People are fundamental: promoting human rights. (Human rights: unfinished business).

"We face the need to radicalize the perspective of human rights of ALL HUMAN BEINGS as the fundamental priority for ushering in a new human consciousness. Bridging the distance between economy and society, between economy and nature, between nature and society, is central to the construction of a worldwide agenda that promotes global citizenship." (1)

In this effort, we feminists must draw upon our intelligence and creativity to forge alliances with other forces, but from our perspective, with our own proposals and critiques: we are a force; we have power. This task means more than just getting our demands "placed" on the agenda of these "other" allies. It also implies that society's issues are placed on our agendas and that we develop shared strategies with these other sectors. How does the feminist movement, how do we women, find common ground with other social movements? How do we link our agenda with theirs?

We have managed to bring the violation of human rights within the home out of the private sphere and into the public domain. In addition, efforts by regional networks or other groups to bring cases before the Inter-American Human Rights Commission denouncing State-supported violence against women or governments' failure to fulfill the Belem do Para, Convention also serve to pave the way for other movements (indigenous, African-descendant, homosexual) to challenge governments in this forum.

After so many years, Eleanor Roosevelt's words still ring true. One of the few women participating in the drafting of the original Declaration of Human Rights, she reminded her colleagues that universal human rights begin at the most basic levels, in the home, in spaces so small that they are not marked on any map. Nonetheless, she insisted, these spaces make up the world of individuals: the neighborhood in which they live, the school or university they attend, the factories, farms or offices where they work. These are the places in which all men, women and children expect to be equal before the law, where they expect equal opportunities, dignity, and freedom from discrimination. Unless these rights exist at this level, they make very little sense elsewhere.

Poverty, inequality and injustice in the observance of social, economic and cultural rights also allow us to join in a common agenda with other movements. The economic model that we all oppose creates the condition of injustice and inequality which have become topics of discussion and debate among the different movements. Paradoxically, this same model generates multiple divisions not only within the world of work, but also in our communities and the world of culture. In light of this reality, we must address social, economic and cultural rights not only from their technical and legal perspective, but fundamentally as a political challenge in order to make them a reality, part of the daily lives of all women and men. We must turn them into "global rights," as global as the markets.

Obviously, sexual rights and reproductive rights are the most difficult to include on a common agenda. They demand broad-mindedness, pluralistic perspectives and flexible positions, characteristics that are still scarce among most leaders of social movements, even the women's and feminist movements.

As Betania Avila explains, "Citizenship must be understood as a value that encourages change, sets guidelines and provides the means for improving our lives in the here and now. It must serve as an inspiration for joining in the conflict of social transformation, to produce a discourse of individuals and to reject violence based on sex, race or class as inevitable." (2)

Campaign for Our Rights

The Campaign for the Inter-American Convention on Sexual Rights and Reproductive Rights is grounded in this debate and seeks to foment this movement in the conviction that sexual orientation is not just one more item on a list of topics that we can check off and then forget and that sexual rights should not be swallowed up in the issue of reproductive rights by a movement in which--what a paradox!--women love other women quite naturally ...

This sort of campaign forces individuals, organizations and social movements (beginning with our own) to take a stand on issues that are still the source of contradictions. It forces us to recognize disputes and to respect agreements. From a strategic standpoint, this campaign can find a common ground for efforts that sometimes appear to be losing their impetus.

In other words, a campaign for these sorts of rights can introduce into the common and global agenda a "subversive" form of working for cultural changes, changes that can only take place when we target peoples' minds.

But in the face of the rampant fundamentalisms that we see today, on what do we base our argument? Isn't it time to undertake a subversive attack based in alternative culture?

If we want to strengthen alliances with other movements, we will have to forge these links based on our own agenda that challenges, provokes and questions the public debate, "placing the central focus of the drive to strengthen democracy on personal freedoms, the body and sexuality as the basic right to have rights." (3)

It is always essential that there be many organizations working on public policy, that better laws and reforms be promoted and concrete gains be made, that there be more women representatives in the legislature. It will always be fundamental for us to win greater recognition by the government and to continue to insist on the incorporation of equity and gender in the debate on democracy. But in recent years we have also noticed that some issues are easier to address than others and that it is easier to find allies against domestic and sexual violence than in favor of the right to pleasure, freedom of sexual orientation or the legalization of abortion.

