Strong idea The city today – educating citizens and defending human rights
Reference Dialogue: Human Rights and Regional and Local Administration

Despite the fact that people are increasingly becoming concentrated in cities, national and international policies remain detached from citizens, it being local politics and action which bring people into contact with values such as human rights. If the city is regarded as an educational space for rights, civic-mindedness, equality, etc., then it is possible to develop a new perspective on the problems of exclusion, discrimination and violent conflict.

The majority of the population tends to live in cities. Local authorities increasingly have more power thanks to progressive decentralisation and this means that these bodies, which are closest to citizens, must take on new responsibilities: on a legislative level, but also on an educational level, too. If cities are taken as entities which can educate people, not just about the laws of the country, but about rights, civic sense, equality, and peaceful co-existence, they can make effective real changes in awareness about the individual and collective rights of civil society.

Marina Subirats, speaking not from a legal point of view but from the position she holds in the cities she works for, Barcelona, feels that “Spanish local councils still have few powers, which are above all held by the autonomous communities. As local authorities we have powers in maintenance and cleaning services and in sites for building schools. We also have another one which is very important but very complicated: the struggle to raise school attendance levels and eradicate truancy”.

In Spain, there is a public education system, a private system and a subsidised private system which are supported by the state. However, with the massive influx of immigrants, we have seen that most opt for free public education: of the total percentage of immigrants in Barcelona, 73% attend state schools. This involves a risk of society segmenting into social classes. For this reason, public education should be specially protected, through more funding and more professional staff, in order to safeguard equality in quality, whatever the economic circumstances of the pupils are. Once again, it is local authorities which know the details of the situation in the form of data and figures for every city. The properly organised transfer of powers (each geographical area has different needs) is therefore something to aim for. For Subirats, there are three sectors of the population with particularly vulnerable rights: groups which are marginalized to a degree, like some sectors of the gypsy population, immigrants and travelling groups. These groups need to be given special attention.

A debate needs to be held to deal fully with the issue of how to defend individual rights without infringing the rights of other groups. Antoine Leonetti gave the example of a homosexual demonstration in Rome, where many groups felt that it was offensive for the march to pass through certain emblematic places in the city; or the issue of reconciling the culture of origin with that of the host country in the case of immigration, which Marina Subirats referred to as a serious problem.

Education is the weapon which must be used. Citizens must be educated so that the rights of some do not violate the rights of others. Rights are only possible if certain obligations exist. We must not create spoiled citizens who only think about their own rights.

Lastly, the existence of a Red de Ciudades Educadoras (Network of Educating Citizens), made up of more than 200 cities, including Barcelona, particularly in Europe and Latin America but also in Africa, with a partnership in educational projects, awareness raising and citizens’ participation in defending human rights, disarmament, equality and civic values is opening the door to a future of the people, forged by the people and for the people.