Amnesty International Report 2017/2018

                  This post is a summary of the book with the title above published at  https://www.amnesty.org/download/Documents/POL1067002018ENGLISH.PDF

                  The Amnesty International Report 2017/2018 shines a light on the state of the world's human rights during 2017. The foreword, a survey of 159 countries from all regions document the struggle of many people to claim their rights, and the failures of governments to respect, protect and fulfil human rights. Yet, there are also glimpses of hard-won progress, demonstrating that the defence of human rights does yield positive developments. This report pays tribute to the human rights defenders who continue to fight for change, sometimes risking their own lives in the process. As we enter 2018, the year in which the Universal Declaration of Human Rights turns 70, it is abundantly clear that none of us can take any of our human rights for granted. We certainly can not take for granted that we will be free to gather together in protest or to criticize our governments. Neither can we take for granted that social security will be available when we are old or incapacitated; that our babies can grow up in cities with clean, breathable air; or that as young people we will leave school to find jobs that enable us to buy a home. The battle for human rights is never decisively won in any place or at any point in time. The frontiers shift continually, so there can never be room for complacency.  Faced with unprecedented challenges across the world, people have shown that their thirst for justice, dignity and equality will not be extinguished; they continue to find new and bold ways of expressing this, in 2017, this battle of values reached a new level of intensity. 2017 demonstrated the enduring willingness of people to stand up for their rights and for the values they want to see in the world. New and severe threats gave fresh oxygen to the spirit of protest. But the cost of speaking out against injustice continues to grow. In Turkey, the ruthless and arbitrary assault on civil society continued at a furious pace. China unleashed unprecedented crackdowns on individuals perceived to be critical of the government. Following large, widespread protests in Russia, hundreds of peaceful protesters and journalists were arrested. Across Africa, the intolerance of public protest was alarming apparent, from arbitrary bans in Angola and Chad, to heavy-handed crackdowns in the R.D.Congo, Togo and Uganda. In Venezuela, hundreds of people were arbitrarily detained and many more suffered the consequences of abusive force in response to public protesters. 2018 will mark 20years since the U.N. adopted the Declaration on Human Rights Defenders, which provides for their protection and support and encourages everyone to stand up for human rights. Yet two decades later, those who take up the mantle of defending human rights often face the gravest of consequences. Today, many of our most important public space exist online, where the tools for addressing emerging challenges have at times proved wholly inadequate to the task. The avalanche of online abuse, the incitement of hatred against minorities, drew weak and inconsistent responses from social media companies and scant action from government. The impact of "fake news" as a tool for manipulating public opinion was widely discussed throughout 2017. These concerns are compounded by the concentration of control in only a handful of companies over the information people view, and by the huge power asymmetry between individuals and the companies and governments who control vast amount of data. As we approach the 70th anniversary of the U.D.H.R., the challenge ahead is clear. This is the time to reclaim the essential idea of dignity of all people, to cherish those values, and demand that they become a foundation for policy-making. The artificial boundaries erected  by a politics of demonization lead us only towards conflict and brutality, a nightmarish vision of munanity governed by naked self-interest.  It is time for this to change. We must refuse to accept narratives of demonization and build instead a culture of solidarity. We must assert the right of all people to participate in building the societies to which they belong. And we must seek constructive answers, rooted in human rights, to anger and alienation that provide a ready context for toxic political narratives of blame. Huge numbers of people across the Americas region faced a deepening human rights crisis, fuelled by the downgrading of human rights in law, policy and practice, together with increasing use of the politics of division. Such regression exacerbated a lack of trust in the authorities and in institutions such as the justice systems, manifested in low levels of participation in elections and referendums. Rather than using human rights as a way to secure a more just and sustainable future, many governments fell back on tactics of repression, misusing their security forces and justice systems to silence dissent and criticism; allowing torture and other ill-treatment to go unpunished by failures in accountability and justice. Huge numbers of people fled their home to escape repression, violence, discrimination and poverty. Many suffered further abuses while in transit or upon reaching other countries in the region. At the Organization of American States (OAS) General Assembly, held in Cancún, Mexico, there was a clear lack of political leadership to address some of the region's most pressing human rights issues. After the previous year's financial crisis, the OAS took a step forward by doubling the budget allocation for the Inter-American Court of Human Rights systems to hold states accountable for human rights violations. Impunity remained pervasive and a key driver of human rights violations and abuses in many countries. The extreme risks and dangers of defending human rights were apparent in numerous countries in the region, with human rights defenders facing threats, harassment and attacks in bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Ecuador, Honduras, Mexico and Paraguay. Brazil's human rights record was examined for the third time under the U.N. UPR process. Brazil received 246 recommendations, including on indigenous people's rights to land; killings by the police; torture in prisions; and protection of human rights defenders. In Brazil, human rights defenders, especially those in rural areas, continued to be threatened, attacked and killed. The states of Pará and Maranhão were among those where defenders were at highest risk. Budget cuts and lack of political will to prioritize the protection of human rights defenders resulted in the dismantling of the National Programme of Protection, leaving hundreds exposed to a higher risk of attacks. Conflicts over land and invasion by illegal loggers and mine workers into indigenous peoples' territory continued, resulting in several episodes of violence against indigenous people. The courts undermined the institutional framework, introdicing further delays in the already slow land demarcation process, aggravating conflicts over land. In Venezuela security forces continued to use excessive and undue force to disperse protests. Hundreds of people were arbitrarily detained. There were many reports of torture and other ill-treatment. The judicial system continued to be used to silence dissidents. Human rights defenders were harassed and subject to raids. The food and health crisis continued to worsen. The number of Venezuelans seeking asylum in other countries increased.

