From Social Exclusion to Equal Dignity (ExclusionED)

•  General links
•  Day-to-day links

HumanDHS is primarily grounded in academic work. We are independent of any religious or political agenda. However, we wish to bring academic work into "real life." Our research focuses on topics such as dignity (with humiliation as its violation), or, more precisely, on respect for equal dignity for all human beings in the world. This is not only our research topic, but also our core value, in line with Article 1 of the Human Rights Declaration that states that every human being is born with equal dignity (that ought not be humiliated). We agree with Professor Shibley Telhami, who advocates the building of bridges from academia as follows, "I have always believed that good scholarship can be relevant and consequential for public policy. It is possible to affect public policy without being an advocate; to be passionate about peace without losing analytical rigor; to be moved by what is just while conceding that no one has a monopoly on justice." We would like to add that we believe that good scholarship can be relevant and consequential not only for public policy, but for raising awareness in general.


Please read Ruth Lister and her chapter A politics of recognition and respect: Involving people with experience of poverty in decision-making that affects their lives in Andersen, J. & Siim, B. (Eds.), The politics of inclusion and empowerment . New York, NY: Palgrave, 2004.

Ruth Lister writes in this chapter: "People living in poverty and their organisations should be empowered by involving them fully in the setting of targets, and in the design, implementation, monitoring and assessment of national strategies and programmes for poverty eradication and community-based development, and ensuring that such programmes reflect their priorities."

 

 

General Links

Acting together for a Europe of Dignity for All

The International Fourth World Movement





Day-to-Day Links

Gunman 'Had Links to US Suspect'
A student who gunned down eight people in a Finnish school reportedly chatted online with a teenager accused of plotting a school attack in the US. Pekka-Eric Auvinen discussed the Columbine school massacre and exchanged videos with Dillon Cossey, a lawyer for Mr Cossey told the Associated Press. Material found on Auvinen's computer suggested online contact with the US student, Finnish police said. They said they had not yet talked to US counterparts about the possible link.
Please see more at http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/world/europe/7091539.stm.

Garry Davis: World Citizenship, World Passport, World Presidency, World Service Authority, World Government of World Citizens, World Government House
Garry Davis (Bar Harbor, Maine, July 27, 1921) is a peace activist who created the first "World Passport." A former World War II bomber pilot and Broadway actor, he renounced his American citizenship in Paris in 1948 to become a "citizen of the world." Davis founded the World Service Authority, which now issues the passports - along with birth and other certificates - to applicants. Davis first used his "world passport" on a trip to India in 1956, and has been variably admitted into or jailed by countries around the world after using his world passport. Up to 150 countries have purportedly accepted the world passport at one time or another. In France, his support committee was co-founded by writers Albert Camus and André Gide and the Abbé Pierre (quoted from wikipedia).

See also www.onefilms.com and www.1worldcitizen.com.

Tribal Peoples Not Stone Age and Primitive Say Experts
Survival International Press Release, 5 March 2007
The Association of Social Anthropologists (ASA), the UK's professional body for anthropologists, has condemned the use of terms like 'stone age' and 'primitive' to describe tribal and indigenous peoples alive today. The condemnation comes in the wake of controversial comments made on the BBC by Baroness Jenny Tonge, the Liberal Democrat peer, who called the Bushmen of the Kalahari Desert 'stone age' and 'primitive.'
The ASA has become the latest supporter of Survival International's campaign against racism in the media which challenges the use of terms like 'stone age', 'primitive' and 'savage' to describe tribal and indigenous peoples. Other supporters include prominent journalists such as John Simpson, John Pilger and George Monbiot.
The ASA statement reads, 'All anthropologists would agree that the negative use of the terms 'primitive' and 'Stone Age' to describe [tribal peoples] has serious implications for their welfare. Governments and other social groups. . . have long used these ideas as a pretext for depriving such peoples of land and other resources.'

Richest 2% Own 'Half the Wealth'
By Andrew Walker
Economics correspondent, BBC World Service
The richest 2% of adults in the world own more than half of all household wealth, according to a new study by a United Nations research institute. The report, from the World Institute for Development Economics Research at the UN University, says that the poorer half of the world's population own barely 1% of global wealth. There have of course been many studies of worldwide inequality. But what is new about this report, the authors say, is its coverage.
It deals with all countries in the world - either actual data or estimates based on statistical analysis - and it deals with wealth, where most previous research has looked at income.
What they mean by wealth in this study is what people own, less what they owe - their debts. The assets include land, buildings, animals and financial assets.
Please read the entire article at http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/business/6211250.stm.