The sonorous silence of the peaceful crowd

(ES)

I remember a TV show. It was titled "The Magic of David Copperfield". On one occasion the famous illusionist vanished the Statue of Liberty in front of the live audience on Liberty Island. It was unbelievable. A magic performance never seen. The very same Statue of Liberty became invisible behind a large curtain for a few seconds before the astonished gaze of the spectators. Premonitory?

Almost 30 years later, governments and large multinational corporations have improved this trick of invisibility leaving stunned the civil society as a whole.

Millions of people displaced by armed conflicts, many of them fueled by geostrategic interests of governments and greedy corporations exploiting natural resource.
Million of people unemployed, without hope, to the brink of social exclusion.
Millions of workers in precarious working conditions with wages that do not allow a dignified life. One effect of offshoring and free trade agreements, in general, of globalization.
Millions of people living below the poverty line, while a minority live in opulence.
Millions of people evicted from their homes because they can not afford the payments on their mortgages, in front of millions of empty houses result of the property bubble.

© Tommy Trenchard/IRIN

Hardly in the news of mass media. Only one more figure in the statistics. Without taking into account that each one of those millions of people is living a personal tragedy that we can not overlook.

Invisibles. Covered by the curtain of statistics. Covered by the curtain of oblivion. Unemployed and evicted people only on the news when the only way out they find is suicide. Strangers whose stories of misery and suffering only appear on the covers when refugee camps are visited by death, hunger, thirst, or sexual abuses.

But like Statue of Liberty reappeared behind the curtain when it was moved aside for a second time, I am wondering what the underprivileged of the world must do to make visible their terrible situation. Perhaps, like the main characters of the Spanish film "Los lunes al sol" (a group of unemployed people who meet themselves every Monday lying in the sun to share their lives, their stories, their hopes, their frustrations and fears ...) we should establish globally the "Mondays of the invisible ones". One day a week for the underprivileged to appear at the eyes of society, at the eyes of the MPs elected democratically. A day to stop being invisible, all gathered in the streets and public spaces in our towns and cities.

Because before neoliberal capitalism seizes freedoms and people sovereignty, making them disappear as a famous illusionist, it is necessary that the people by themselves take control of their destiny and move aside the curtains that hide the victims of the system.

The "Mondays of the invisible ones", without anger, without bitterness, without hatred, without harangues. Only one day to remind our MPs and society in general that sovereignty resides in the people. And also to make visible the human tragedy that millions of people suffer in silence, but with the hope that another world is possible.

"Sometimes cannot see anything on the surface, but beneath it everything is burning"

Y.B. Mangunwijaya

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The betrayal of the branches

(ES)

Margaret Bourke-White—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images

The three traditional branches of the State: legislative, executive and judicial.

The fourth estate: media

The fifth, sixth power ...

Checks and balances in essence formulated to protect man from other men and men themselves from the State.

But when the three traditional branches of government are being pierced transversely by the global economic power, who protects men from the greed of the markets?

The traditional powers and the major media have betrayed society. Deliberately, giving way to economic powers in their global advance. Allowing social and ecological injustice. Increasing the gap between rich and poor. Connivance of powers.

Power - Counterpower.
Action - Reaction.
Connivance - RESISTANCE!!

When economic powers have upset the balance in their ultra-neoliberal and globalizing strategy, only the people will be able to become the counterpower to recover or achieve rights and freedoms.

It's not to aspire to the recovery of hackneyed welfare state of the European democracies, but to proclaim and demand social and ecological justice for all peoples of the world. A new economic, political and social model based on solidarity, culture and multiculturalism, on degrowth that returns the balance between human being and nature, and between humans themselves.

"Lupus est homo homini, non homo, quom qualis sit non novit."
(One man to another is a wolf, not a man, when he doesn't know what sort he is)
Plauto (254 b.c. -184 b.c.)


"Homo homini lupus"
(Man is a wolf to man)
Thomas Hobbes (1588 - 1679)


"Capitalism is a wolf to human being and nature."


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Damn statistic

(ES)

Are you one of the 10.55 million refugees in the world?
Are you one of the 14.7 million internally displaced persons (IDPs) who have fled their homes?
Are you between 15 and 24 years and can not find work? You may be one of the 75 million young people unemployed worldwide.
Do you have children of school age who are not attending school? There are 61 million children in age to attend primary education out of the school.
Are you a woman and you are between 20 and 24? So you may already be married and you're one of the 70 million married women before the age of 18 years. Did you marry even younger? Well, there are 23 million women married before 15.
Do you enjoy a rich and varied diet that ensures your physical and mental development? Chronic malnutrition is suffered by 870 million people worldwide.
Are you one of the 2 billion people living on less than 2$ a day?

