ifda dossier 74 - Dag Hammarskjöld Foundation

Cultural Rights and Civil & Political rights - that human rlshfs, at least
some of them, but not yet peoples' rights, are an international
responsibility.
A divided world: The chasm ahead
Remains what is often named, because of a confusion between means
and ends, 'economic' security, but what is, in fact, human security. It
implies, for each and every woman, man and child, beyond mere
survival, a life worth being lived, ie. the satisfaction of physical as well
as political (lain sensii) and spiritual needs, including cultural identity,
autonomy and solidarity, participation and democracy, harmony with
nature, creativity, conviviality, and full human rights. In this year of the
200th anniversary of the French Revolution, the name of the still
missing dimension of global security continues to be Liberty, Equality,
Fratc~rnity: if there are reasons for hope in the military and ecological
spheres, prospects remain dismal in this one.
All throughout history, masters needed slaves, settlers needed natives,
industrialists needed workers: productivity was so low that majorities
had to be made to toil so that, through the extraction of surplus from
their labour, minorities could enjoy life. This is no longer so. Something
radically new is happening: rulers - governmental and economic - no
longer need so many people. A part of the human species is becoming
redundant. Techniques and social relations promote some, who are in,
and exclude others, who arc our.
The apparent 'neutrality' of the process makes it worse than the
deliberate 'triage' advocated by some in the early 70s, lor it erases the
Other from the very conscience of the privileged ones. Every charity, the
age-old corrective/palliative for exploitation, which was also a relation
with the Other, may fade away.
And the rift is not just a North/South one, which would still be
geographical: deep down, it is a social one. It fractures every society in
two.
Black slaves were brought from Africa to handpick cotton in Alabama;
machines relegated them to the ghettoes of Harlem. The Chileans of the