International Day for the Right to the Truth Concerning Human Rights Violations and for Dignity of Victims 2022

                      Last Thursday 24th of March all over the world was celebrated the fight for justice, truth and for dignity for the victims of human rights violations. This post is a summary of three articles. The first was published at https://www.ecdhr.org/?p=1494. The second was published at at https://www.oas.org/fr/CIDH/jsForm/File=/en/iachr/media_center/PReleases/2022/061.asp. The third was published at https://peacehumanity.org/projects-and-activities/raising-awareness/                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         As the world celebrates the International Day for the Right to the Truth Concerning Human Rights Violation and for the Dignity of Victims, the European Centre for Democracy and Human Rights (ECDHR) recognise the fundamental importance of continuously shining a light on the systematic human rights violations in countries which often go unacknowledged and unpunished. "The people have a right to the truth as they have a right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness," Epictetus (55-135). On this 24th of March, the ECDHR joins the world and welcomes this recognition of the unique suffering of victims of human rights violations, not only at the time of abuses, but long after as they seek truth, acknowledgement, and justice. This commemorative day was established in 2010 by the General Assembly of the U.N., who acknowledged the importance of "promoting the memory of victims of gross and systematic human rights violations and the importance of the right to truth and justice. This international day also seeks to pay tribute to those who have fought relentlessly, sometimes to the death, to ensure the respect of human rights for all. The right to truth is a concept often invoked in the case of grave human rights abuses and refers to the explicit right of victims and their relatives to know the full truth of what transpired, under which circumstances, and by whose hands. While the concept finds its roots in the 1970-80s in the context of widespread enforced disappearances in Latin American dictatorships of the time, it was explicitly referred to in a 2005 Resolution by the U.N. Commission on Human Rights who recognised its importance and potential to contribute to ending impunity. It was further explored in a 2006 report by the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, where it was pronounced as an "inalienable and autonomous right", linked to, but distinct from, the State duty to protect human rights, conduct effective investigations, and ensure remedy and reparations. Truth after human rights violations is paramount. Not only does it enable victims and their relatives to come to terms with their abuses, but it also provides them with access to effective reparations and remedy. When the abuses are clearly documented, the victim will be able to benefit from care and support for their psychological trauma, and the perpetrators may be identified and prosecuted. Truth is equally essential in ending the cycle of impunity by tearing down the all-too-common narratives propagated by the perpetrators or the government, namely that victims, especially human rights defenders, as "terrorists" or "enemies of the state". Human rights abuses in some countries are systematic and human rights defenders as well as national and international organisations continue to fight to amplify the voices of victims and communicate their experiences to the international community. However, remains a deep-seated culture of inpunity in some countries. Official bodies charged with investigating allegations of violations have generally been unable or unwilling to properly investigate these cases. On this 24th of March, the ECDHR takes the opportunity to reinforce its commitments to ending the cycle of impunity and fighting for the respect of human rights for all. The ECDHR upholds this commitment to the right to truth every day, and we urge the international community to add their poweful voice to advocate for justice and reparations for victims.                                                                                                                                                               On the International Day for the Right to the Truth Concerning Human Rights Violations and for the Dignity of Victims, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) and the U.N. Special Rapporteur on the Promotion of Truth, Justice, Reparation and guarantees of non-recurrence remind States in the Americas of their obligation to commemorate, preserve and publicize the historical truth concerning serious rights violations. The IACHR and the Special Rapporteur call for the development of public policies on memory based on documentary and testimonial evidence and designed with the participation of victims and civil society. The IACHRand the Special Rapporteur are concerned about rollbacks including censorship of historically valuable documents and cultural initiatives and about the destruction of or difficulty in accessing archives and other evidence that is relevant to establish and preserve the historical truth. The IACHR and the U.N. Special Rapporteur warn States of their international obligations to retrieve, preserve and publicize the historical truth concerning human rights violations. They therefore call on States to protect the memory legacy and to refrain from adopting initiatives or fostering discourse that disregard the voices of victims or revictimize them.                                                                                                                                                                                                The State is under the obligation to combat the situation of impunity by all means, as it fosters chronic recidivism of human rights violations and total defenselessness of the victims and of their next of kin, who have the right to know the truth about the facts, this right to the truth, when it is recognized and exercised in a concrete situation, constitutes an important means of reparation therefore, the right to the truth generates an expectation of the victims, which the State must satisfy. In addition to the relatives of the victims directly affected by a human rights violation, the societyas a whole also is entitled to the right to be duly informed. The entire society has the right, which can not be given up to know the truth about what has occurred, as well as the reasons and ciscunstances in which crimes came to be committed, in order to avoid these incidents recurring in the future.              