Given that the world population is 7 billion people, it is quite likely you're lucky (statistically speaking) to be part of only  some, or even better, any of the above groups.

Damn statistic! The problem is always of other.

And indeed, those "other" millions of human beings are the most vulnerable. They live their lives with the resignation of those waiting for better times, knowing that lack strength and resources, and plenty of misery and suffering left over.

Let us not expect that the weak, by themselves, to stand up and fight for social achievements that the powerful deny them.
Let us not expect that the powerful, by themselves, to distribute their growing wealth, since their fortunes are fed by poverty and crisis.

The future we want is in the hands of those who are not part or cause of the problem. Of those who still can conquer new social grounds, toward a world in solidarity, with a more equitable distribution of wealth and greater social and environmental justice. Of those that can empower the weak and weaken the powerful.

Again, the statistics do not lie: A vast majority of the world population are part of the solution. Only our determination to change things can get another possible world.

Things do not change, we change.
Henry David Thoreau

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Protecting the innocents

(ES)

No more bombs will explode from now on.
Not a single shot will keep you awake.
No more tears or cries.
Nobody will desecrate our home.

Sleep quiet, honey.
Sleep without fear.
Curled up in my chest, my fingers through her curls.
Sleep in peace, only the moon and the stars in the sky.

Sigh...
And every sigh,
a breath of fresh air
that encourages to keep fighting;
winds of revolution.
Amid such horror and misery,
THE HOPE

“As the eyes of the world focus on the mounting violence in Syria, we must not overlook the fact that while children are not responsible for this tragedy, they’re paying a terrible price. Children are losing their lives, losing their homes, losing their parents and losing their schooling."

Anthony Lake - UNICEF Executive Director

 

“Children fleeing violence in Syria are at risk of suffering long-term distress without appropriate care”“Right now, the Child Friendly Spaces are sufficient for 2,500 children in Za’atari. In just a few months, we expect as many as 35,000 children will be at the camp, so we urgently need to provide additional safe places and other support to protect these children who have already suffered so much.”

Dominique Hyde - UNICEF Jordan Representative

 

But not only armed conflicts are hitting childhood, so do the austerity measures taken by european governments as the Spanish in response to the economic crisis, as reflected in the UNICEF report "Childhood in Spain 2012-2013: the impact of the crisis on children."

In Spain, 2.2 million children live in homes below the poverty line, 10% more than in 2008.

 

Let us protect the innocents, beacuse they are our only hope.

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Reductio ad absurdum

(ES)

A Syrian girl crying about not being able to cross the Turkish border. / ARIS MESSINIS (AFP)

Today's world is incomprehensible.
Any information is available almost instantaneously.
An informative blast, whose shockwave stuns our senses. A blinding light that prevent us from seeing the basics, and a deafening whistle that nullifies our thoughts.
Mass media that instill fear, polarize society, and invite us to consume at an unbridled pace.
Any resistance attempt, critical thinking or civil disobedience is obviated or destroyed under the watchful eyes of blind justice.
Sleeping pills of information to numb society.
Informative curiosities to divert attention.
Brainy reports to manipulate public opinion.
Unrealistic romantic landscapes in the world of advertising that incite to consume in search of individual happiness.
Surrealistic threats from fictitious enemies whose sole purpose is to satisfy the cravings for war of the arms industry and the corporate greed.

Amid the blinding light, still dazed by the explosion, I get to see someone who is  suffering and need help; a cry barely audible amid the informative confusion.

What else is there to understand?

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Rivalry in solidarity

(ES)

According to a recent study driven by about 25 nonprofit organizations and organized by the Spanish Association of Fundraising, of the surveyed population, about 1 million people, 84% were concerned with the suffering in the world and tries to act. 67% suffer to see injustices and tragedies. And 86% is relieved, less guilty, proud and even more motivated and inspired to live when making a donation or helping others.

