Human Rights and Poverty

‘MAN is born free; and everywhere he is in chains. One thinks himself the master of others, and still remains a greater slave than they’
Jean Jacques Rousseau 1762

It was the Iranians, through Cyrus the Great, who gave us our first universal declaration of Human Rights in the 6th Century BC. Since then we have been trying through a range of religious and legal texts to ‘hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness’. This struggle for Human Rights gave birth to a republican revolution that swept across Europe and North America. Yet despite this revolution the world is still impoverished with slavery, oppression, ill health, war and disease.

In 1945, as a consequence of two world wars, the United Nations was established in San Francisco. The Aims of the United Nations are:
To keep peace throughout the world.
To develop friendly relations between nations.
To work together to help people live better lives, to eliminate poverty, disease and illiteracy in the world, to stop environmental destruction and to encourage respect for each other's rights and freedoms.
To be a centre for helping nations achieve these aims.
As part of this work the UN has declared 10 December Human Rights Day and has identified poverty as a cause and a product of human rights violations.
According to the UN, poverty ‘is probably the gravest human rights challenge in the world. Yet, poverty is still rarely seen through the lens of human rights. Many ingredients go into making poverty, but factors like discrimination, unequal access to resources, and social and cultural stigmatization have always characterized it. These “factors” have another name: the denial of human rights and human dignity’. With such a denial how shall we overcome local and global poverty? Can we, as a Human Race, ever surmount such a challenge? If so, what factors should we overcome in our pursuit of Peace, Health and Happiness? This concept may be too difficult for many to realise.

If we are to see poverty ‘through the lens of human rights’ we need to make it and its relationship with Human Rights applicable to all. For those trying to overcome poverty the determinants are obvious: Geography, Demography, Crime and Justice, Deprivation, Education, Employment and Economic Activity, Health and Care, Housing and Transport. If we are to finish the work of Cyrus and end slavery, oppression, ill health, war, and disease we need to eradicate poverty from all forms of human relations. Only then will we be born free, and nowhere in chains, of poverty. For the UN’s Human Rights Day to have a major impact we all need to work as one, individual, community, governments and societies, to realise our commonality: Master of none, but brothers, sisters, fathers and mothers, daughters and sons striving for ‘Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness’

Seán Brennan is the Development Officer for the Edward de Bono Foundation NI and works in partnership with Intercomm’s Developing Leadership Initiative CEP in North Belfast’s Interface Communiites.

Reflections on St Andrews

I have to be honest I did not expect any deal emerging from St Andrews. On Friday I was shocked when the news emerged about a possible agreement. Bitter memories of growing up in North Belfast and pain and grief of communities came into sharp focus. We should all ask the question is that the kind of future that we want? Or do we want a future free from political conflict?

I want political progress. While many are totally disillusioned with the constant stalemate of the political process we all still yearn to see the DUP share power with all other political parties.

On the back of the St Andrews proposals, communities must seek to inform and shape our road map towards a shared future. There is no longer any hiding place to shy away from addressing the hard issues of community polarization, shared space, housing, education and employment. These issues are particularly important in North Belfast if our quality of life is to be improved.

St Andrews is the last chance to create an enabling context in which we can collectively build trust and relationships.

I am of the firm view that we need a functioning assembly and a resolution of the issues of policing and justice, if we are to further navigate ourselves out of conflict.

The creation of a locally functioning executive will not only give us all hope but present challenges that when addressed will take us further down the road to creating a vibrant society at peace with itself. Local communities must continue to take ownership of this process if it is to deliver a new culture of co-operation across interfaces so that we may be collectively empowered to address the growing social and economic marginalization of many within our community.


John Loughran is Programme Director for Intercomm’s North Belfast Developing Leadership Initiative.

What is 'Peace'?

What is Peace? Any initial inquiry into this strange word reveals that we are all too willing to fight for it, die for it and protest for it but what do we actually understand it to mean when we talk of Peace? Just stop and wonder for an instant; what does Peace really mean to you? Ok, now is that what you really want? Would you be willing to fight to keep the Peace? Maybe not, so how would you deal with those who are not prepared to live in Peace? Perhaps now you are starting to think that understanding the concept of Peace is not as simple as it first might appear. No wonder that over the centuries such questioning has challenged even the most enlightened of thinkers, and driven many of them to war!