World Press Freedom Day 2018

                Ten days ago, precisely on 3rd of May, All over the world was celebrated the freedom to speak the truth, to talk about things that matter. This post is a summary of three articles. The first was publushed at https://en.unesco.org/news/world-press-freedom-day-2018-keeping-power-check-media-justice-and-rule-law. The second was published at http://www.ipsnews.net/2018/04/world-press-freedom-day-2018/. The third was published at https://www.rappler.com/move-ph/201618-campus-journalists-world-press-freedom-day-2018. The fourth was published at  https://webfoundation.org/2018/05/keeping-power-in-check-media-justice-and-the-rule-of-law/

               May 3 will mark the 25th anniversary of World Press Freedom Day (WPFD) whose flagship celebration, organized by UNESCO and the government of Ghana, will be held in Accra. The theme chosen for this year is "Keeping Power in Check: Media, justice and the Rule of Law." It explores the interaction between the judiciary and the media, and their complementary roles in fostering transparency, accountability and governance. Dozens of WPFD events are being organized around the world. The programme of the International Conference in Accra highlights the media's contribution to government accountability and to the transparency of elections. Ways to reinforce the ability of the judiciary to protect press freedom will be assessed along with the risk posed by attempts to regulate online speech. On the occasion of World Press Freedom Day, UNESCO will launch its flagship publications on press freedom: the World Trends in Freedom of Expression and Media Development and Re-shaping Cultural Policies. An exhibition of works by this year's winners of UNESCO's annual World Press Photo Contest will be on show during the celebration. Independent news organizations come together, launching a new campaign, Read More, Listen More,  for WPFD urging everyone to look beyond their usual information channels and seek out news sources that offer a different perspective. Meanwhile, video messages by high profile journalists, artists and advocates will highlight the inportance of press freedom and freedom of expression from various perspectives at a time when misinformation, censorship, harassment and violence against journalists put new strains on fundamental human rights.

              The theme for the 25th celebration of World Press Freedom Day is "Keeping Power in Check: Media, Justice and the Rule of Law," focussing on the importance of an enabling legal environment for press freedom, and gives attention to the role of an independent judiciary in ensuring legal guarantees for press freedom and prosecution of crimes against journalists. Only 13% of the world population enjoys a free press, where coverage of politics is robust, the safety of journalists is guaranteed, and state intrusion in media affairs is minimal. Political and economic transformations of some countries alongside with their technological developments place new restrictions on press freedom. Governments of these countries tend to implement restrictive laws and cersorship on freedom of press, usually justifying these actions as a necessary tool for national security against terrorism. Since 2000, annual incarceration of journalists has continued to increase globally, with many of them never seeing inside of a courtroom. In 2017, 81 journalists died whilst committed to their jobs, 66% of them were murdered. According to the 2017 World Press Freedom Index, violence and restrictions against media freedom has risen by 14% in the period of 2012-2017. At the same time, since 2016, media freedom in countries where it was ranked as "good" decreased by 2.3% Among the countries that suffered the largest declines on the report's in 2016 were Poland, Turkey, Hungary, Bolivia, Serbia, and R.P.Congo.

              For World Press Freedom Day, several campus journalists from different universities in Manila shared their thoughts on why press freedom is important in an era of fake news and disinformation. "As a student, I have been a managing editor of a newspaper, and this is how I saw the world now, how I started my passion in communication," Aica Escarez told. "This is where I saw that there are lots of problems that can be addressed by opening the eyes of the people," she added. This was echoed by Franco Luna, a campus journalist from Manila University, "I have seen how  journalism triggers critical thinking on campus, freedom of the press and freedom of expression help people make informed decisions by themselves," Luna added. Several students also noted how journalism can shape public opinion, and how this allow them to think critically about issues that are important to the country. "Journalism encourage citizens to act according to their democratic rights," said Josiah Antonio. Another student, Luis Foronda said, "I believe that press freedom provides a critical perspective of our history and of our current events." Another campus journalist, Gerard Guillermo, also said that journalism and the media are among the pillars of a democracy. "If we do not give it sufficient importance or emphasis, we will see the continuous erosion of democracy," He said. For Flint Gorospe, a campus journalist from Polytechnic of the Philippines, press freedom is important in unveiling the truth. He said, "I believe that press freedom is important because it helps unveil the truth about events in our country especially now that fake news and spreading disinformation is becoming common practice for a lot of people."

