Tom Kertes

Image source: UNfreemedia.org

The New York Times has an op-ed on Partners in Health, a human rights organization working with people in Haiti to support the development of the country’s health care sector. Earlier in the week my good friends of the Coalition of the Immokalee Workers sent out an email with information about the organization’s commitment to providing supports for effective and community-based development of infrastructure. Visit Partners in Health for information about how to donate to the humanitarian efforts of the organization. Here is more about the organization, from the op-end:

This week, the list of things that Haiti needs, things like jobs and food and reforestation, has suddenly grown a great deal longer. The earthquake struck mainly the capital and its environs, the most densely populated part of the country, where organizations like the Red Cross and the United Nations have their headquarters. A lot of the places that could have been used for disaster relief — including the central hospital, such as it was — are now themselves disaster areas.

But there are effective aid organizations working in Haiti. At least one has not been crippled by the earthquake. Partners in Health, or in Haitian Creole Zanmi Lasante, has been the largest health care provider in rural Haiti. (I serve on this organization’s development committee.) It operates, in partnership with the Haitian Ministry of Health, some 10 hospitals and clinics, all far from the capital and all still intact. As a result of this calamity, Partners in Health probably just became the largest health care provider still standing in all Haiti.

Fortunately, it also offers a solid model for independence — a model where only a handful of Americans are involved in day-to-day operations, and Haitians run the show. Efforts like this could provide one way for Haiti, as it rebuilds, to renew the promise of its revolution. read more

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

An email from my good friends with the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, who have many close ties to Haiti:

Surely by now most of you will have heard about the unimaginable disaster that has befallen Haiti, and in particular Haiti’s capital Port-au-Prince.

Late yesterday, a powerful earthquake destroyed much of the already desperate country’s infrastructure and killed untold numbers of men, women, and children. As bad as the immmediate destruction must be, its aftermath will almost certainly be worse.

We ask that you hold the people of Haiti in your thoughts and prayers today — and in the weeks and months to come, as well, as they recover from this devastating blow.

We have two suggestions at this time:

1. If you are interested in donating to the relief efforts, Zanmi Lasante (http://www.pih.org, the superb community-based health organization led by our friend and fellow RFK Human Rights Award laureate Loune Vlaud) is a place you where you can rest assured that your donation will be put to good and effective use. Click here (https://donate.pih.org/page/contribute/haiti_earthquake?source=earthquake&subsource=email) if you would like to make a donation.

2. If you are interested in following news at it emerges from Haiti, you can check out the Haiti news page (http://www.unfreemedia.com/americas/haiti) at the new blog, UNFree Media

Thank you.

I just got this email from my good friend Luke:

Cher Zamis (Dear Friends in Haitian Kreyol),

As you know, a devastating earthquake has hit Haiti, killing perhaps over 100,000 people. The town of Jakmel where we have our AIDS orphanage is now a pile of rubble. We still have no word from our staff & fear for the safety of our kids. I am very scared.

I am rushing to Haiti in the next few days & will need resources to help not only our kids but also townspeople who are injured, hungry & lacking clean water. A special fund is being set up to allow me to buy supplies, medical care, food & water in the country to directly help people in our town.

I’m trying to raise $10,000. Every penny counts from $5 to $500. I’m just one guy, but with all of you behind me, we can make a difference together. I will be blogging with videos & photos so you can see how your money is spent.

You can give by clicking this link: http://tinyurl.com/ykt74rg

Please share this site link with your friends and on Facebook… every penny counts.

Mesi anpil (Thank you),
-Luke

Call me if you have any questions, (310) 663-7871

I think that “leader” is a more useful word than “advocate” for describing what’s needed to create a comprehensive system of adequate child care supports for B.C.’s children and families.  Many advocates are leaders, and I don’t want to dismiss the important work that many advocates do for children and families – the point is not create a choice between leaders and advocates.  I simply think that the action of leadership is more essential for making a difference than is the action of advocacy. We need more leaders to change the child care system in B.C., not more advocates.  And we need those leaders to come from the bottom up, or from the ranks of unpaid and under paid child workers – including parents, grandparents, preschool teachers, daycare workers, nannies and other early childhood educators.

