ifda dossier 74 - Dag Hammarskjöld Foundation
ifda dossier 74 - Dag Hammarskjöld Foundation
ifda dossier 74 - Dag Hammarskjöld Foundation
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Cultural Rights and Civil & Political rights - that human rlshfs, at least<br />
some of them, but not yet peoples' rights, are an international<br />
responsibility.<br />
A divided world: The chasm ahead<br />
Remains what is often named, because of a confusion between means<br />
and ends, 'economic' security, but what is, in fact, human security. It<br />
implies, for each and every woman, man and child, beyond mere<br />
survival, a life worth being lived, ie. the satisfaction of physical as well<br />
as political (lain sensii) and spiritual needs, including cultural identity,<br />
autonomy and solidarity, participation and democracy, harmony with<br />
nature, creativity, conviviality, and full human rights. In this year of the<br />
200th anniversary of the French Revolution, the name of the still<br />
missing dimension of global security continues to be Liberty, Equality,<br />
Fratc~rnity: if there are reasons for hope in the military and ecological<br />
spheres, prospects remain dismal in this one.<br />
All throughout history, masters needed slaves, settlers needed natives,<br />
industrialists needed workers: productivity was so low that majorities<br />
had to be made to toil so that, through the extraction of surplus from<br />
their labour, minorities could enjoy life. This is no longer so. Something<br />
radically new is happening: rulers - governmental and economic - no<br />
longer need so many people. A part of the human species is becoming<br />
redundant. Techniques and social relations promote some, who are in,<br />
and exclude others, who arc our.<br />
The apparent 'neutrality' of the process makes it worse than the<br />
deliberate 'triage' advocated by some in the early 70s, lor it erases the<br />
Other from the very conscience of the privileged ones. Every charity, the<br />
age-old corrective/palliative for exploitation, which was also a relation<br />
with the Other, may fade away.<br />
And the rift is not just a North/South one, which would still be<br />
geographical: deep down, it is a social one. It fractures every society in<br />
two.<br />
Black slaves were brought from Africa to handpick cotton in Alabama;<br />
machines relegated them to the ghettoes of Harlem. The Chileans of the