Human and Civil Rights in Latin America

Well, I guess this about wraps up the term. Does anyone else here thinks it went terrifyingly fast?

What did I take from it? I guess mainly that human rights are not something that are set in stone. I do still believe that they exist, or that they should exist, but I now see how difficult they are to define, or how easily manipulable of a concept they are. Human rights can be taken and redefined to suit pretty much any situation, as we have seen in the case of the military Junta in Argentina. They are also incredibly hard to protect, since they too often seem to come second to the economy or the interests of the wealthy. This does not stop me from thinking, however, that there is something there worth fighting for. People are twisted, often ignorant, and ocasionally evil, but always of value. Latin America has a long and twisted history when it comes to human rights abuses, and perhaps I'm an optimist, but I do believe that things can still change.

As the course when on, my vision of human rights went through a rather dramatic shift. I used to have a rather simplistic view of what rights were - that is to say, I really did believe that they were a natural things, a given, something that could always be argued for and that I could trust others to respect. I now see how naive that idea was. Human rights are an idea, and ideas can always be changed. If your government abuses your human rights, while actively denying it (as did Argentina), then what are the recourses? The international community? If they can even bring themselves to care, what can it do, when national sovereignty is involved? Very little. When you can't trust the authorities, the only possible change is from the bottom up. I do like the idea that revolution and human rights go hand in hand, though I have to admit that, if one looks at the track record of revolutions, this has not always been the case.

I have also learnt that internation organizations, such as the UN, do not hold the answers. Far from it. If anything, they perpetuate a very Westernized conception of human rights, one that supports a colonialist attitute. We can no longer justify imposing our beliefs on others (and someone should really tell that to the US and their involvment in Latin America). Each region should really be given some leeway to figure out what human rights mean in their own context...but this would invariably lead to abuse. So what's to be done? I don't anyone has that figured out.

Basically, what I have learnt is that human rights are complicated, a little insane, and that there is no straightforward answer or explanation to anything. The only thing I do know, however, is that we need to keep on moving foreward.

Finally, I love the intergration of the Occupy movement into class dialogue. I personally have a lot of faith in Occupy, in the sense that it represents people finally realizing that there are problems that are not getting solved and speaking out about them. The movement is still in it's infancy, but I will hoping that it will gather up steam and grow. What I see in it is the simple realization that all people have worth, and should be treated well, and have access to opportunities. What I see in it is the hope of a more open and intergrated world. But I guess I'll just have to wait and see what happens.