               My name is Nnenna. I come from the internet. I work with the organisation founded by and on the principles set forth by Tim Berners Lee, the inventor of the World Wide Web. At the WWW Foundation, we work with all stakeholder to keep the web a beneficial, open and safe space for evryereryone. With the Alliance for Affordable Internet (A4AI), we consistently seek good practices to make broadband connectivity affordable. For the past few years that I have been on the board of Pen+Bytes, a media organisation that works for the enhancement of governance through citizen participation. I am also an Advisory Council member of European Digital Rights (EDRi). It has been a challenge, a rewarding challenge. Whether we are charing by physical hand-over or by clicking a button, I can say one thing: that the people from the internet and people from the press share the same principles. We want: Freedom; of information and of disseminating the benefits of information and knowledge.  Independence; from political, religious or corporate pressure. Safety; to go about our daily work and lives freely. Plurality and diversity; especially as we now live in a global village.  Gender balance and social justice; so we leave no one behind. The web has opened up journalism to new writers, editors and outlets. And the potential audience for journalism has grown as more people become connected, consuming more media than ever before. But this window of opportunity could close if we do not fight to keep information flowing and the web free and open. Traditional media, new media, online platform, face the same threats. We face government crackdown on free expression. We all face the threat of fake news. It is only when information is credible and reliable that papers and platforms will truly empower people.

200th Birthday of Karl Marx

                  Yesterday the German writer Karl Marx would complete 200 years old, so this post is a tribute to him. He influenced and was influenced so much by literature that there is a literary criticism with his name. He was a studious of Balzac's works. His writings helped the awareness against exploitation and injustice, and brought the politics and solidarity to the workers, until then totally excluded from political participation and opinion. This post is a summary of three article. The first was published at  https://www.britannica.com/biography/Karl-Marx. The second was published at http://neoenglishsystem.blogspot.com.br/2010/12/influence-of-karl-marx-on-modern.html. The third was published at https://books.google.com.br/books?id=Z63PgY7W1lkC&pg=PA117&lpg=PA117&dq. The fourth was published at  

 http://shodhganga.inflibnet.ac.in/bitstream/10603/142174/9/09_chapter%202.pdf

                Karl Marx (1818-1883) was a German sociologist, historian and economist. He published with Friedrich Engels "The Communist Manifesto,"  the most celebrated pamphlet in the history of the socialist movement. He also published the movement most important book, Das Capital.                                                                                                                                                                             Marx and Freud have influenced life and literature in the 20th century more deeply and extensively than the earlier great thinkers and scientists like Copernicus and Darwin influenced the life and literature in their own respective areas. Marx and Freud had very different fields and orientations. While Marx was basically a social philosopher, Freud was the founder of psychoanalysis. Marx's philosophy is known as "dialectical materialism." No place is given by him to the soul or the spirit. According to him, religion is the opium of the masses. He adopted the Hegelian dialectic to give a materialist account of social formations. His concept to class conflict is a basic point. Conflict arise from the desire to control the means of production. So far as English literature is concerned, Marx's impact manifests itself in four different ways: 1) A greater concern for the poor exploited masses, without any overt projection of the Marxian ideology. Even non-Marxian writers tend to give a greater representation to the working class in their works. In the novels of Arnold Bennett, for example, we have mostly working-class heroes. 2) Use of literature as a means of communistic propaganda, See, for example, the English Socialist theatre of today. 3) A tendency to subvert the conventional literary forms by condemning them as constructs of the bourgeoisie. 4) A reaction against Marxian ideology which seems to encourage statism as against the concept of the sanctity and freedom of the individual and abject materialism as against higher values of life. Of all the literary genres it is the novel that allows an author to represent life the most comprehensive. There have been practically no English novels based on Marxian theories like the materialistic basis and class struggle, there have been novels representing the life of the poor, exploited classes with all its unrelieved gloom. Two novelists who wrote such novels with some distinctiveness were George Gissing and George Moore. Moore unlike Gissing, was a rare combination of an uncompromising realist and a refined aesthete. George Orwell's well-known novels, Animal Farm and 1984 are satires on Socialism and Stalinism. The former has the form of an allegorical fable. The latter came after World War II. This novel is a vision of a world ruled by dictatorship of the Stalinist style, taken to an extreme in which private life and independent thought are all but eradicated by surveillance and propaganda. Marxian thought has had a impact on literary criticism all over the world. To Marx, literature was only part of the "superstructure" of which the "base" was formed by economic conditions and dispensation of a society. In its purity Marxian criticism tends to be simplistic if not severely blinkered. But it has its own insights to offer. The Marxian school has in its ranks such great critics as Lukacs, Walter Benjamin, Fredric Jameson, and Macherey, to name just a few. Several latter-day critics have tried to relate Marxism with Structuralism, psychoanalytic theories and even Reconstruction criticism, leading to new insights if not comprehensive systems.

