We all have to fight for justice with human rights violations, because unpunished violations could easily being used to put fear in people with dystopian consequences. We can not let this happens. We all must fight for our most basic human rights and demand justice and reparations when they are violated. Violations bring very stressful situations, depression, humiliation, insomnia, bullying, anxiety, and many others mental and physical disturbs to the victims. And also harms to political, democratic and social order. So reparations is only a part of the remedies for such suffering and terrible situation. So important as basic human rights is the political right to participate in a election. All human rights defenders are political activists, because there is not democracy without human rights and there is not human rights without democracy. This post is a summary of a review of the book published in 2010 with the title above at https://networks.h-net.org/node/6148/reviews/7304/seveso-cardenas-human-rights-latin-america-politics-terror-and-hope. The second summary is a short content of the same book published at https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt3fhm05
Sonia Cardenas, a specialist on human rights, has three central concerns in her new book: the origins of human rights violations, the pathways to political reform, and the challenge of accountability in Latin America. The book starts with a short but useful explanation of the different types of human rights violations. Cardenas emphasizes that she is particularly interested in abuses against civil and political rights. This chapter also describes differences in abuses over time, provides a comparison of human rights violations in Latin America and the rest of the world. The chapter ends with summaries of the most prominent human rights abuses in Chile, Argentina, Peru, Brazil, Colombia, etc. Some of which are accompanied by short first-person accounts of human rights victims. Both chapters 3 and 4 offer an institutional analysis of the global system of human rights governance. The author shows how the work of international NGOs and local activists put pressure on governments abusing human rights. Chapter 5 addresses show the interactions among human rights activism, political legitimacy, and internal conflict. Transnational networks can and do both symbolic and material pressure. Finally, Cardenas closes her book with a review of the moral and ethical dilemmas faced by post-dictatorial governments in Latin America. She explains why accountability has been needed to construct solid democracies, yet has proven elusive and destabilizing at the same time. Survivors of torture and captivity often describe their experience as a seemingly impossible mix of terror and hope: agonizing pain, combined with an ardent wish for a better day. Studying human rights issues also entails an uncomfortable blend of terror and hope: terror at witnessing the betrayal of other human beings, and a restrained hope for greater justice. As observers, we can be simultaneously drawn to and repelled by human rights accounts. Stories of terror expose the darkest side of humanity while evoking empathy for the victims. Understanding why people are tortured or disappeared requires, at a minimum, stepping back and getting up close stepping back to identify key facts, getting up close to hear personal experiences of abuses. In this sense, description is a first step to prevention. Any attempt to explain and prevent human rights violations must be based on an accurate understanding of past and ongoing abuses. Which rights have been violated in the region? How have these abuses changed over time? Are there significant cross-national differences? Hoe does Latin America compare to other world regions? Huma rights violations do not just happen. They reflect particular choices made by specific individuals. Despite their frequency, both in Latin America and around the world, these choices can appear quite puzzling. It is not altogether clear why human rights abuses are even committed, especially in the face of intense international scrutiny. What is it that leads certain individuals to inflict pain and suffering on others? When human rights violations occur, people need forums where they can go to demand justice. Domestic legal courts and political institutions, however, can fail to provide human rights accountability. Perpetrators go unpunished, victims are not compensated, and the truth remains untold. Fortunately, in situations where human rights victims or activists have exhausted all domestic remedies, they can turn to international and regional forums. Internationally, the U.N. system provides several interlocking mechanisms for upholding human rights. Regionally, the Inter-American human rights system offers a range of possibilities for those seeking protection. Societies undergoing democratization must confront past human rights abuses sooner or later. Who was responsible for violations? Who should be held accountable now? Should truth be pursued at all costs? Even if it threatens a perhaps fragile stability? Can human rights and democracy thrive in the absence of a reconciliation? George Santayana, the philosopher and writer, famously rermarked at the turn of the twentieth century that "those who can not remember the past are condemned to repeat it" Confronting past human rights violations is not simply a matter of justice. It may be part of preventing future abuses. Latin Americans realized this in the 1980s and 1990s when they echoed the words proclaimed decades earlier, after the horrors of the Holocaust were exposed: Never Again. Noble intentions aside, it remains unclear just how much the region has overcome the human rights legacies of the past.+
No comments:
Post a Comment