Flávia Piovesan: Campinas massacre was femicide.
In an article published this Thursday, the National Secretary of Human Rights, Flávia Piovesan, classifies the massacre that occurred on New Year's Eve in Campinas as femicide; "in the contemporary order, characterized by increasing hostilities, intolerance and the strengthening of hate speech, today, more than ever, it is necessary to expand, enhance and disseminate the transformative ideology of human rights, as a rationality of resistance and the only emancipatory platform of our time," she says.
247 - In an article published this Thursday, the National Secretary of Human Rights, Flávia Piovesan, classifies the massacre that occurred on New Year's Eve in Campinas as femicide.
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Urgent action needed to combat hate crimes.
Doctrines of superiority based on differences are advancing, whether of origin, nationality, race, ethnicity, gender, sexual diversity, or age.
On December 19th, an attack at a Christmas market in Berlin left 12 dead and 48 injured. The main suspect, 24-year-old Tunisian Anis Amri, was killed by Milan police. The Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attack. On the same date, three Muslim worshippers were injured in a mosque in Zurich—the perpetrator was a 24-year-old Swiss man, later found dead. On December 31st, the Islamic State claimed responsibility for another attack, this time in Turkey, resulting in the deaths of 39 people. On the same day, 12 people were murdered in Campinas, in a tragic massacre motivated by the crime of femicide. Earlier, on December 25th, while preventing homophobic violence against transvestites, Luiz Carlos Ruas, a street vendor, was beaten to death in a subway station in São Paulo.
The contemporary arena presents the challenge of confronting hate crimes based on the ideology of nationalism, xenophobia, racism, sexism, homophobia, and the rejection of the other. Doctrines of superiority based on differences are advancing, whether of origin, nationality, race, ethnicity, gender, sexual diversity, age, among other categories. Difference is taken as a factor to annihilate rights, in the name of the supremacy of some at the expense of others, in a perverse ideology that hierarchizes humanity.
Human rights violations are fueled by a strong cultural component: they feed on an ideology of denial of rights. The violence of racism, sexism, xenophobia, homophobia, and other forms of intolerance is nurtured by a culture of violence that denies others the full status of subjects of rights.
Combating the culture of intolerance requires strengthening the culture of respect for diversity. Combating the culture of violence requires strengthening the culture of peace. Combating the culture of denial and violation of rights requires strengthening the culture of affirmation and promotion of rights.
Hence the urgency in promoting and disseminating the emancipatory ideology of the 1948 Universal Declaration, which also celebrated its anniversary in December. It emerged as a response to the atrocities committed under Nazism: if the Second World War signified a rupture with human rights, the Post-War period should signify the hope of their reconstruction. The Declaration endorses the universality of human rights, recognizing that the condition of being a person is the sole and exclusive requirement for having rights. It repudiates the Nazi equation that conditioned the entitlement to rights on belonging to the pure Aryan race, based on the doctrine of racial supremacy. It recognizes human dignity as an intrinsic component of each and every person, due to their uniqueness, diversity, and infinite value. It endorses the indivisibility of human rights, adopting a comprehensive perspective of rights, uniquely combining the value of freedom with the value of equality.
Praising the historical legacy of the Universal Declaration, on December 14th the ceremony for the awarding of human rights prizes was held, recognizing entities and individuals for their capacity for struggle and dedication to the cause of protecting and promoting these rights. The ritual began with a simple tribute to Dom Paulo, who passed away on that same date, a tireless guardian of the cause of human rights, a cardinal of liberty, an example of courage in the unwavering fight for justice in the face of arbitrariness and in defense of the most vulnerable.
By encompassing 15 categories (including the protection of the rights of the LGBT population, the elderly, women, people with disabilities, indigenous peoples, quilombola and traditional communities, children and adolescents, human rights defenders, respect for religious diversity, among others), the award invokes the cross-cutting nature of human rights. It fulfills at least three objectives: the dissemination of the emancipatory ideology of the Declaration; the just recognition of personal and institutional trajectories in their extraordinary contribution to safeguarding human dignity; and the strengthening of the culture of human rights, by identifying and promoting transformative practices.
The history of human rights is not linear, but marked by lights and shadows, by advances and setbacks. It is the result of processes that open and consolidate spaces for the struggle for human dignity, as Herrera Flores teaches. Human rights invoke the language of otherness: seeing in the other a being deserving of equal consideration and profound respect, endowed with the right to develop human potential freely, autonomously, and fully.
In the contemporary order, characterized by increasing hostilities, intolerance, and the strengthening of hate speech, today, more than ever, it is necessary to expand, enhance, and disseminate the transformative ideology of human rights as a rationality of resistance and the only emancipatory platform of our time.
Flavia Piovesan is a law professor at PUC/SP and special secretary for Human Rights.