               Let us try, to imagine what effect Balzac's work actually had or could have had on Marx, as both a reader and a writer. Marx's interest in reading Balzac's fiction need not have been limited to its uses for "illustrating" his scientific analyses and historical investigations. Thus, it can not be simply a question of speculating on how Balzac's fiction provide Marx with a "dramatic medium" for representing history, an "unconscious depiction" of social reality. History becomes accessible and assimilable to Marx not despite but through Balzac. The assertion of Marx's "Balzacian" is akin to attempts to approach these issues fron the other direction, that is, from a perspective that tries to preserve the critical functions of Marxism within literary analysis generally, and in particular to discern the dimensions of a Marxist or political unconscious in Balzac's own literary creations. Both Marx and Balzac are concerned with in the practice of their respective crafts. For them, it is not a question simply of trying to gain access to historical reality as or through texts, fictional or factual, but particularly of discerning the fictionality of our sense of reality, as well as the sense of reality that may be communicated through our fictions. 

               Marxism is understood as a philosophy of history. It is an attempt to formulate a scientific theory of human societies. It suggest a programme of political action for bringing about change in society by making free from explotation and tiranny. However, It should be remembered that Marx himself was aman of letters and a scientific critic. In order to understand the Marxist view of literature, it is necessary to take into account the relationship between literature and life, literature and society and literature and social, political, and economic conditions. In this regard, the terms like 'base and superstructure', 'ideology' ans 'socialist realism' are of a greater help here for having a clearer sense of the relationship between Marxism and literature. Marx held a view that the social relations are bound up with the way they produce their material life. The capitalistic class owns the means of production and the proletarian class whose labour the capitalist buys for his own profit. Georg Lukacs was a Marxist critic. He represents a flexible view of the role of ideology. In his opinion each great work of literature creates its own world which is unique and seemingly distinct from everyday reality. However, great realists like Balzac and Tolstoy who are called as 'masters of realism' bring life the greatest possible richness of the objective conditions of life and create typical characters who manifest to an essential tendencies and determinants of their epoch. These novelists become successful in producing a fictional world which is a reflection of life in the greatest concreteness and clarity and with all its motivating contradictions. Thus, the fictional world of such writers becomes harmonious with Marx conception of the real class-conflict, economic and social contradictions, and the alienation of the individual. Lukacs has made use of the major critical concepts like 'totality' and 'world historical'. These concepts are essentially Hegelian. Thus, for Lukacs, the realist writer penetrates through the accidental phenomena of social life for making open the essences of a condition by selecting and combining them into a total form and putting them in concrete experience. He further remarks that the rise of realists writers takes place from a history which is visibly in the making. For example, the rise of historical novel as a genre at a point when there was a revolutionary turbulence in the early 19th century. He says that writers like Scott, Balzac, and Tolstoy can produce realist art because they are present at the tumultuous birth of an historical epoch. They are engaged with the vividly exposed conflicts and dynamics of their societies. Here, the basis of their formal achievement is the historical context.

GDP Growth 2017

            This post is a summary of the book with the title of, "World Economic Outlook - April 2018 - Cyclical Upswing, Structural Change." Published in April of 2018  at  http://www.imf.org/en/Publications/WEO/Issues/2018/03/20/world-economic-outlook-april-2018