140th Birthday of James Joyce - Part II

                       This post is a summary of three articles. The first was published at  https://publishing.cdlib.org/ucpressebooks/viewdocId=ft896nb5qw&chunk.id=d0e399&toc.id=&bran. The second was published athttps://www.cambridge.org/core/books/abs/value-of-james-joyce/significance-of-the-ordinary-in-dubliners-portraitulysses/4836CF07CB1A395BC09701A9ACAFD050. The third was published at   https://ezrajames.medium.com/james-joyce-and-the-meaning-of-ulysses-22d8ca1857b7

                Although we may be unable to define in any doctrinal manner Joyce's politics, we can at least set the contours of his political consciousness from the evidence of the books he wrote. Of course, we must content ourselves less with specifics and more with the general tone and direction of his political thinking. From such an overview, I believe we must concur with Lionel Trilling's judgment that Joyce demonstrates in Ulysses in particular sympathy for progressive social ideas. Joyce ought to be seen as a political liberal: tolerant, democratic, pacific, nonideological, protective of individual liberties, yet, committed to social and familial responsabilities. He was an attentive, sympathetic follower of developments among anarchist and socialist thinkers. His diffidence on the subject may be attributable to his distrust of political solutions to complicated social problems, a distrust wrought of the years of violence and frustration experienced by political movements in his own country. He may have avoided political theorizing for the very reason that he could not accept the bluntness and oversimplification that so often accompanied it. His own work demonstrates a fondness for the oblique and the ambiguous that, I believe, predisposed him against black and white theorical pronouncements. For many American critics, Joyce posed peculiar problems. In some respects, he was the paradigmatic European modernist: exiled, disengaged, seemingly indifferent to politics. Moreover, Joyce was the consummate stylist, adding elaborate allusive structures to his novels. Experimentation with language and the stream of consciousness technique were his artistic trademarks. At the same time, however, Joyce was a modernist with a difference. He had a distinctive naturalist strain in his writing and was quite capable of rendering a scene or a portrait with an exactitude reminiscent of Flaubert or Zola. In addition, Joyce's Irish background was petit bourgeois, and the subjects of his stories and novels belonged to this same class: lower-middle class Dubliners, poorly educated, generally unself-conscious and manipulated by prejudice or illusion. Joyce could exhibit a special sympathy for victims of prejudice or exclusion. He was interested in the life of ordinary people, their culture, their fears and aspirations.                                                                                Richard Ellman said it best: "Joyce's discovery, so humanistic that he would have been embarrassed to disclose it out of context, was that the ordinary is the extraordinary." In a 1920 letter to Carlo Linati, Joyce called Ulysses "the cycle of the human body as well as a little story of a day (life)." The representation of the ordinary thereby becomes one of the most important elements of Joyce's democratic impulse. By giving the figures of Dubliners, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, and Ulysses a keen specificity with respect to the banal activities and feelings of their everyday lives, he intensifies the vitality of what it means to be human. The ordinary therefore plays a number of roles in Joyce's fiction, nonwithstanding its complication by the perspectives produced by narration and the thoughts of its characters. Its most external manifestation can be found in the intimate connection between many of the settings in the work and their prototypes in the historical world of late 19th and early 20th century Dublin.                                                                                                                 What makes Ulysses, first published on February 2nd, 1922, the innovative masterpiece that it is has more to do with Joyce's conception of history and humanity than nay other meaning, turning into a more identifiable work of art. Every page becomes a scavenger hunt for purpose and references to more expansive ideas. In a way, they  serve as a portal to the past. In Ulysses, Joyce was attempting to capture the history of both the world and literature as seen through the eyes of his alter ego, Stephen Daedalus, and Leopold Bloom. To explore his ideas further, he conceived of a story which takes place during the entirety of one day in the city of Dublin, Ireland, on the cloudy and gloomy day of June 16th, 1904. The day will become a representative of the structure of time, and through the small explorations of each waking moment. Despite its interesting structure and function, Ulysses remains a very difficult and patient endeavor. Behind ever sentence there is a hidden literary reference. Joyce's interest in history and language are extrapolated to countless facets of life, and each one carries an important meaning promptly tying them to the collective experience of a culture. There is much left to be uncovered and more questions left to find, however. This only scratches the surface of Ulysses's depths, an intention originating from the book's very conception. When Joyce proudly expressed his books will be dissected by professors and students for hundreds of years. More than a hundred years after originally publishing, Ulysses remains a gem for any avid literary fan to adore and interpret. 

