Clichés that have their incidence on human rights
This article from back in December 2012 was signed by Olatz Landa, Izaskun Alonso, Juan Ibarrondo and myself. And the fact is that when you get tired of hearing nasty clichés in things that have to do with human rights and you see that such clichés are used later to worsen the situation of people, well, you tend to get angry and you team up to write articles like this one. Sometimes, anger, well conducted, can produce interesting reflections …
This is a small part of this article:
This cliché [that victims of different violences should not be considered equal] has been reinforced by saying that the existence of victims of torture in the Basque Country should not be recognized, because there has never been a problem of justification of this practice, because nobody ever organized demonstrations in favor of torture, whereas there have been demonstrations in favor of ETA, and therefore there is a problem that consisted in justifying the existence of ETA.
We do not know if with such an argument the idea was to mix things that cannot be mixed. International law does not establish any kind of restriction to the recognition of a type of victim depending on possible demonstrations -whether they be related or not- nor even if such demonstrations are in favor of perpetrators of other victims. And the worst comes when they use what we call the squid technique, staining and mixing it all, like when they ask if a terrorist whose bomb blows up in his hands is a victim. Another classic is when there are attempts to soften the suffering of a victim saying such niceties like “at this rate, it will be eventually necessary to recognize that a rape victim is also a victim, and that victims of domestic violence are also victims… everybody is a victim!” This was actually said by a politician on the radio. Well, no, not everybody is a victim, of course not, but anybody who has had their rights to life and to physical or psychological integrity violated is a victim. Here and anywhere else in the world, except perhaps in the rancid world of clichés”.
It is my intention to translate all of my articles in due course. Once I have this one translated in full, I shall be publishing it here. In the meantime you can see the original versions in Spanish and Basque in the links below.
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