Same as the brands transmit us through marketing an idea, a philosophy, a way of life that identify us with what we consume, in the market of solidarity, many of the large NGOs and UN agencies have become trademarks whose product is as ethereal as happiness of helping the most vulnerable and needy. Large multinational of solidarity and international cooperation that rely on other organizations to develop their projects on the ground. A model equivalent to the major trademarks that focus their business on strengthening the brand, and relocate production to countries of the south with labor, environmental and fiscal regulations more lax than in the north. Similar models, opposite motivations and objectives.

Paradoxical to think that the inhabitants of the north, rich and powerful, where the abundance is the norm rather than the exception, need to buy the "happiness of helping others" at the cost of alleviating the suffering of millions inhabitants of impoverished South.

In general, one might say that any aid is insufficient, and thanks to the projects of these NGOs and UN agencies, millions of people still have some hope. But what if it is the model that fails? What is the capacity of large nonprofits organizations to compete in the world of trademarks for fundraising against giants that spend millions of $ in advertising to sell "happiness of consuming"?

Why we need to buy happiness, we, the wealthy inhabitants of the north? Is not the capitalist system which generates a wealth distribution becoming more and more unequal? Is not this unequal distribution of wealth between north and south, between the north and its periphery, the source of unhappiness and suffering of billions of human beings on this planet?



In the fight against poverty, taking into account the scarcity of resources devoted to it and the rivalry to get them, we often forget that voluntaristic effort of thousands and thousands of committed people will never be able to overcome the real obstacle to eradicate it: greed.

Therefore, is not the fight against the accumulation of wealth the best way to eradicate poverty? The global economic crisis we are living since 2008 has been the catalyst for global movements of indignation against neoliberal theories that deepen inequality and social and environmental injustice. Will be these movements of outraged and occupiers the triggers of a paradigm shift on a global scale? A less individualistic and competitive model in which prevail the general welfare. A new generation of supportive and socially responsible citizens claiming their governments a greater effort in transparency, education, health, and social protection. I hope so.

We are the 99%.

© Jaspreet Kindra/IRIN

Condemned to choose

(ES)

A billboard promoting peace in Kotido District in Uganda
© Khristopher Carlson/IRIN

Physical violence, psychological violence, gender violence, child abuse, tribal violence, sectarian violence, financial violence, terrorist violence, police violence, gun violence, torture, gang violence, violence in sport, sexual abuse, human trafficking, violence against environment, against biodiversity, slavery, poverty, hunger ...

How many forms of violence surrounding us in this global world in which co-exist 7,000 million human beings?
Is it possible a peaceful world?

Without doubt, the answer to this question is no.

So what hope is there? What do we leave to future generations? A world doomed to self-destruction?

Resign ourselves to this fate raises an existence doomed to slavery rather than freedom. For if as J.P. Sartre said, "human being is condemned to freedom", only hope, and a change in individual attitude can correct this fatal fate. To the extent that we are condemned to choose, let non-violence be our choice.

Let us think that peace is not an end in itself, but an attitude towards life. An attitude of intolerance to violence and abuse, and compassion for those who suffer.

Peace as an objective and as an attitude to life. Hope as a driving force. Through multiculturalism toward non-violence.

 ONE million tweets to STOP violence

If I had a son, he would look like Shafiq

(ES)

• Since the outbreak of uprising in Syria in March 2011, the UN estimates that have been killed more than 10,000 people.
• According to the Attorney General's Office, there were 12,903 murders in Mexico from January to September 30, 2011.
• In Guatemala there were 6,187 murders in 2011, according to the National Institute of Forensic Sciences.
• There were 19,336 murders in 2011 in Venezuela by the Venezuelan Observatory of Violence.
• In Brazil there is an average of 36,300 violent deaths a year as reported in the Map of Violence of the Ministry of Justice
• More than 29,000 children under 5 years died of starvation in Somalia in just three months according to the UN.

Is it the war against "narco" bloodiest than the Syrian uprising? Is it hunger more deadly than any ruthless army? Is violence in Brazil more lethal than any armed conflict? What figures shudder us more?

Needless to respond.

Figures isolate us from the true extent of the tragedy: the human magnitude, the pain of the thousands of families and friends who have lost a beloved one.

Trayvon Martin's death, an afroamerican teenager who was shot dead by a volunteer security guard in Sanford, Florida, when he went to buy jellybeans, shocked the US. Across the country demonstrations took place demanding justice and supporting the family of Trayvon. Even the President Obama said that if he had a son, would look like this guy.