Putin Chose War. We Remain United with Ukraine.

              Watching the unnecessary destruction of bridges, roads, streets, buildings, etc and the murders of hundreds of innocent people in Ukraine, we have to ask ourselves if there was any evolution in the humankind in the last century. All of us have to become more radicals against the evil that still is trying to remain in the world. All kinds of violences are unnecessary and should be severely punished. We must fight more for human rights, justice and peace in the world, we can't stay indifferent to the suffering caused by those that think they are unaccountable. Another result from this stupid war will be the increase of spending in weapons, something that should not happen. This post is a summary of two articles. The first with the incomplete title above was published at  https://www.gov.uk/government/news/our-strength-is-our-unity-putin-chose-war-we-remain-united-with-ukraine. The second was published at https://cepa.org/the-west-can-do-more-to-help-ukraine/

              This is a dangerous moment for freedom-loving people around the world. By  launching his brutal assault on the people of Ukraine, Vladimir Putin has also committed an assault on the principles that uphold global peace and democracy. But the people of Ukraine are resilient and we will continue to support the Ukrainian people as they defend their country. By choosing to pay for a war instead of investing in the needs of Russians, Putin's invasion of Ukraine will be a strategic failure for the Kremlin and ravage the future of the Russia people. The world is taking action to hold Russia accountable. As a result of unprecedented global sanctions coordination, Canada, the U.S., the U.K., the E.U., and Japan have removed have removed Russian banks from the SWIFT system. After Putin began his invasion, the ruble hit its weakest point in history, and the Russia stock market plunged. In response to Putin's war of choice, the vast majority of countries have stood by Ukraine and its people, and countries continue to support them economically, politically and defensively. Measures have been implemented to welcome Ukrainians who have fled the conflict and huge humanitarian aid programs have been launched to reduce the suffering of the displaced. Russia justify its military aggression by falsely claiming the need to stop "genocide" in Ukraine. We saw Russia use these tactics before, when they invaded Ukraine in 2014 and Georgia in 2008. Putin's goal of dividing the international community has failed. In the face one of the most significant challenges to democratic ideals since World War II, we have joined together in solidarity. Putin has failed to undermine our shared belief in the fundamental right of sovereign nations to choose their destiny. Putin's aggression against Ukraine will cost Russia profoundly, both economically and strategically. The Russian people deserve better from their government than the immense cost to their future that this invasion has precipitated. Liberty, democracy, and human dignity are forces far more powerful than fear and oppression. In the contest between democracy and autocracy, between sovereignty and subjugation, make no mistake: Freedom  will prevail.                                                                                                              Germany is increasing its defense spending to over 2% of GDP. All NATO countries should now see the necessity and follow Germany's lead. It seemed from his March 1st speech to the Senate that Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi intends to follow suit. We have also learned that, like in 1939, appeasement and leading from behind does not work and merely whets the agressor's appetite. What we are seeing today is the result of many years of appeasing the megalomaniac Vladimir Putin in Crimea, Donbas, Georgia, Syria, Moldova, and Transnistria. Only resolve and courage are successful in the face of unwarranted aggression. The U.S. and its Western allies should be imposing more sanctions against Russia. It was also encouraging to see the U.S., Canada, E.U., the U.K., and others (now approaching 40 nations) closing their airspace to all Russian flights. More military and humanitarian aid must be delivered to Ukraine immediately. The U.S. did not blink in the face of Russian threats after the World War II and kept Berlin open as a symbol of freedom and democracy. The U.S. and its allies should not blink now and should keep Ukraine and its capital open. Putin threatens the world with weapons of mass destruction if he is not appeased. He has menaced Sweden, Finland, the Baltic states, Moldova, and others. A cogent proactive plan to address this global threat is necessary. Sanctions relief should only be considered after the good and decent people of Russia rise up and remove the crazed criminal dictator. We have already seen protests against Putin in St. Petersburg and other Russia cities. Putin needs to be tried for crimes against humanity.