An advocate speaks for someone, or on behalf of someone. In contrast, a leader speaks for herself by working with other people to build power and get heard.  Leaders make a difference by influencing community life. That is why leaders are the most essential thing required to create change, build organizations and sustain movements for justice, or any other set of beliefs and values, all of which goes beyond advocacy – or speaking up on behalf of others. Leaders are needed in communities because they create and sustain organizations that shape cultural and community life. Leaders are required to influence community life and for an idea or cause be acted on and become part of society.

This post is addressed to child care workers, which includes everyone whose work contributes to the care of children (parents, grandparents daycare workers, preschool teachers, other ECEers, etc.)…

I don’t know about any of you, but I have not helped decide how to structure the economy from the halls of power, or written a government budget, or decided on monetary policy for the Bank of Canada. I was not in the room when the minimum wage was set at a poverty-wage level, or when it was decided to abandon a national child care policy, or when transportation and urban planners decided to make 2 hours a day of commuting routine for many workers.

I don’t think that it should be on our shoulders to carry the burden of responsibility that should instead be on those who are in these rooms of power. The people making decisions that are leaving too many children and families without adequate child care supports should be held to account and made to do a better job in carrying out their role as leaders of our democracy.

This is to say that those of us on the outside of power should not be expected to carry an unfair load because those in power failed to provide for adequate family supports. The failings of the policy makers need to be solved by everyone working to figure out a better way to support families, not by child care workers taking on an unfair burden in the form of low-wages and extended working hours. The current “go it alone” child care strategy simply doesn’t work – we should expect better from our leaders.

Economic policies, like monetary supply, trade relation treaties, labour law, tax policy, government spending policy, and economic development policy all lead to real differences in how ordinary people live our lives. These policies determine how many hours a week we work, how much time we spend in traffic or on transit, whether or not it will cost $900,000 to buy a house in Vancouver, who gets access to essential services (like health care, housing, education, child care), and how much of our productively at work goes to support our social needs.

When the decision makers decide to set up an economy based on 40-50 work weeks, two wage-earner families, and 2 hour commutes, the burden for solving the crisis these decisions create in children’s lives needs to fall on the decision makers themselves, not on child care workers or families. The decision makers have the power to fix the problem. We should demand that they use that power to solve the problem their bad economic strategies created.

There is no way to build a child care system on the backs of child care workers, as such an approach simply won’t work. No matter how much we (child care workers) care about the well-being of children, asking us to put in extra hours or continue to be unpaid or underpaid for our work is not acceptable and won’t result in the kinds of supports that all families require. Solutions to the child care crisis require public sector support, in the form of a comprehensive system that – just like with public health care – is provided universally, efficiently and fairly.

Last night a new friend and I were talking over a beer (actually it was over a jug) and she told me that she had worked out a theory to explain why I am so interested in politics, and also for why my politics are so much about universal justice and human rights values.  Her theory was that perhaps I had been bullied as a kid (for being gay) and that this experience led me to my politics. She wanted to know if this was the case. I told her no, but I am now wondering, on more reflection, if perhaps there’s more to the story.

I told my friend that I hadn’t been bullied as a kid (for being gay or otherwise) and that my lifelong interest in politics preceded any awareness of being gay (I was interested in politics since I was seven, or for as long as I can remember). My interest in politics intersected with being gay only to the extent to which being gay conflicted with opportunities for being “mainstream,” or for exercising this interest. At the time I came out I knew that I was too liberal for an easy path in American politics, but being gay compounded this reality to a level that I thought made any career in politics impossible.

The first words I said to myself after deciding to come out in 1991 were “there goes my political career”.  At eighteen, I believed that I was done for as a politician.  This is one of few instances when I have so easily given up. At the time I felt a deep and tragic loss. Looking back, it was one of the best gifts I could have received, an unexpected blessing from being gay and by coming out.

What I lost was a sense of entitlement, which took years to recover.  What I gained is knowing that while we are all entitled to fully participate in community life, this entitlement usually requires a fight to secure, a fact of life that unfortunately applies to all but the most privileged.  In time I also learned the value of the fight itself, the value of demanding and then securing a place at the table.

Reflecting on this now makes me realize how clearly 2010 is not 1991. Little did I imagine that in just under twenty years many American communities would elect openly gay politicians to many levels of political office, with their personal life being just one of many factors in their public life. In 1991 there was no Will & Grace, no Ellen’s coming-out episode. Gays and lesbians were mostly invisible on television and in movies, and if seen were most often portrayed as sad and tragic, dangerous and debased, or in some other stereotypical form. Back then I could not even dream that neighbouring Canada would recognize same sex marriage without distinction.

