Reflecting on Human Rights

[Frank T.]

Human Rights, Not Just For Men
By Frank T. Scruggs

Yes, there is much abuse in Third World countries by comparison however in the case of human trafficking many women and children are lured, kidnapped and stolen and sold into virtual slavery...In many sweatshops across the globe women are battered and forced to wok for meager wages...the Macquiladoras in Mexico are actually multinational corporations operated under dangerous and harsh conditions paying little wages to women working there by comparison to workers in the Western Developed nations...even in the developed nations women suffer from sexual harassment, face a glass ceiling and are often stereotyped as "single mothers" which hampers their success and upward mobility and advancement. As Dr. Johan Galtung teaches... hidden, structural violence exists outside the realm of physical violence... violence can be found in other dimensions such as psychological, spiritual and economic...any form of force used to create any type of harm and/or damage can be considered a form of violence. Violence against women is deplorable in a world priding itself on moving towards becoming a global village. Even more is the fact that violence against women also exist in dimensions other than just the physical dimensions, such as psycho-cultural, the economic, social, political and spiritual.

Violence in the physical dimension is horrific. The human rights violations perpetrated against women are atrocious. According to Bunch and Carrillo, even in this modern era women still are considered chattel in many parts of the world. Women issues of forced prostitution, female circumcision and objectification of women are still considered out the purview of human rights. The idea that women rights issues are not human rights issues is problematic in the creation of a global strategic plan for human rights initiatives.

Nations pursuing money and wealth under capitalism tend to become nations that value above all else, materialism, greed and perversion. Old values and beliefs are replaced by new, soulless, money-oriented, values.
I think that many of the developed nations unintentionally create Transnational Criminal Organizations (TCOs) as a result of dependency and worship of money and consumer goods. Materialism has increased the appetites of people living in developed, capitalistic societies; attitudinal shifts in what people consider as essential wants and needs have occurred in this modern era of technological advances. Through laws (Mala prohibita) control of vice and sin is not really possible with the advent of TCOs (it wasn’t possible either when less sophisticated versions of organized crime flourished in the past). Even now, if you accept investigations such as the San Jose Mercury News, San Jose, California) reporter, the late Gary Webb’s (“Dark Alliance” involved an alleged collusion between the Nicaraguan Contras and CIA to smuggle drugs (resulting in a crack cocaine epidemic) into South Central Los Angeles investigation of drug trafficking, incidents involving drug smuggling, protection, and corruption by the very law enforcement forces (CIA, Drug Enforcement Administration, military and city police officials) pledged by oath to defend society against this very thing abound and thrive.

Another aspect of materialism is the acceptance of ‘gold-digger values (i.e., entering a relationship with a person based purely on social and economic status) by a large amount of men and women (both men and women, far too many times have adopted gold-digger values in many developed nations) in the capitalistic, developed nations. Gold-digger values often arising out of selfism, further acerbate those whom are economically successful but have abusive or an underdeveloped sense of morality causing them to become increasingly more abusive either physically, emotionally or both. These relationships often tend to have a high degree of abuse as a result of the internalization of greed and money as a lifestyle. In instances like this societal greed is another form of violence against women in the sense that perverted value processing leads to physical and emotional abuse of women.

Societal vice, greed and perversion creates opportunity for the oppressed, the poor and the disenfranchised to participate in the quest for wealth, materialism and perversion offered primarily to only the economically viable. Crime, while leveling the economic playing field is merely an illusion of success; it eventually leads to incarceration and death but then incarceration is a social death of sorts. Meanwhile, the ruling, top echelon of TCOs remain insulated and eventually integrate themselves into legitimate enterprises for example, the Russian Mafia controls over 400 banks, and has become socially acceptable.

Organized crime is a constantly evolving structure in the world and as the nations increasingly move towards globalization it seems that transnational criminal organizations are also evolving as a result of the technology and opportunities created by the volatile atmosphere created by globalization which creates uncertainty and changing social patterns and structures among the world’s population.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Bunch, Charlotte and Carrillo, Roxanna, Global Violence against Women: The Challenge to Human Rights and Development, Pp. 229-248, Klare, Michael T. and Chandrani (1998). World Security: Challenges for a New Century, 3d, New York: St. Martin’s Press

Rosenau, James N., The Dynamism of a Turbulent World, Pp. 18-35, Klare, Michael T. and Chandrani (1998). World Security: Challenges for a New Century, 3d, New York: St. Martin’s Press

Williams, Phil, Transnational Criminal Organizations and International Security,
Pp. 249-272, Klare, Michael T. and Chandrani (1998). World Security: Challenges for a New Century, 3d, New York: St. Martin’s Press

[Frank T.]

Thanks Louis, I had so wanted to come to England this summer. I had been invited to attend the Oxford Round table in Manchester to discuss Immigration and Migration issues. The timing and the cost were problematic for me. Hopefully another opportunity in the near future will permit me to visit Britain at another time. I do plan to submit my paper on the subject later. I am happy to have a forum where I can exchange my thoughts with other conscious and aware people. I am also happy to have students in my Issues in World Politics class that are so spiritually-minded and attuned to the issues that need to be unraveled to help the inhabitants of our planet reach the place and position that our spiritual capacity allows.

[Louis Loizou]

Hi Frank T.
Good to hear from you again. What you so clearly demonstrate has been in the thoughts of many of us here in Brighton, and I am sure many in various parts of Africa too. Seinde himself had plenty to say on the subject of the subjugation of women.
We just had an event you might have seen the poster for in Brighton orchestrated by Moving Sounds our Forum theatre friends. It was on 8th march, International Women's day, and what is remarkable is how few women or men knew the day. However, most of our speakers were women and the men did the cooking! It was a great event for raising awareness of Food Sovereignty, our first main goal.
One thing I learned recently is that if you examine "The Agricultural Industry" (I use quotes because I am old enough to remember my surprise as a young man hearing the term - I said to myself "Farming is the means of food production - it is not an industry") something like 70% of it is controlled and the wealth reaped by men, whereas when it comes to the production of food for local consumption, for families rather than for the capitalist machine, 80% of that food is laboured over and produced by women.
I have decided that my May radio program is going to be devoted to the subject of women, will have only women guests, and only women's music.
I am really interested by your exposition of the links between capitalism and crime, and thank you for your references - I wish I could say I would read them, but I am already snowed under by reading around food security, intellectual property rights applied to biological material and so on.
However, I am very encouraged by the fact that weekly I discover more and more people working in academic institutions and at grass-roots level who are trying to awaken "civil society" to the realities that face what I believe is a dying culture.
Transition Brighton and Hove (see my page for a radio interview that explains this) recently showed an American film called "What A Way To Go: Life At The End Of Empire" by Tim Bennett at a local independent Theatre. I highly recommend it - it is tough and uncompromising and definitely worth seeing.
Keep up the good work, and take care.
Louis.