On this past Friday I had the opportunity to attend the COLEADS conference focusing on micro-action and social justice. During this conference I had two major thoughts regarding our class.
First, during lunch I had the opportunity to speak to a native Saudi Arabian about the difference between American and Saudi Arabian social justice stances. He talked to me about how in Saudi Arabia people are still very conservative when it comes to understanding other cultures. However, he said that the reasons for this exist on a much more complex level than in the United States. In Saudi Arabian, according to him, race and other basic identities don't matter when it comes to justice. Instead, justice gives privilege to people of certain religious and cultural systems. He said that a lot of things don't matter like they do in the US. It got me thinking: is the US still incredibly basic with the allowing of privilege? American privilege is awarded to the white, hetero-normative, able men. This is incredibly basic. At least in Saudi Arabian the prejudice goes back to historic and cultural implications that are ingrained in the land. Is the US that backwards?
Also, I found it beautiful how he told me how wonderful it is to see people of different genders, ethnic backgrounds, and ages holding hands, even if they are met with great rejection.
Secondly, the keynote speaker for the conference was Dr. David Stovall. He is a social justice activist based in Chicago that deals with implementing new education systems. His presentation shocked me. He opened us to the disastrous education system in Chicago. Over one summer, 49 schools were closed. This had led to a huge increase in violence in the city. He talks about it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ts-g71GfGQ. Furthermore, the JeffCo current change of curriculum outraged him because of the reversion the United States has currently seen. This law, plus other amendments in the state, are returning us to a reverted level. This isn't the revolution I hope to see. He also talked about how in Detroit people have had their water shut off because of increasing dept. We commonly hear of African struggles for water and the like, yet it is happening in our backyard. How can we be so oblivious? We are denying our own people their basic human rights yet we criticize other nations for doing the same. Who are we to judge? A quote he ended with: "Justice is being asked a question, not knowing the answer, and realizing that we have been manipulated."
Continuing with the slam poetry theme, here is a gem: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xDiwuOgqQvQ
I am starting to think that revolution depends on education...
The answer to your title question is fairly obvious to me: No, The United States is not meeting many human rights standards. We rank far from the top in international measurements of press freedom, the thing democracy is based on. The warrant less collection of personal e-mail, phone and internet use data is a flagrant disregard for privacy both as defined by our own Bill of Rights and the UN's Universal Declaration of Human Rights. We violate both again with our torture program at Guantanamo Bay and elsewhere. One's outcome in our criminal justice system is based on race and socioeconomic background. Many states have stricter laws on human same sex relationships than human-animal ones. We can go on and on.
ReplyDeleteThe far more interesting question is the relationship with education and revolution because both well educated and under educated populations have brought forth Revolution. More interesting still is that schisms in education levels can drive educated and uneducated into the same revolution for different reasons.
The educated revolutionary is perhaps easiest to explain. As our class guest, Alex Gorodinski noted, most often revolutions come about when a nation has a large group of educated youth who see no prospects in the future. Here, education can drive revolution because those who have been taught how to think and reason can clearly see a regime as corrupt and illogical. If that illogical system still benefits them they will probably let it stand, but if not then there will try to remove it and build anew.
Dictatorial regimes tend to either neglect education or use their education systems as a tool for propaganda. In either case, the populace is not educated as ability to think and reason is never developed. While this can be useful to a dictatorship in the short term it leads to long term destabilization of a society. As long as the government can control information they can maintain stability. But as soon as one bit of information enters that "asks a question" just by its existence, the people "realize (they) have been manipulated" as your keynote speaker put it. This can spur revolution as the belief in a fundamental truth is shattered on a mass scale.
Thus a small educated element can spur revolution in a large uneducated population, this has been seen in the French Revolution and arguably the Arab Spring. Thus we must ask why, even if a thinking reasoning group is in the lead, that so many revolutions become chaotic. I think the answer is that ultimately human selfishness can corrupt any person, whether they are educated or uneducated people will try to build systems that benefit them.
However, I do believe mass education of population is our best safeguard against the worst abuses of selfishness. If more people do just take a second to stop and think, then we can fairly readily discern when one person claims to act for the benefit of all but only acts for him or herself. Assuming we are still reasoning, we would all take action to stop it. This generally brings about a balance of power type solution. While it does not eliminate selfishness, it can, with varying success, prevent dictatorship while preserving some order.