When I came out in 1991, I took it for granted that mainstream politics was not an option for me, and that my (then planned) career path of going from law school, to law practice, to city elected office, to state office, to federal office was over. My interest in politics and my anger at the reality that I was unlikely to be a mainstream politician led me instead to the tail end of the the radical GLBT rights and AIDS movements, which profoundly influenced my development as a person.  My eyes were opened to injustices in the world. I witnessed the capacity of the powerful to inflict pain on others.

Now an “other” I wanted to view all the other “others” as being simply human, just like me.  And this required that I not turn a blind eye to human suffering anywhere, not to the children who died of disease and poverty in the embargo years after the first Gulf War, not to the children later burned alive with chemical weapons in the battle of Fallujah, not to farm workers in modern day slave-like conditions in Florida, not to public housing residents displaced to build sports stadiums, and not to homeless day labourers working for less than $4.00 an hour to clean trash after baseball games.

While times have changed in terms of respecting the rights of gay and lesbian Americans for the better, it was only a few years ago when George Bush included denial of same sex marriage rights in his State of the Union address to Congress.  These remarks followed Bill Clinton’s signing into law the “Defense” of Marriage Act, which denies federal recognition of same sex marriage across the board.  Governor Gary Locke (now Barack Obama’s Secretary of Commerce) did the same for Washington state.  Gay and lesbian Americans were not considered as full participants of civil society by the entire mainstream of American politics (which is actually a very narrow band, given the weakened state of American democracy).

We are still used as political footballs in a high stakes cultural war played for partisan gain.  As with the human rights violations in Iraq, Cuba and Afghanistan, the U.S. government, political and media elite and legal system did not seem to share my values when it comes to treating everyone with dignity and respect, or in treating all life as sacred. So I moved to Canada in 2007, where (thankfully) I am no longer a political football in political cultural wars, and where human rights are still celebrated and advanced by the society at large.

This brings me back to my friend’s questions: Was I bullied? And did bullying contribute to my politics and to my current interest in and passion for community organizing?  Did bullies get me into a lifelong mode of fighting for universal justice?

My answers to these questions are actually related to some of the ideas and issues I have recently confronted in my transition to Canadian society, whose political systems I am learning to be part of in a much different way than I related to those of my home country.  Since moving to Canada I have become much more “pro-system” and am now interested in working within the system, accepting (and celebrating) that I live in a functioning democracy worth participating in, worth contributing to, and worth protecting.  I feel much more “engaged” in civic life, going back to how I viewed myself within society just before the day I dropped out of my childhood dreams on the day I decided to come out.

My friend asked if being bullied as a gay man contributed to my political work, and I said no.  But in truth I think that the answer is yes, as I was bullied by society.  This bullying led me to a different path in politics, as a community organizer instead of as a politician. It ultimately led me to a different country, where I remain a community organizer but can now be reoriented toward participating in a democracy, rather than protecting the community from a greatly weakened form of democratic government. In this sense bullies did help shape my politics and my passion for human rights – just not childhood bullies. It was grownup political operative bullies who did this for me – such as George Bush’s Karl Rove and Bill Clinton’s Dick Morris.

Now that I am in Canada, where I feel welcome to participate in civic life as a participating member of society, I want to share the opportunities to which I’ve been privy as an immigrant, or the opportunities of inclusion.  I know that not all immigrants and not all Canadians, especially First Nations people and Canadians in poverty, are so fully welcome to the table of community and civic life. This is why I want to work with others who believe the table should be open to everyone.

I am thankful to be in Canada, to be an immigrant to this country and to be welcomed as an equal member of our society. I am also thankful that I know what it is like to be excluded and pushed to the margins.  I hope that I will always remember what it means to be excluded, so that I will remain committed to sharing the lessons learned of the value of inclusion and human rights for all. What I learned by being taken out of the mainstream of American politics are lessons I hope to share and apply in my new country, as I work with others to ensure that everyone in Canada is respected and included in our society together.

I am now 37.  I have always liked the benefits of getting older, but as I get older I’ve come to appreciate the benefits of being younger as well (didn’t have a reference point when younger).  Birthdays are a good time to look back, and so far, so good. Bonus to getting older: Ron made me pizza and cheesecake for dinner.  The night was perfect!  Here are some photos from the dinner (click photo to link to flickr for a photo set from the night).

Today will be a wonderful moonday.  Here’s Sagan on the moon: