Since the adoption of the Bill of Rights, U.S. citizens have been guaranteed a certain set of “inalienable rights.” Laws enacted since have further defined these civil rights. However, civil rights alone have little power to ensure the welfare of an individual if human rights and civil rights are not seen as intrinsically linked. The synchronization of human and civil rights is a necessary formula to guarantee true democracy.

Throughout our nation’s history, U.S. citizens have been guaranteed civil rights, but certain categories of people were not recognized as fully human. Because their humanity was not acknowledged, these groups were prevented from achieving fulfillment of their civil rights. Efforts to augment the civil rights of citizens by ensuring human rights are also an issue of great importance for other world powers. Evidence attesting to this concern was seemingly present in the discussion at July’s G-8 Summit in Genoa, Italy. Sessions about the devastation caused by HIV/AIDS, the hardships of developing nations’ debt repayment and environmental issues appeared to be the first steps in resolving dilemmas that stifle some global citizens’ access to full human rights. Unfortunately, this dialogue will never be truly productive because it excludes the nations it claims to aid. The G-8 nations represent corporate, industrialized, capitalistic, Western interests while most of the programs discussed would directly impact nations with little possibility for political articulation, most of whom are poor.

The forced silence of these disenfranchised nations is translated into political dialogue by the tens of thousands of protesters who gathered in Genoa. The first media coverage of the protesters portrayed them to be violent and destructive. The reality is that there were few violent demonstrators. The vast majority of the protesters followed principles of nonviolent resistance while trying to exercise their freedom to assemble and express dissent. The Genoa police responded to the peaceful protest with extreme brutality. A video discussed on National Public Radio reported an 80-year-old woman pleading for mercy, while the police beat her. Two men clung to each other on the ground while police repeatedly kicked the backs of their heads. And one 23-year-old man was shot in the head by the police and then run over by a police van. This type of violent response to dissent should not characterize a meeting that symbolizes cooperation and cohesion among nations. True dialogue cannot transpire if only one side is heard.

The paradox of a summit that “officially” promotes human rights and improves quality of life while silencing the voices of those who are already working to accomplish those goals is evidence of a threatening underlying agenda. This agenda involves global capitalism and domination of world politics by the United States. The fact that human rights advocates were savagely beaten while participating in unarmed peaceful demonstrations indicates that the participants of the summit never intended to hold a real dialogue about human rights. Furthermore, the protesters represented the possibility for an open dialogue and were summarily silenced. George W. Bush’s response to the protests reflected this sentiment perfectly, “Those who claim to represent the voices of reform aren’t doing so. Those protesters who try to shut down our talks on trade and aid don’t represent the poor as far as I’m concerned.” Globalization will never truly benefit everyone if the world’s most powerful leaders do not actively engage all nations in the process, especially those who will be most strongly impacted by the changes. Simply disregarding the insights of developing nations and their advocates (as President Bush so unhesitatingly does) will only lead to more discord and further stratification between the rich and the poor.

Patty Cunningham II and Diane Horvath want to make it clear that we advocate responsible global policy and fair trade, as opposed to so-called free trade and unrestrained market capitalism. We can be reached at [email protected] and [email protected].