Well, it is 2003 and we are feminists, so why don't we turn Lang's provocation on its ear and ask: "Who wants gender when they can have sex?"

It still is true: there is nothing more political than the personal. Opening peoples' hearts and minds is a tremendous mechanism for resisting those who defend narrow-mindedness.

Against Fundamentalisms, People are Fundamental

And because this narrow-mindedness threatens the human rights of all human beings, the Articulacion Feminista MARCOSUR took the campaign "Your Mouth, Fundamental Against Fundamentalisms" to the World Social Forum.

The World Social Forum is an occasion when protests intertwine with hopes, when despair is answered by creative alternatives. Where homeless activists mingle with those who proclaim they owe allegiance to no country, where indigenous and African-descendant movements meet with young people and economists, transsexuals and feminists. Where holistic healers swap stories with academics. Where those who fight against transgenic manipulation rub elbows with transgender activists. Where Hindus, Muslims, Jews and Catholics share experiences with union leaders and those who promote Esperanto as the universal language. As a result, the forum inevitably reveals "the internal and external tensions of the global social movements, an environment that reveals and even reproduces ambiguous practices or characteristics, where movements for democracy are interrupted by pockets of authoritarianism, sexism or racism." And in the middle of all this, by pure intuition we gradually integrated ourselves into the construction of the World Social Forum since its inception, as a creative and challenging contribution to a feminist understanding of the political construction of agendas.

We chose to focus on the World Social Forum because this political event was strategic in at least three ways: we wanted the feminist agenda (symbolic-cultural subversion, sexual rights, equity, etc.) to really form part of the agenda for economic justice and the strengthening of democracy; secondly, in order to achieve our first objective we had to confront certain contexts of the Forum itself and play a subversive role even within this event; and finally, the Forum is a platform for our own discourses--in Porto Alegre our campaign was actively taken up by other movements and international women's networks, by young people, by union leaders and others (and criticized by those who said we were playing Bush's game, that the graphics we used to portray the mouths were too erotic, that our material was too "light"--since when is eroticism "light"?--or that materials of such quality must be financed by the CIA).

"The campaign Against Fundamentalisms, People Are Fundamental aims to stimulate voices opposed to discriminatory social practices, discourses and representations which oppress people and increase their vulnerability. We believe that it is possible to create--in both the symbolic and political realms--a dimension inhabited by human beings, individual women and men, in which such practices are impossible.

"Whether religious, political, economic, scientific or cultural, fundamentalism is always political and flourishes in societies which negate the full diversity of the human race and which legitimate the use of violence to subordinate one group to another, or one person to another.

"Essentially exclusionary and bellicose, fundamentalisms undermine the construction of a project for the human race in which all people have the right to have rights and sacrifice women's lives with increasingly refined perversity.

"... Regardless of the specific objectives pursued by each type of fundamentalism, there is a point of convergence among them all: they wish to dominate, control and violently subject the bodies, sexualities, identities and lives of women.

"They are capable of declaring war or promoting an act of terror of catastrophic dimensions, such as the attack on the World Trade Center. But no matter where they come from, whether from the White House, the blue mosques, a cathedral or a synagogue, fundamentalists invariably seek to impose their unique truth, their single voice drowning out all other voices, and to strip women of their human rights, their rights to pleasure, to exercise freely their sexuality, to decide to have an abortion, or to occupy a position of power." (4)

As feminists, we have much to contribute (and much to gain) in collective undertakings in which the different identities--until now fairly "corporate" --contribute to an "us" that, while not free from conflict, will be inclusive, plural and, fortunately, changeable. The construction of global citizenship must be nurtured by the possibility of imagining a future in which all individuals have a future.

Notes

(1.) Candido Grzybowski, IBASE Director, member of the Organizing Committee of the World Social Forum.

(2.) Avila, Betania (2001)."Feminismo, cidadania e transformacao social," in Textos e imagens do feminismo: mulheres construindo a igualdade. Recife, Brazil: SOS Corpo.

(3.) Celiberti, Lilian (2001). "Los gozos y las sombras," in Jornal da RedeSaude, December.