            The global economic upswing that began around mid-2016 has become broader and stronger. For most countries, current favorable growth rates will not last. Policymakers should seize this opportunity to bolster growth, make it more durable, and equip their governments better to counter the next downturn. Global growth seems on track to reach 3.9% this year. Helping to drive this output acceleration is faster growth in the Euro area, Japan, China, and the U.S., all of which grew above expectations last year, along with some recovery in commodity exporters. Along with China, several other developing economies will also do better this year than in our past projections, that group includes Brazil, Mexico, and emerging Europe. Growth this broad based and strong has not been seen since the 2010 bounce back. The expansion will help to dispel some remaining legacies of the crisis. Other aftereffects of the crisis seem more durable, however, including higher debt levels and widespread public skepticism about policymakers' capacity and willingness to generate robust and inclusive growth. That skepticism will only be reinforced, with negative political consequences, if economic policy does not rise to the challenge of enacting reforms and building fiscal buffers. Success in such efforts would strengthen medium-term growth, spread its benefits lower in the income distribution, and build resilience to the hazards that lie ahead. Monetary policy might tighten sooner than expected if excess demand emerges, a notable possibility in the U.S., where fiscal policy has turned much more expansive even as the economy has neared full employment. Financial tightening will stress highly indebted countries, firms, and households, including in emerging economies. Population growth, age distribution, and other structural employment trends are critical for understanding growth, investment, and productivity. Chapter 2 focuses on labor force in advanced economies. Chapter 3 focuses on the declining share of manufacturing employment globally and, most dramatically in advanced economies. This structural transformation, driven by technology advances as well as globalization. Chapter 4 studies the process through which innovative activity and technological know-how spread across national borders. Cross-border knowledge flows from technological leaders to poorer countries have historically been drivers of income convergence. Now, the emergence of China and Korea as leaders in some sectors offers the promise of positive repercussions for others. International trade and competition, this chapter suggests, promote global knowledge diffusion and thus provide an important channel through which all countries can benefit. Global growth is on an upswing, but favorable conditions will not last forever, and now is the moment to get ready for leaner times. Readiness requires not only cautious and forward-looking management of monetary and fiscal policy, but also careful attention to financial stability. Also necessary are structural and tax policies that raise potential output, including by investing in people and ensuring that the fruits of growth are widely shared. In many developing economies, recent currency stability have helped keep a lid on core inflation. Inflation is around historical lows in Brazil and Russia, where demand has been recovering from the deep contractions of 2015-16, while it has picked up in India. In brazil, legislating social security reform remains a priority to ensure that spending is consistent with the constitutional fiscal rule and to guarantee long-term fiscal sustainability. Making use of the recent strengthening of activity to improve the primary balance over the short term would complement the overall consolidation strategy. Following a deep recession in 2015-16, Brazil's economy returned to growth in 2017 ( 1% ) and is expected to improve to 2.3% in 2018 and 2.5% in 2019 on the track of stronger private consumption and investment. Inflation in Brazil is expected to remain subdued in the range 3-4% in 2018 as output gaps gradually close, with growth continuing to recover from recession. Inflation is expected to rise over the medium term, with firmer core inflation and the projected modest pickup in commodity prices, but to remain at levels well below the average of the past decade. While the negative side effects of globalization have received much attention in public debates, the chapter highlights that there are upsides too: globalization helps the diffusion of knowledge and technology. From a policy perspective, greater global interconnectedness is thus key to maximizing inward technology diffusion and boosting economies' growth potential. But assimilating and productively using foreign knowledge often requires investments in R&D and in human capital. Below the GDP growth in 2017 from the greatest growth to the lowest of each list. The first list is for countries in the Americas and the other is for the rest of the world.

GDP 2017 in PanAmerican countries                                 Rest of the World

Panama   5.4%                                                                  Ethiopia   10.9%          

Nicaragua   4.9%                                                               Ireland    7.8%

Honduras   4.8%                                                               Senegal   7.2%

Paraguay   4.3%                                                                Romania   7.0%

Bolivia   4.2%                                                                   China   6.9%

Costa Rica   3.2%                                                              India   6.7%

Uruguay   3.1%                                                                 Tanzania   6.0%

Canada   3.0%                                                                   Pakistan   5.3%

Argentina   2.9%                                                               Indonesia   5.1%

Ecuador   2.7%                                                                 Poland   4.6%

Peru   2.5%                                                                       Spain   3.1%

U.S.A.   2.3%                                                                   South Korea   3.1%

Mexico   2.0%                                                                  Portugal   2.7% 

Colombia   1.8%                                                              Germany   2.5%

Chile   1.5%                                                                     Australia   2.3%

Brazil   1.0%                                                                    France   1.8%

Trinidad Tob.   -2.6%                                                       U.K.   1.8%   

Venezuela   -14.0%                                                          Italy   1.5%

                                                                                         Russia   1.5%

180th Birthday of Henry Adams

                 A little more than two months ago, the American writer Henry Adams would complete his 180th birthday. So, this post is a tribute to him. As a journalist he fought to expose corruption. And as a writer he brought corruption and many moral dilemmas to literature. This post is a summary of three articles. The first was published at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Adams. The second was published at  http://www.claremont.org/crb/article/the-education-of-henry-adams/. The third was published at  https://www.commentarymagazine.com/articles/on-the-horizon-henry-adams-skeptic-faith-in-democracy/

                Henry Brooks Adams (1838-1918) was an American historian, writer and member of the Adams political family, being descended from two U.S. Presidents. As a young Harvard graduate, he was secretary to his father, Charles Francis Adams, Ambassador in London, a posting that had much influence on him, both through experience of wartime diplomacy and absorption in English culture, especially the works of John Stuart Mill. After the American Civil War, he became a noted political journalist who entertained America's foremost intellectuals in Washington and Boston. He was best known for his "History of the United States During the Administrations of Thomas Jefferson and James Madison," a 9-volume work, praised for its literary style. His posthumously published memoirs, "The Education of Henry Adams,"  won the Pulitzer Prize and went on to be named by the renowed publisher of classics Moder LIbrary, as the top English-language nonfiction book of the 20th century. His grandfather, John Quincy Adams, and great-grandfather, John Adams, had been U.S. Presidents. In 1868, Henry Adams returned to the U.S. and settled in Washington, DC, where he began working as a journalist. Adams saw himself as a traditionalist longing for the democratic ideal of the 18th century. Accordingly, he was keen on exposing political corruption in his jounalism. In 1870, Adams was appointed professor of medieval history at Harvard, a position he held until his retirement. In 1872, Clover Hooper and he were married in Berverly, Massachusetts, and spent their honeymoon in Europe.