The death of Shafiq, a Syrian teenager resident in the town of Houla, who died after being shot in the head by a man in military uniform, cannot end up being one more murder in the long list of violent deaths that occur daily in our world.

Because to the extent that a victim is reduced to a single number, it's impossible to reach the truth, memory, justice and reparation. Therefore, as with Trayvon, if I had a son, he also would look like Shafiq.

Tell the whole world that Shafiq, or Trayvon, or any of the children killed in a violent manner are not just a number that swells the statistics, they are our sons and daughters, we remember them every day and for them we ask for justice. Help us keep alive the memory of the victims.

Use the buttons at the bottom of the post to share with your friends on Twitter (do not forget to add the hashtag #MyWeaponIsPEACE #PromoteActivism), or Facebook. And if you are not on social networks, simply email it.

Download the campaign poster >> ONE million tweets to STOP violence
 or,
visit the event on Facebook:
ONE million tweets to STOP violence #MyWeaponIsPEACE

Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images

Intolerance and social progress

(ES)

Arms trafficking, human trafficking, organ trafficking, drugs trafficking.
Slave labour, sexual slavery, child labour, forced labour.
Armed conflicts, tortures, rapes, mutilations, forced displacement, refugee camps.
Malnutrition, preventable diseases, maternal and child mortality.
Gender violence, discrimination, apartheid, sexual abuse, child abuse.
Unemployment, school leaving, lack of schooling.
The systemic crisis, the dismantling of the welfare state.
Poverty, lack of opportunities.

None of this is a fatal plague that Providence or Fate sends us.
Only greed, bigotry, corruption, prejudices, fears, customs of a patriarchal and intolerant society. All of them, human qualities that are the source of the greatest misfortunes of mankind.

And if they are human qualities that are behind such serious social and environmental injustices, wouldn't be expected that the opposite qualities could change the pace of this world?

If tolerance is a source of progress, it can also be a source of injustice, because everyone, in our environment, we witness and suffer, with some tolerance, corruption, greed, prejudices and many other slightly virtuous qualities inherent ourselves and those who share our existence. Silent witnesses to the human micro-plagues that globally devastate our world .

Thus, should not we apply to our environment a rational and critical intolerance? Intolerance to greed, prejudices, fears, customs, patriarchy and bigotry. An intolerance mixed up of combative spirit, politically active, peaceful, committed, in solidarity.

The outrage was born in the Arab Spring, demanding justice, democracy and freedom. Rational and peaceful intolerance will be a change in our set of values, applied to each pace in our daily life, towards a more just and egalitarian society.

Orthodox Christians celebrate Easter during a night long service at St Georges Church Bahir Dar, Ethiopia  © Guy Oliver/IRIN

Consumption fair

(ES)

Photograph by Mert Alas and Marcus Piggott.

As long as vanity and arrogance find justifications, solidarity will only find excuses.

Compete or cooperate?
Consume or reduce?
Waste or reuse?
Throw away or recycle?

Can a change in our consumption habits contribute to greater social and environmental justice?

If crisis is synonymous with change, it may be this the historical moment of a  change of cycle. The time to make individual awareness that existence is meaningful only if we share it with our neighbors in this global village. That pride, individualism and competitiveness are hallmarks of a failing system that benefits only an oligarchy. The greed of this oligarchy is fed by our vanities. And our vanities are nothing but void, injustice, irrationality, conceit and pride.

Transforming consumption to meet needs rather than vanities. Consume to transform.

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Made in Bangladesh

(ES)

Consume (Latin consumĕre) means to destroy, extinguish, spend.

If every act of consumption is an act of destruction, which contributes to extinguish or exhaust the resources of this planet, should not consumers be more and more aware of social and environmental impact of each of our actions?

From this perspective, the cleanliness and asepsis of the international commodity markets and the multinationals that transform and distribute this commodities isolate and exculpate consumers of their grave responsibility under the guise of competition, fashions and technological advances.

The labeling of products that are traded is intended to ensure adequate information to consumers, and not for being adequate is sufficient. And being insufficient is misleading, because it properly informs of the detailed composition of the product, but omits relevant aspects of how provisioning of raw materials is, how it is made and how it is distributed, and under what conditions.

Because in a globalized world in which the free circulation of capital is on the side of markets and transnational, consumers can not remain indifferent to this globalization and the impact it has on our lives and those of millions of people who work in conditions of forced labour, subjected to discrimination, without social protection, without freedom of association, in unsanitary conditions and carrying out hazardous activities with little safety. According to the ILO, there are at least 12.3 million people trapped in forced labor and some 215 million children working in the world, many full time.

