More Important than Bread?

national | rights, freedoms and repression | opinion/analysis Saturday May 13, 2006 10:24 by Sean Crudden sean.crudden at iol dot ie Jenkinstown, Dundalk, Co Louth. 087 9739945

The Right to Know and Be Consulted

Nowadays none of us want to believe that we are living - or struggling to live - in a "top-down" patriarchal society.

Have you ever felt like a mushroom - kept in the dark and fed horse-shit? It was said that the troops starving and freezing in the trenches during the Russian revolution were more interested in news from Moscow than they were in bread. Nowadays in this green and sceptered isle none of us (or very few of us) want a situation where a few PD gnomes retire to an inner room and (behind a closed door) collogue and plan a neo-liberal way forward for the country.

No. The right to information and to consultation is so sacred that it is has the status of a human right. Of course many of us - due to circumstances - may be heedless or disinterested at times but there is, nevertheless, a right to know and to be consulted.

"Many in Irish society are unaware of their entitlements under the human rights framework by which the State is bound. There is widespread acknowledgement that certain sections of Irish society are disempowered in regards to participation in processes and institutions that affect them."

The paragraph above is taken from the recent publication by Amnesty International Irish Section and The International Human Rights Network, "Our Rights, Our Future. Human Rights Based Approaches in Ireland: Principles, Policies and Practice. Summary Report."

The following few paragraphs from the report are of interest in the present discussion.

"At the heart of empowerment is the right to education, including human rights education for children and adults alike, Central challenges include the fact that one in five Irish adults are classified as functionally illiterate, and language and other barriers disempower some of Ireland’s migrant communities.

"Access to information is also fundamental to empowerment. In this regard, both progress and problems have been noted. There have been improvements in relation to the freedom of information. However, a culture of ‘if at all possible put nothing in writing’ has also been noted by the Inspector of Prisons and Places of Detention in his annual report for 2004 - 2005.

"Despite an increasing number of consultation processes, official websites, etc., the difference in experience between those who queue or telephone or struggle with official forms rather than log on highlights different experiences for those who are empowered and those who are not."

In another section the following can be read:-

"The experience of some non-governmental organisations leads them to view consultation processes as little more than ‘window dressing.’ The situation is sustained by cynicism and apathy among the public. Demand for more effective participation is undermined by a view that participation does not lead to real change."

Of course Rome was not built in a day (and decades of progress can be reversed at the stroke of a pen). Perhaps we should be on our guard against counsels of despair. Then, too, it is easy enough to fulfil the formalities of providing information and engaging in consultation. But the quality of information and the integrity of any consultation process are a key consideration.

At the end of the day the guarantors of freedom of information are the press and the media. That in turn will be reflected in more wholesome and fulsome consultation processes. Here again the issue of quality is paramount.

The search for truth in information is nowadays buttressed up more by institutions like indymedia than by the "free" establishment media.