                The opening passages of "The Education of Henry Adams," presage the subject that would preoccupy Adams for the rest of his life: the intellectual as spectator as well as inquirer; the inadequacy of education and the passing of the Republic; the sense of life as chance, coincidence, and as indeterminate and unpredictable as the shuffle of the deck; politics as the scheme of those who would control the deck; the omnipresence of power acting upon people without their consent, history as the movement of events without rational causes or moral purposes. The title is as ironic and playful as it is bitter. Many chapters of "The Education of H.A."  deal with politics. The author transports us to the nation's capital in the pre-Civil War era, when Democrats and Whigs vied with each other over the pleasures of office, employing the rhetoric of classical republicanism not to restrain private interest for the sake of public virtue but simply to accuse the opposing party of corruption. Here anyone finds few traces of politics as the uplifting exercise in "civic humanism" and "participatory democracy" touted by many of today's scholars. In fact, Adams found democratic politics to be little more than "the systematic organization of hatreds." For Adams, power was not alien to freedom, for humankind both absorbed power and exercised it. "Man's function as a force of nature was to assimilate other forces as he assimilated food. He called it the love of power." Adams studied power because his ancestors had believed that they could tame it with the "machinery of government." Constitutions, however, deal only with power as a political phenomenon involving the legislature, the executive, and the judiciary. A century later young Adams had to confront new forms of big business, and new forms of energy and armaments based on developments in science and technology. Long before Michel Foucault critized Marxist for assuming that power expresses the rule of wealth, Adams lectured his brother Brooks: "You may abolish money and all its machinery, the power will still be there." The book is troubling to many readers, despite, or perhaps because of it brilliance. Writers on the left dismiss Adams as a male elitist, and they can hardly acknowledge that the American historian who died 90 years ago had sharper insights about power than do today's Marxists. Scholars on the right may find Adams too alienated from the timeless truths that thhey feel America needs on our culture of relativism. He was, after all, trying to explain why his great-grandfather, failed as the second president. The answer was that Jefferson won the election of 1800 by attacking Adams for enlarging the power of the national government and, once in office, proceeded to do the same thing, which meant that America would not be a simple, small, virtuous republic-Jefferson's dream-but an expansive commercial empire- Hamilton's vision and Jefferson's nightmare. My favorite sections in the book concern Adams's reflections on teaching, which he took so seriously that he lamented deeply his incapacity to impart any generalizations worthy of being called lessons, much less laws. "A teacher affects eternity. He can never tell where his influence stops." 

               The novel "Democracy,"  published in 1880, was a description of a ruling class with the Adamses left out. It appeared anonymously, created something of a sensation after its publication in England.  The heroine of Democracy is an intelligent, sensitive, earnest, and sharp-witted woman who performs the same role in the novel as Adams does in the other book Education. A young, attractive, and wealthy widow, who can be moved by neither the passion of love nor the greed of money. Mrs. Madeleine Lee decides that in Washington politics she might find the meaning of contemporary life. "She wanted to see with her own eyes the action of primary forces; to touch with her own hand the massive machinery of society; to measure with her own mind the capacity of the motive power. She was bent upon getting to the heart of the great American mystery of democracy and government." She not only gts to the heart of the mystery, but she very nearly captures by it, in the person of Mr. Ratcliffe, Senator from Illinois, known to his best friends and worst enemies.The story is reminiscent of the innocent maiden rescued by the fair-haired hero from the clutches of the dastarrdly villain. Except for the faintest skeletal resemblance of plot, however, there is nothing else in the novel to suggest the melodrama. In the flesh, indeed, it is more closely akin to some of the novels of Adam's good friend Henry James, as the perpicacious Mrs. Ward suggested. It also has the Jamesian instinct for irony and ambiguity, applied, however, not so much to personal relations as to the play of mind. Above all, it has that typical characteristic of James's novel: a complicated, even tortuous moral dilemma which must somehow be resolved in terms of the clear and certain principles of morality.That Ratcliffe's political behavior, like corruption in general, is immoral there is no doubt, but of the methods, motives, and even the principles of the reformers there is cinsiderable doubt. The audacity of the man astonishes Mrs. Lee. "Was it politics, that had caused this atrophy of the moral senses by disuse?" She wonders.  The requirements of the novel form may give a deceptively optimistic color to the end of the novel. Ratcliffe is exposed as evil, and Mrs. Lee's virtur, both personal and political, is preserved. In fact, however, it is the evidence of Adam's ironic sensibility that Ratcliffe's argument is unanswered.

International Day for the Right to the Truth Concerning Human Rights Violations and for the Dignity of Victims - Part II

             This post is a summary of four articles. The first was published at  http://un.org.au/2014/03/24/international-day-for-the-right-to-the-truth-concerning-gross-human-rights-violations-and-for-the-dignit. The second was published at  https://www.google.com.br/search?q=deaths+of+human+rights+defenders+in+brazil+in+2017&oq=deaths+of+human+rights+defenders+in+brazil+in+2017&aqs=chrome..69i57.18067j0j1&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-  The third was published at  https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/mar/16/the-guardian-view-on-the-of-brazilian-politicians-marielle-francos-legacy. The fourth was published at  https://theglobalamericans.org/2016/07/4325/.

