Deep philosophy in London

Yesterday 5 November 2012 I arrived in London for a 2-day meeting for developing a toolkit on Mental Health Service User Involvement for monitoring, which is organized by MDAC (www.mdac.info ). We are with 4 participants: Kay, Dodo, Rea and me.
Today we made a detailed outline, and tomorrow we will make the draft more coherent, and after that we will keep on working to finalize this toolkit, which is meant for NPM’s (national preventive mechanisms, who are obliged to monitor human rights throughout the country, under the OPCAT-protocol).

It was a very constructive meeting today. We had a working room at King’s College (Institute of Psychiatry) from 10 to 6 and we did a lot of work: brainstorming, discussing, adding up. We have been naming and listing things that are relevant.
It was a pleasant meeting and the four of us make a nice team, we understand each other.

Still there is something underneath my skin.. It again has not much to do with today’s meeting, just like with the ENUSP-conference, my hard issues come more from within myself this time.

Again I felt a bit weird by doing this “top down” activity; we make a toolkit to be used by official bodies, but can we trust them with this?? This question is really bugging me. It takes ‘good leadership’ to bring change by laws and treaties (from the top downwards into the community). Often we just end up with nice words covering up the horrible practices that are often legalized by national law. The level of CRPD-awareness isn’t so advanced as we would wish.. and this may lead to old practices in a new format. I’m really worried about this.
Maybe I’m running low on trust, partially caused by my own endless struggle to get access to justice and to be recognised. 18 years already, the majority of my life I have been trying to address the failures by mental health care, but the doctors seem untouchable.. I don’t have a lawyer, I’m alone in this.. How am I supposed to believe in Human Rights?? It basically only exists on paper. Mainly nice words..
And now we produce more of these papers, filled with theoretical rights, and more or less ideal practices, but will that actually bring change?? Or will the official bodies answer in nice language again, regardless of the actual suffering? Will they make new words again to escape from the laws and treaties again?? (words as seclusion instead of solitary confinement).

Maybe there are good NMP’s too. Maybe we can trust them. I don’t know. I can’t really imagine it clearly. I guess it’s a personal trust issue.. I have been let down by some many bodies. I don’t have much faith in the Netherlands, which is said to be such a good country… What does that mean? How does that relate to promoting human rights? Does it make any sense at all to talk about paperwork?? Shouldn’t we just deal with the practices, and change those.. as the real core value.

I guess the first human rights treaty didn’t fully succeed: it was meant for ALL people, but still exclusion took place. I guess the word-twisting started at that time. And then came several other treaties, trying to fix this gap. But now we have many treaties and many governments are using it as a game of words, trying to make themselves look good.. Why make more of the same? I’m afraid we are going to have more word-twisting, unless we really get to the core.
People aren’t motivated to care for human rights because of paperwork, rules or top-down orders (they just want to escape from sanctions, and generally know their way AROUND the law, instead of embracing the reason behind laws).
Motivation to care for human rights comes from a deeper love for humanity, compassion and empathy. I guess it should NOT be about RIGHTS, it’s about HUMANS.

This is something I had already considered a long time ago, and I then decided that paperwork is useless to spend time on (because it’s unreliable), and it’s the practice that counts, and it’s a people’s job to release the human emotion again and get away from the stiff paperworks, distant attitudes, twisted renewed words and to get to the core, with real valuing of all people. We have more than enough paperworks already, all filed in nice cupboards. But it didn’t save us. I don’t think any paper will save us.

I had made this choice years ago, to focus on the practical change, to try to release and promote interhuman love and compassion, to build actual bridges between people, but now here I am in the middle of NPM-supportive work, treaty-discussions and so on... The paperworks on theoretical rights are consuming my precious time, which I had reserved for changing the world, by promoting the power of love, and building bridges to overcome the gaps and ill-practices on the grassroot level: in reality, not on a desk... I want to do something real, something effective.
I don’t think paperwork is really effective. I think it’s better to make real contact and raise awareness in real life. That might actually save a person from the trouble..

I may have taken a wrong turn in my career that got me here, in an expensive hotel working on Human Rights-paperwork... Or maybe it’s good to be here, and maybe I should have some more faith.. Maybe it does make a difference. Maybe it’s good what I’m doing, maybe it’s a waste of energy… I don’t know. I feel a bit lost in this topic. It’s a real trust issue. And I don’t rely on top-down paperworks... (so maybe I did really take a wrong turn in my activism-career, or would it be a burn-out of faith?). It’s not clear to me. I’m still thinking about this..