The offshoring of production, resulting from globalization and the free circulation of capital, allows large multinationals especially increase their profits at the expense of exploiting workers and harming the environment in countries with labor and environmental laws more lax than in USA and EU. The lack of control and auditing of codes of conduct applicable in the destination countries, as reflected in the corporate responsibility commitments of many multinational , promote job insecurity and environmental degradation in a framework of competition and free markets.

The strategy to isolate each element of the commodity chain, from procurement of raw material until it reaches the final consumer, only benefits the markets and transnationals, while each link in the chain can shrug its shoulders facing the abuses committed during the previous stages of production, arguing that they are not responsible for, or who were unaware that these had been produced. At this point, the link that is at the end of the chain, the consumer, can not remain unmoved by endless abuses at every step during production and distribution of goods and services, while the most vulnerable individuals at the commodity chain suffer the worst consequences of a system geared to that large multinationals can produce at lower cost, increasing profits, and consumers get their products and services at a lower price.

Faced with a offshored production, predatory and dehumanized there is no option but a de-globalized consumption, critical, responsible, conscious, fair, sustainable and respectful of human rights, based on principles of equality, fairness and nondiscrimination.

Garment Workers' Living Conditions Bangladesh - Photos by Taslima Akhter - Clean Clothes Campaign

Najma Akhter, 23, is depressed after she had to leave her work in a sweater factory for taking care of her new born baby. Even though it is legally obliged, the factory didn't provide a day care center for children. Najma started working in the garment factory 5 month after her delivery. But when she didn't get the chance to breast feed her child for more than 5-6 hours, she couldn't stand the pain for long. After a short time she decided to leave the factory. August 2009, Dhaka, Bangladesh.

These children are passing time alone as their mother is out working in the garment factory. They have to help with household chores such as cooking or taking care of younger siblings. August 2009, Dhaka, Bangladesh.

Najma Akhter, 23, and her entire family - her children, her parents and her siblings – asleep in their home. Altogether, 11 family members share this one room. August 2009, Dhaka, Bangladesh.

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False identities of an empty existence

(ES)

© Quino
Fortunately, the world burns always the other side!!

Individual accumulation of wealth = Status
 
Status = Social acceptance
 
Social acceptance = Prestige
 
Prestige = Fame
 
Fame = Success
 
Success = Happiness
 
Happiness = Freedom
 
Freedom = Impunity
 
Impunity = Power
 
Power = Individual accumulation of wealth

Identities that advertising and media make true by repeating them over and over again. Fallacies of a consumerist society whose major beneficiary is the selfish and greedy capitalism.

We identify ourselves with unrealistic images of success, happiness and well being based on the accumulation of wealth, not realizing that the emptiness of our existence it will never be filled with any material object.

And only when we truly empty our existence, we will find that such emptiness can be filled with the inexhaustible source of culture, which ultimately is what definitely sets us free.

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I'm not defeated!

Photo: Nicholas D. Kristof/The New York Times

I do not want you to feel sorry for me,
I just want to live in peace.
My wounds will heal.
I just want to go back home.

I feel no shame,
I just want justice.
My voice is my strength;
I'm not defeated!

I do not want charity,
but solace.
Where there is only violence,
will I find compassion?

(ES)

Chance Tombola, 9, and her aunt, Jeanne Birengenyi, 34, both among the innumerable rape survivors in the war in eastern Congo. Chance's parents were killed in the war, as was Jeanne's husband. Given the stigma surrounding rape in Congo, they showed tremendous courage in speaking about their experiences.

Shortening distances

(ES)

Means of transport have shortened the distance between towns and cities in this global world.
The information and communication technologies have shortened the distance in the transmission of information.
The scientific and technological progress has shortened the distance between our planet and the universe.
However, there is one thing in what human being has not made ​​a historic leap like that has occurred in other aspects of science and technology in the modern ages. I mean the mental distance between the welfare of the few and the suffering of a majority.
We shorten distances to the extent that we manage to connect in a way more quickly, agile and simply. Today we can cross an ocean in hours, and know what happens in our antipodes with a single click.

