RIGHTING GLOBAL WRONGS

By Aye Aye Win*

Amnesty’s Big Step Forward

Was it the two Brazilian artists, or Paul Hoffman´s drum banging? Well, from my seat at Gigantinho I could hear the message of Amnesty´s International Executive Committee Chair loud and clear: “Globalise respect for human rights.” The movement's secretary-general Irene Khan was singing the same tune a continent apart at Davos - no doubt to a less receptive audience.

It's about time Amnesty makes its presence felt as a movement concerned about social issues. After years of internal discord, it was at Dakar in August 2000 that Amnesty finally made the historic decision to embrace the full human rights agenda and expand its mandate to include economic, social and cultural rights. Now Amnesty will not only shout for legal justice for prisoners, but also for social justice. Welcome to the times! Welcome to the World Social Forum!

All this is very well but let’s not forget that there is also a lot of damage repair to do. Indeed, in its prepared scores, Amnesty has been apologetic about its previous neglect of economic, social and cultural rights. The challenge now will be to reinstate the indivisibility agenda of ALL human rights and for economic, social and cultural rights to be accepted as real rights.

Poverty is a big issue at the WSF. I hear it discussed everywhere. Over 1.3 billion people in the world live in situations of extreme poverty with no roofs over their heads, no access to safe drinking water and no idea from where their next meal will come. There are peasants without access to land, millions of children dying from preventable diseases and still millions who do not know what the inside of a school looks like. Poverty is our biggest human rights violation. Is Amnesty also going to make a big noise about poverty eradication and join in the fight?

At the famous march a couple of days ago I had a chat with Sam Friedman, a U.S. AIDS researcher. He reminded me that the fight for human rights is not only in the courts and in parliaments, "but in our struggle in the streets and the communities". How true this is. The struggle and the banging should not only be in the Gigantinho stadium but also in the streets.

A small suggestion or two for Amnesty as it takes this big step forward. Why not dare to be ambitious with the new mandate? Why not expand the orchestra beyond the middle-class elite of the north? Why not invite everyone to play in the human rights drum corps? Why not take the WSF with you in the human rights struggle?

If these whisperings are heeded, then … governments watch out -- here comes the big human rights bandwagon ready for the the global social revolution!

*Aye Aye Win, Burma, is the Co-ordinator of Dignity International and a member of the IPS Board of Directors.