            24th of March is the International Day foe the Right to the Truth Concerning Gross Human Rights Violations and for the Dignity of Victims. On this day in 1980, human rights defender Monsignor Oscar Romero, from El Salvador, was assassinated. In a study conducted in 2006, the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights concluded that the right to the truth about human rights violations is an inalienable and autonomous right, linked to the duty and obligation of the state to protect and guarantee human rights, to conduct effective investigations and to guarantee effective remedy and reparations. The study affirms that the right to the truth implies knowing the full and complete truth as to the events that transpired, their specific circunstances, and who participated in them, including knowing the circunstances in which the violations took place, as well as the reasons for them. In a 2009 report on the right to the truth, the Office of the U.N. high commissioner identified best practices for the effective implementation of this right, in particular practices relating to archives and records concerning violations of human rights, and programmes on the protection of witnesses and other persons involved in trials connected with such violations.

            At least 312 human rights activists were killed in 27 countries during 2017, according to the Front Line Defenders' annual report. "More than two-thirds of these, 67% of activists killed, were defending land, environmental and indigenous peoples' rights, nearly always in the context of mega projects, extractive industry and big business," FLD said in their Human Rights Defenders At Risk report. FLD said that many of them were predictable. Only 12% of reported deaths resulted in an arrest and 84% of victims received at least one targeted death threat. "Around the world, defenders continue to tell us that government officials refuse to respond to requests for protection following death threats to activists," said FLD Executive Director Andrew Anderson. "Killings almost always occur following a series or pattern of threat, indicating that if preventive action were taken by police, and threats against defenders were taken seriously by authorities, HRD killings could be drastically reduced." Although killings occurred in 27 countries, 80% of them occurred in just four countries: Brazil, Colombia, Mexico and the Philippines. While human rights activists are being killed by mostly unknown assailants, they also face threats from governments of the countries they work in with criminalization of their work being used more often as a tool, sometimes even with the threat of death. "In 2017, thousands of activists were detained on fabricated charges, subjected to lengthy, expensive and unfair legal processes or sentenced to long prison terms," the report states. "In a number of countries, authorities accused human rights defenders of  'waging war against the state' and 'secession' charges, which carry the death penalty."

            Political cynicism is rife in Brazil. Years of scandal have left many regarding elected representatives en masse as corrupt and liars, and democracy as broken. Murder is frequent in Rio. Yet, tens of thousands have taken to the streets across the country to protest against the killing of Rio  de Janeiro politician Marielle Franco and her driver. Franco, was shot dead only 18 months after her election to the city council. Sceptics wondered if she could get elected, yet her tally of votes was the fifth highest of more than 50 councillors. The outrage of her murder should only illuminate the power of her message. In some ways her story symbolise the evolution of social movements in Brazil and the way that a longstanding working-class protest has begun to form connections with middle-class activism. Some supporters hope that her death will prove a turning point in Brazil, saying the strength of the protest suggest it has broken a widespread political apathy. Set against this are the grave fears of Brazil tilting still further away from justice, fairness and security. In this context, international condemnation of this murder matters. It offers moral support to protesters and reminds mainstream politicians and authorities that Brazil will be judged on whether it brings Franco's killers to justice or not and listen to her warnings. Authoritarianism only will further brutalise  communities.

               2015 was the deadliest year for environment and land activists all over the world. According to a report by Global Witness, "On Dangerous Ground," there were 185 killings of activists across 16 countries, which represents a 59% increase from 2014. While this represent a global trend, Latin America has the worst record. Out of the ten deadliest countries, seven are from Western Hemisphere. And while these numbers are alarming, it is also likely that these statistics do not include many killings that take place in remote or indigenous areas. What makes the numbers, even if underreported, even more appaling is that in other measurements of democracy and human rights and environmental protection, Latin America leads much of the developing world. In 2015, the five bloodiest countries were Brazil (50 deaths), the Philippines (33), Colombia (26), Peru (12) and Nicaragua (12). One reason for the disconnect between high scores civil right/ environmental policy and the high death toll of environmental activists may be that in the context of greater openness, the cases of murdered environmentalists are more likely to be reported. Killings in others countries may not be reported in the press. The second explanation is related to the fact that almost half of those killed in Latin America were indigenous. Indigenous people have been, and continue to be, subject to exclusion. They are worse off than non-indigenous populations in terms of income, education level, nutrition and health indicators.  A recent report by the World Bank affirms that 19% of the indigenous territories in Latin America are subject to legal or illegal mining, and the majority of that 19% are formally indigenous lands.