However, we only experience and share the suffering of the others when we feel it very close to us. And only through empathy will get to commitment and action in advocacy of others with which we identify. It is precisely this identification what makes us feel firsthand the threat that triggers our commitment.

We have found means and tools to connect with each other, no matter how far they are physically. But there is still an astronomical distance in the minds and hearts of people. The distance that allows many to live stranger to the suffering of others, except that the misfortune of these affects the welfare of those.

Only when we bridge that mental and emotional distance, as the result of a individual process of transformation, we will be able to speak of a truly mankind progress. Perhaps the greatest challenge of modern society.

Technology has changed the way we connect to the world. Empathy will change the world.

The good samaritan (after Delacroix) 1890 - Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890) Kröller-Müller Museum

A pseudopathic society

An Afghan mother and her daughter begging on a street in Kabul
© Mohammad Popal / IRIN

(ES)

If the human body was not able to recognize the disease. If the brain did not identify any threats and did not send signals of pain or physical discomfort; or if simply omitted the symptoms of a disease, what would be the result? Probably the disease would spread by the organism to lead to death.

The human brain is based on the perceived stimuli, learning, experience and culture to take decisions aimed to preserve life. However, the rupture between the perceived and the reality, which is known as pseudopathy, can lead directly to the opposite, the disappearance of life.

Today's society is moving in the field of pseudopathy. 

A society facing to real systemic threats that does not perceive any signal that invite to act, or else omits these signals to the extent that their status quo is not particularly affected. And in the opposite direction, a society that laments and mobilizes itself by trivial problems or banal events

Pseudopathic society can only help increase the social and environmental injustice.

To the extent that we connect our perception, free from manipulation, with the global reality that surrounds us, we are connecting with those who suffer, by making ours their suffering.

From pseudopathy to empathy: the path that society must cover beset by the current economic crisis, but above all, the underlying crisis of values ​​in modern society.


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Three ages

(ES)

Waiting to death embraced, shielding each other, comforting the toddlers, who cry terrified by the roar of bombs.

Maybe that explosion, that was heard so close, could have killed them, but there's no room or time for joy or grief, only fear and despair.

A mother mourns and embraces her loved ones, seeking solace for their torn pain while her son dying lies on a stretcher in a makeshift hospital, with little means to heal him.

Parents who embrace the lifeless body of their daughter raped, tortured and murdered, who left home in the hope of freedom to remain captive in the arms of death.

Some children embracing their mother, mourning the death of father and husband by a stray bullet of a conflict without direction.

Only violence, destruction, hatred, revenge and death: the unmistakable signs of a revolution turned into civil war in which women and children are bearing the brunt.

And over time, what will be left after so much suffering? Again the hug. The embrace of a people who becomes reconciled, who forgets the resentment and seeks peace and justice.

A story of hugs. A story of life and death that is repeated generation after generation, in a natural cycle that armed conflicts alter, increasing the suffering and pain of those who have experienced them.

Peace and justice, ineluctable aspiration of the people. Let no one be able to pervert that desire; nor judges nor governments.

The three ages (1905) - Klimt (1862-1918) - Copyright 2010 Soprintendenza alla Galleria nazionale d'arte moderna e contemporanea

Power relationships

(ES)

In a sick world of greed and hedonism, NGOs, activists, social movements, Occupy, indignad@s and, in general, millions of committed and militant people struggle every day  against the symptoms of this disease.

The world's most vulnerable, especially women and children bear the brunt, suffering more than any inhabitant the consequences of social inequality, of armed conflicts, of injustice and discrimination.

A world based on power relationships: the power of weapons, the power of capital.

Subjugated peoples by force of arms and by the interest of capital.

People abandoned by their governments and the international community.

Arms trade and tax havens: a vicious circle of death, rapes, forced displacements, discrimination, exclusion, poverty and social injustice for the 99%. As well as a virtuous circle of power, economic benefits and political influence for the 1%.

Only external factors will be able to break this cycle. Millions of committed and militant people struggle every day  against the symptoms of the disease, but the ultimate cure depends on each and every one of us. We, the 99%, are the external factors that will break the vicious circle in which we operate. 

Change starts within ourselves, to the extent that we become advocates for social and ecological justice.

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A brutalized society

(ES)

Each fundamental right is an achievement.

As we are losing rights or allowing others to lose or not to observe them, we are moving toward the brutalization of society as a whole.