(4.) Articulacion Feminista MARCOSUR (2001). "Against Fundamentalisms, People Are Fundamental" in Women's Health Journal(Santiago, Chile: LACWHN) 1/2002, pp. 59-61.

RELATED ARTICLE: In God's name.

Religious fundamentalism is present within different doctrines. In the warmongering tradition of the sons of Abraham--Jews, Christians and Moslems--fundamentalist currents are underpinned by the tribal conviction that each is the chosen people, blessed with the revelation of the one and only true God. These currents attempt to control regiments of "human sheep," disciplined to resist any change in their ideas under threat of pain and suffering.

Jewish fundamentalism seeks to build up the State of Israel to the size proclaimed in the Hebrew Bible. Islamic fundamentalism wants to make the teachings of the Qur'an the only possible way of life, morality, politics and state organization for Moslems throughout the world. Catholic evangelization sought to justify the colonization of America and the domination of millions of human beings in their own lands, destroying lives and cultures. By using arguments based on "divine rights," racist ideology dehumanized indigenous and African peoples.

Violence with the supposed blessing of divine powers is responsible for the murder of Moslem women in Iran, Algeria, Somalia, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Kurdistan and Afghanistan for the most absurd motives, whether real or imaginary. This authoritarian ferment is responsible for the persistence, even now in the 21st century, of the practice of female genital mutilation in different regions of Africa, Asia and the Near East.

In the Americas, the fundamentalist Catholic offensive to control female sexuality echoes the advice of Martelo das Feiticeiras (author of Malleus Maleficarum), who more than 500 years ago warned inquisitors of the need to keep women's sexuality strictly under control--or humanity would suffer all types of ills. In Latin America and so many other regions of the world, the murder of women by men who claim to act in legitimate defense of their honor is still legal or tolerated. Catholic fundamentalists threaten and frighten women who resort to legal abortions in the United States.

Regardless of the specific objectives pursued by each type of fundamentalism, there is a point of convergence among them all: they wish to dominate, control and violently subject the bodies, sexualities, identities and lives of women.

Source: Articulacion Feminista Marcosur, "Against Fundamentalisms, People Are Fundamental" Campaign, World Social Summit, 2002.

RELATED ARTICLE: WEDO The 50/50 Campaign: Get the Balance Right!

The Women's Environment and Development Organization (WEDO) is an international advocacy network that seeks to increase the power of women worldwide as policymakers in governance and in policymaking institutions, forums and processes at all levels to achieve economic and social justice, a peaceful and healthy planet, and human rights for all.

Worldwide, women make up more than half the population, but only 12.7 percent of all parliamentary seats. What's wrong with these numbers? No government can claim to be democratic until women are guaranteed the right to equal representation. At the 1995 Beijing Fourth World Conference on Women, 189 governments agreed to this principle in the Beijing Platform and committed themselves to take steps to achieve it.

But the percentage of women legislators has only increased 0.5 percent a year since then. At that rate, it will take 75 years to reach an equal gender balance!

The 50/50 campaign aims to get the balance right. Launched in New York on June 8, 2000, during the five-year review of the Beijing Platform for Action, the campaign's goals are to increase the percentage of women in local and national politics worldwide. Since it began, the 50/50 campaign has been adopted by 154 organizations in 45 countries.

But the 50/50 campaign is not just about numbers; it is also about women making a difference. At each major UN conference in the last ten years, women have successfully established that every issue--social, economic and political--affects women and that all women's issues involve and reflect the concerns of society as a whole. In other words, when women bring their experiences and feminist perspectives to the table, everyone benefits: peace and justice can become a reality in the present rather than in some distant future.

From WEDO's website, http:// www.wedo.org/balance.htm.

Uruguayan journalist Lucy Garrido edits the periodical Cotidiano Mujer and is a communications consultant for the Campaign for an Inter-American Convention on Sexual Rights and Reproductive Rights. She is also a member of the Articulacion Feminista MARCOSUR (MARCOSUR Feminist Coordination). Some portions of this article were adapted from the paper, "Who Wants Gender When They Can Have Sex?" originally presented at the seminar, "Latin American Feminisms: Challenges and Perspectives," organized by the Programa Universitario de Estudios de Genero (PUEG, University Gender Studies Program) in Mexico, April 2002.