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

                     A little more than two weeks ago, precisely on 24th of March. All over the world was celebrated the day we all must search justice. This post is a summary of three articles. The first was published at http://www.gicj.org/positions-opinons/gicj-positions-and-opinions/1376-international-day-for-the-right-to-the-truth-concerning-gross-human-rights-violations-and-for-the-dignity-of-victims-24-march. The second was published at http://eamonnmallie.com/2018/03/right-truth-march-24th-2018-john-finucane/. The third was published at https://citizentruth.org/marielle-franco-murder/

                     The right to truth emerges in the context of gross violations of human rights and grave breaches of humanitarian law. Those related to victims of executions, enforced disappearance, abductions, and torture seek clarification about their loved ones's situation. Gaining knowledge of the full and complete truth as to the occurrences, their specific circumstances, and the perpetrators, and underlying reasons lies at the heart of the right to the truth. In cases relating to enforced disappearance and missing persons, the right furthermore entails the right to knowledge about the victims' fate. Moreover, the right to truth has been described as both an individual and collective right and it has been stipulated that the state has a duty to remember. The right to truth has evolved significantly over time to guarantee developemnt towards redress, reconciliation, and peace in affected regions. Through the evolution of the right to truth, international criminal and human rights jurisdiction coalesce in some areas as both seek to combat impunity. 24th March of every year marks the International Day for the Right to the Truth Concerning Gross Human Rights Violations and for the Dignity of Victims, as decided by the United Nations General Assembly on 21 December 2010. The purpose of the day is to honor the memory of victims of gross and/or systematic human rights violations and promote the right to truth and justice; to pay tribute to those who have devoted their lives to and sacrificed their lives in the struggle to promote and protect human rights for all. The right to truth concerning gross human rights violations law has been deciphered in a 2006 study by the Office of he UNHCHR as inalienable and autonomous right, in line with the duty and obligation of the state to protect and ensure human rights, to conduct effective investigations, and to provide for effective remedy and reparations.In its contribution, Geneva International Centre for Justice (GICJ) highlight core international mechanisms and instruments pertaining to the right to the truth, underlines the importance of forensic genetics in this regard, outlines past instances of the right to truth, and discusses where its promotion is urgently needed. In this context, GICJ reiterates the preventive potential of transitional justice. The international community is failing to protect uncountable civilians from persecution, untold suffering and death in Syria, Libya, Yemen, Iraq, Sudan, and Palestine to name a few. Despite numerous warning signs, the actions of the UN have hitherto failed to prevent atrocity crimes. Transitional justice, would be key to breaking the cycles of impunity and to ensure non-recurrence. The international community has the responsibility to act to prevent crimes wherever they occur if the state in question is unable or unwilling to fulfill its international obligations. The pledge of "never again" must be a principle that overrides the geopolitical and other interests of some states. GICJ urges the international community to take all necessary measures to implement comprehensive transitional justice policies, including by guaranteeing the right to truth, in contexts in which crimes have been or are currently being committed, to help break cycles of impunity. 

                  The U.N. has proclaimed today to be The International Day for the Right to Truth concerning gross Human Rights Violation and for the Dignity of Victims. The date is significant, and pays homage to a fearless and outspoken advocate for human rights, Archbishop Oscar Romero of El Salvador who was assassinated in 1980.  In Ireland,  we are perhaps more acutely aware than others as to the significance and importance in having the right to truth. I have spent 29 years campaigning for the truth of the human rights solicitor Patrick Finucane. This case has perhaps become emblematic for the broader issue of accountability. We are talking about three things, Firstly, the truth must be revealed in its entirely, no matter how difficult it is. Secondly, it must be offcially acknowledge, so there is official recognition that the state bears a responsibility. Third, the lessons must be learned to prevent things like this from happening again in the future. There are so many people, who like us, want to find out the truth behind Pat's murder. It is unfinished business for them and unfinished business for us.

                  On the night of March 14th, Brazilian politician and activist Marielle Franco was returning from an event when she was brutally gunned down in what appears to be a targeted assassination; the apparent assassination is most likely a form of retaliation against Marielle Franco's courageous and unfaltering opposition to unfair police tactics against the people of Brazil. Her driver, Anderson Pedro Gomes, was also killed in the attack. Franco had been exposing Brazilian police force brutality the very night she was assassinated by suggestion that the recent killing of 23-year-old Matheus Melo was orchestrated by police. In a tragic turn of events, it seems that Franco met the same fate as Melo at the hands of a corrupt system determined to silence opposition views. According to activist and political theorist Priscila Carvalho, who was interviewed for this article, "Franco's murder illustrates the present threat to oppressed groups, not just in the favelas, but in the country as a whole. Violence stems from acts and omissions in the justice system," says Carvalho. Police brutality has been an issue in Brazil for decades, but in recent years, the number of deaths at the hands of police has been rising at a disturbing rate. As the situations in large cities, such as Rio have gotten far more difficult for the government to control, politicians have responding by increasing police presence , and even deploying the military as security forces in Rio. Unfortunately, almost immediately after Franco was murdered, her opponents began tempting to assassinate her character as well. Brazil has one of the highest rates of social media use of any country in the world, and right-wing politicians and organizations have been exploiting this medium in order to spread negative accusations against Franco, the majority of which seem to be completely untrue.