hope this class will be a good starter course to send me in the right direction. See you all Monday--cheers.