Haiti, Canada and Human Rights Everywhere
From a recent post at Liberation Learning:
Our democracy, including its core institutions and the rule of law, should be treated as a cherished resource, a repository of the public trust passed to the current generation from those before us. It is from these legacies that we can take the next steps toward expanding our values and moving closer to achieving our vision of a just and equitable world. Our country’s legacies of public health, public education, public safety, public libraries, public power, public media, public arts and culture, public parks and other public sector institutions should be built upon in order to create new institutions that are committed to ensuring fairness and equity in the delivery of essential public services. Other institutions are just as important to sustaining our quality of life and projecting human rights values. These include institutions that support a skilled, organized and productive workforce, independent and reliable journalism, a co-ordinated and organized economy, and a vibrant and living community based on respect and inclusion of many cultures, languages, faiths and ways of being.
The base of what we have, and continue to build, provides our means for working with people throughout the world, in partnership and solidarity, so that we may help build infrastructures and institutions to extend human rights both within and beyond our borders. As we build institutions in Canada we grow the capacity for moving forward in the world, as we part of the human family and the only way to build power for purpose is on top of already existing power, for that same purpose. We will do this not by transplanting our organizations onto other communities, but by exchanging lessons learned with others, sharing resources on an equitable basis with everyone, building connections across communities, and developing leadership for human rights by working together for common purpose. Our institutions at home provide the leaders, resources and ideas in order to work in such partnerships. Without such institutions in places throughout the world, we (all humanity) will have no basis on which to extend and expand our values.
There is no choice between expanding human rights and helping others. The assertion of this “choice” is based on a false dichotomy, one which leads to a decline in human rights values everywhere. Canadians who are committed to human rights should work in co-ordination with others committed to these values, building many kinds of institutions, in many places, for many purposes, relevant to many local communities, at all levels (from local to global) and in many forms. Each institution built should strengthen the capacity for future growth in other communities, or for other purposes, or at different levels, or in different forms. read more