If civil life is governed by civil law which regulates our relations with our fellows as individuals within a society and with the State, and only for being members of the human family we have universal human rights, the question is clear:

The people whose rights have been ridden roughshod for over a century, abandoned, forgotten, held hostages by an armed conflict that endures thanks to human greed, have they ceased to be civilians?, have they ceased to be human beings?

If the West is not able to see even an iota of humanity in the people of Congo in order to commit itself to the advocacy of their fundamental rights, is probably their greed has dehumanized women and girls raped, the millions of victims of genocide, children forced to work in extremely hazardous conditions, orphans, malnourished children, mutilated persons, abducted by the militias, women and girls turned into sex slaves, inhabitants of looted villages, displaced persons fleeing the conflict, and in general, the millions of innocent victims of the plundering of Congo.

To the eyes of the victims, it is likely that those who have lost the human condition are the inhabitants of the West, which after more than a hundred years staring at the suffering of a people, have not been able to react to stop categorically such situation.

Extreme violence, absolute poverty, injustice and lack of peace, both for the sufferer and for those who stare in the distance without doing anything to avoid them, brutalize us all. We become less civil and less humans to the extent that we move away from the whereas in the preamble of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Whereas recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world,
 
Whereas disregard and contempt for human rights have resulted in barbarous acts which have outraged the conscience of mankind, and the advent of a world in which human beings shall enjoy freedom of speech and belief and freedom from fear and want has been proclaimed as the highest aspiration of the common people,
 
Whereas it is essential, if man is not to be compelled to have recourse, as a last resort, to rebellion against tyranny and oppression, that human rights should be protected by the rule of law,
 
Whereas it is essential to promote the development of friendly relations between nations,
 
Whereas the peoples of the United Nations have in the Charter reaffirmed their faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person and in the equal rights of men and women and have determined to promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom,
 
Whereas Member States have pledged themselves to achieve, in co-operation with the United Nations, the promotion of universal respect for and observance of human rights and fundamental freedoms,
 
Whereas a common understanding of these rights and freedoms is of the greatest importance for the full realization of this pledge,
 
Now, Therefore THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY proclaims THIS UNIVERSAL DECLARATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS as a common standard of achievement for all peoples and all nations, to the end that every individual and every organ of society, keeping this Declaration constantly in mind, shall strive by teaching and education to promote respect for these rights and freedoms and by progressive measures, national and international, to secure their universal and effective recognition and observance, both among the peoples of Member States themselves and among the peoples of territories under their jurisdiction.

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Stolen stories

A family stands outside their makeshift tent in BadBado camp in Mogadishu, Somalia
© Kate Holt/IRIN

(ES)

We all have a story to tell: our own history.

We share it with our friends and our relatives. When we suffer, we seek  consolation of someone close. And in the happy times, we expect to share them with those around us. A succession of moments, happy and not so happy, that make up our lives.
Even the individual history of each one of the millions of people living in absolute poverty is a succession of shared moments, of solace, pains and joys, in short, the story of a life.

And so is the history of peoples. A history that lasts generations and speaks of times of prosperity and times of decline. Of wars and peace. Of justice and injustice. With the only difference that the history of peoples is written by the rulers through the media, while the personal history is written by each individual.

No one can steal our own personal history. Perhaps the only thing that truly belongs to us.
However, there are peoples whose history barely appears in the media.

Forgotten stories of hunger, of misery, of death, of rapes, of slavery, of evictions, or of exploitation. Only appearing on covers when they reach unimagined levels of cruelty.

And what is the history of a people but the history of their peoples?

Women and girls who hide their faces in shame for having been raped. Their silent scream of rage and pain due to the impunity enjoyed by their attackers.
Mothers and fathers who make every possible effort to care for their malnourished children, mourning their deaths and leaving their fates to Divine Providence.
Children who are exploited, sometimes even enslaved, who dream of going to school, leaving behind a past of work, and prepare themselves for a better future.
Families evicted from their land, without roots and without means of livelihood.
Entire communities fleeing armed conflict, traveling hundreds of miles to refugee camps where thousands of displaced people are crowded together.

Millions of helpless human beings with a story to tell of which we know very little, except that they also need solace and to share their meager joys.

Tell their stolen stories, break the silence and get them out of oblivion is perhaps the best way to console them and make them feel connected to the world around them, that somehow has contributed to their history and has an inescapable responsibility to change their fates. For if a people can not tell their stories will be doomed to oblivion and extinction.

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