Perhaps we should start with what the word Peace actually means. Dictionary.Com provides 17 definitions of what Peace means within the English language, while the Online Etymology Dictionary reveals that the Hebrew word for Peace is Shalom and both the words Islam and Muslim are derivatives of Salam, also meaning Peace. Do you think these three major religions are paragons of Peace? To further confuse matters, Christianity, Judaism and Islam are all derivatives of a single Semitic tradition, tracing its roots back to Abraham. So these three religions’ understanding of Peace comes from a single source. Do you think they all mean the same thing? Maybe you feel limited, or curtailed, by just three words for Peace. Well why not click on the link below to see what Peace means in other languages: http://www.geocities.com/thetropics/9356/wordsof.htm

No doubt you are wondering why so many people are so fixated with the meaning of Peace? Or perhaps you are thinking, ‘please, just give my head peace’. Well, it is quite simple, how can you become a peace builder if we don’t even know what Peace is? What is it you are supposed to be building and what are the materials you should be using to build Peace? Many activists working in a peace building environment will tell you, there is no script, and once the architects of a ‘Peace Process’ have moved on those at the grassroots, of Government or Community, are expected to ‘get on with it’. But get on with what?

To firm up what people mean by Peace, it might be a good idea to ask them what they think Peace is. So this blog is providing a space for people to communicate and share insights, views or ideas of what Peace means. We hope to create a valuable resource for peace builders, who can draw on it to inform their own working environment. If you are interested in Peace why don’t you ask yourself, friends and neighbours, your enemies and opponents: What does Peace mean to you? Then send us your replies below and we will piece them together to create an innovative resource for the architects, makers and builders of Peace. Shalom, Salam, Peace be with you.

Seán Brennan is the Development Officer for the Edward de Bono Foundation NI and works in partnership with Intercomm’s Developing Leadership Initiative CEP in North Belfast’s Interface Communities.

Welcome to Intercomms Blog

   Welcome, we hope to use this blog as a means to promote, and generate discussion, on a range of issues affecting peace building, economic regeneration and community development across and within North Belfast. While we may be geographically based, our comments will not be limited to North Belfast because we believe that unless people start communicating effectively across local, regional and international divides, our problems today; will be yours tomorrow, and vice versa. So there is a need for peace builders to develop a bigger picture, of where our work fits in to the local, regional, national and international process of peace building. For example, how can the lessons of sectarian conflict in North Belfast inform or influence the reduction of sectarian violence in Iraq? What learning from Los Angeles on ‘gang culture’ can be applied here, to ensure that as new immigrant communities arrive we don’t end up substituting sectarian violence for ethnic or gang violence.

   Here, in North Belfast, as political discussions move towards the November 24^th deadline, many peace builders wonder what the implications will be for local governance, statutory accountability and grassroots peace building if, as expected, it ‘all ends in tears’? With international goodwill all but expended how will grassroots peace builders rise to the new challenge of sustaining peace in the face of yet another failed political initiative? Within such a political stalemate, how will grassroots community groups give leadership in the introduction of new policies, on Neighbourhood Renewal and Shared Future? What role is there for the business community to contribute to addressing such issues? How can the health sector begin to play a more active role in addressing endemic inequalities in health? With a potential absence of local government, how will our civil servants implement such policies and who will hold them to account in the absence of a local assembly?

   And ultimately, the question needs to be asked, when international and EU funding for peace building ends how will the British and Irish government’s sustain the peace? As John Paul Lederach, the American peace scholar points out, for every year of conflict we need ten years of peace investment. So we all must start asking our Governments, and elected representatives, what plans are you developing to ensure that we never have to experience such conflict again? In classical Conflict Resolution theory, fear and ignorance have been identified as the root causes of all conflict. One of the central ideas for this blog is to examine such causes, and by encouraging and promoting discussion and debate, identify possible solutions, to transform our conflicts into peace. Over the coming months we hope to use this blog to encourage discussions and new thinking, as Seámus Heaney would say, ‘to set the darkness echoing’ with the sound of our enquiries into peace. We know this is no easy task and are mindful of Pastor Dietrich Bonhoffer’s observation that ‘great battles are easier to fight than daily skirmishes’ but we are committed, to ensure that peace, like a river, flows through our cities, interfaces and divides.