140th Birthday of James Joyce

                A little more than a month ago, precisely on 2nd of February, the Irish writer James Joyce would complete 140 years old. So this post is a tribute to him. His innovative style of writing still influences many writers and his political activism always for democray and against coercive ideologies such as, nationalism, fascism, comunism was very important. This post is a summary of two articles. The first was published at  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Joyce. The second was  published at    https://www.theschooloflife.com/thebookoflife/james-joyce/

                 James Augustine Aloysius Joyce (1882-1941) was an Irish novelist, short story writer, poet and literary critic. He contributed to the modernist movement and is regarded as one of the most influential and important writers of the 20th century. Joyce's novel Ulysses (1922) is a landmark in which the episodes are in a variety of literary styles, most famously stream of consciousness. Other well-known works are the short-story Dubliners (1914), and the novels  A portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916) and Finnegans Wake (1939). Joyce was born in Dublin into a middle-class family. A brilliant student, he graduated at University College in Dublin in 1902. In 1904, he met his future wife Nora Barnacle and they move to Trieste, working as an English teacher. In Trieste, he began publishing his books. During the World War II, he lived in Zurich and started working on Ulysses. After the war, he briefly returned to Trieste and then moved to Paris in 1920, which became his residence until 1940. Many writers, film-makers and other artists have been influenced by his stylistic innovations, such as his meticulous attention to detail, use of interior monologue, wordplay, and the transformation of traditional plot and character development. Throughout his life, Joyce stayed actively interested in politics. Joyce's direct engagement in politics was strongest during his time in Trieste, when he submitted newspaper articles, gave lectures, and wrote letters advocating for Ireland's independence from British rule. His novels address many political issues. Ulysses has been read as a novel critiquing the effect of English colonialism on the Irish people. Finnegans Wake has been read as a work that investigates the divisive issues of politics and the coercive oppression of nationalism and fascism. Joyce's work still has a profound influence on contemporary culture. Its emphasis on the details of everyday life have opened up new possibilities of expression for authors.                                                                                                                                                                                                  James Joyce is one of the most revered writers in the English language and a central figure in the history of the novel. He is still hugely important to us because of his devotion to some crucial themes: the idea of the grandeur of ordinary life, and his determination to portray what actually goes through our heads moment by moment (what we now know as stream of consciousness). 1914 turned out to be Joyce's year of breakthrough when a publisher in London finally decided to bring out his book of short stories, Dubliners which had been rejected, and the American poet, Ezra Pound, arranged to get his novel, A Portrait of the Artist, serialised. This was followed by the serialisation of Ulysses in 1918, the book which made Joyce's name around the world. Joyce's principle work Ulysses is named after the most dramatic adventure story the ancient Greeks handed down to civilisation. But the major character of Joyce's novel is not a warrior. He is, instead, quite kindly and quite foolish man called Leopold Bloom. He works in the advertising industry, he is married (but his wive is having an affair). He is a bit of an outsider in Dublin and there are various humiliations which he has to put up with all the time. He is unlike a traditional hero, but he is representative of our average, unimpressive, fragile, but rather likeable every day selves. Joyce treats Leopold with respect and immense interest, he is someone (Joyce suggest) we should learn from and try in certain ways to be like, just as in the ancient world, Ulysses was held up as an inspiring model of resourceful and brave conduct. We follow Leopold for a whole day as he wanders around Dublin, we see him having lunch, etc. He worries about his relationship with his wife and daughter, he has various conversations. Joyce is saying that the apparently little things that happen in daily life (eating, feeling sorry for someone, feeling sorry for oneself, getting embarrassed) aren't really little things at all. If we look at them through the right lens they are revealed as serious, deep and fascinating. Our own lives are just as interesting as those of the traditional heroes, but we are less good at appreciating them. The helpful lens is supplied initially by Joyce's novel, but ideally we should internalise it and make it our own: we should accept ourselves as minor legitimate heroes of our own dignified lives. Joyce, like other modernist describers of stream of consciousness is suggesting that if we knew more about what others and ourselves really thought and felt we'd have a clearer sense of what it means to be human; and we'd also perhaps be slower to anger, we'd love more and hate less. We'd be more curious about the apparently strange byways our own minds, and those of others are endlessly following. James Joyce spent the greater part of his life writing. But what is art for? In The Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Joyce gets his spokesman Stephen to have an answer. He follows a traditional route, using two terms from the medieval philosopher St. Thomas Aquinas. The first is Integritas: This means that an artist is someone who attempts to grasp the true integrity and identity of what is being studied. It might be a tree, a moment of history or the life of a fictional character. We don't normally do this, we don't concentrate on what a person is saying or doing, or what moments around us really are. Art has the job of doing this for us, and teaching us to do so habitually. The second step for an artist is to bring Claritas (or clarity): which means shining the lighting of reason into the murkier parts of experience and life. Art, as Joyce sees it, should be a corrective to our natural, but dangerou, blindness and inattention. If it sometimes puzzles us, we know, says Joyce, that it's doing its job, it's awakening us to what we have quickly grown blind to.