HUMAN RIGHTS
We can talk as much as we like about how lovely our society is, but if we don’t strive to define and protect our human rights, then we cannot guarantee they will be upheld
If we fail to embed our values in the legal system, we put them at risk
The Sandy Duncanson Social Justice Bursary this year celebrates seven years of supporting students at the University of Tasmania to fulfil a social justice project they are passionate about. Sandy Duncanson was a UTAS law graduate who worked as an advocate for the homeless as principal solicitor at the Tenants’ Union, prior to his death in 2010. He lived with cancer for 16 of his 37 years, but that just seemed to give added impetus to his tireless work engaging with social justice and environmental issues.
At the launch of the Sandy Duncanson Social Justice Bursary in May 2011, Michael Kirby, a former justice of the High Court of Australia and current Adjunct Professor at UTAS reflected: “Social justice activists like Sandy Duncanson know the importance of joining organisations concerned about people in situations of disadvantage, of empathising enough to be concerned with others and of the importance of courage. Sandy had courage in spades. Courage is needed to do the unconventional, the unusual, to take the strong and brave steps.”
The film Citizen will be launched today by third-year UTAS Arts/Law student Grace Williams, one of two 2018 recipients of the Sandy Duncanson Social Justice Bursary.
The film tells the stories of 10 Tasmanian women and men, and why they value human rights as a critical part of their lives. Grace is urging a more considered discussion of the state human rights legislation 10 years after the Tasmanian Law Reform Institute released its report recommending that a Charter of Human Rights and Responsibilities be enacted here to “provide Tasmanians with legal guarantees for rights they desire in a comprehensive and easily accessible format”.
This year also marks 70 years since the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights by the United Nations General Assembly and so is a fitting time for Tasmanian politicians, writers, students and teachers as well as community and religious figures to ignite debate and reflect on why Tasmania should consider a more comprehensive state human rights framework.
The words of Susan, one of the 10 storytellers in the film, echo the preamble to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights when she says: “I am a member of humanity, one world, one family. We are all one people.”
Ahead of the launch of Citizen, I interviewed Grace Williams at the University of Tasmania about her work on the film Citizen.
Cate: What made you apply for the Sandy Duncanson Bursary and why did you study law?
Grace: I’ve always been quite argumentative. I saw law as this amazing advocacy tool to be able to really change people’s lives. I saw it as something really powerful and that’s why I chose law for the social justice aspects. To defend people’s rights, to use my voice, my education and my privilege to shed light on some of the issues that are going on in our community.
One of the reasons I applied for the Sandy Duncanson Social Justice Bursary was I was sitting in the Law Library one day and saw a flyer saying it was 10 years since the Tasmanian Law Reform Institute provided a report on the need for a human rights charter in Tasmania.
Coming from the perspective that I come from, as a person whose family migrated to Tasmania because of a war, I was a little bit confronted by a Western democracy that was not acknowledging the importance of human rights. We can talk a lot about how lovely our society is, but if we don’t have laws we don’t have an accountability mechanism.
It is not OK to be complacent about our human rights. In drawing up my Sandy Duncanson Social Justice Bursary application I considered what we can do to revive the Tasmanian Law Reform Institute Report.
I suggested that we start engaging with people who had experienced human rights’ violations to use their stories as an advocacy tool. That was when Citizen was born.
Cate: Is your story one of the 10 told in the film?
Grace: When I was filming I went across the state. I went to Launceston and met a lot of the women in my community from Sierra Leone who had experienced war and had to flee for their lives. They said to me: “You’re really doing amazing work, I am so proud of you, but I have heard that you have not included a single Sierra Leonian story and am really upset about that.”
So a guy that recently came from Sierra Leone, and is at uni, said he was happy to participate in the film. We are sharing our story together in the film.
He talks about how when he was living in Sierra Leone the rebels launched an attack titled “Operation No Living Thing”. That would have been around 1998, a year after I was born in Ghana as my parents had fled. He was giving me a part of my history that I had never heard. It is only now that I am hearing some stories.
This film has actually opened so much of my family’s history for me that would not come out in normal day-to-day conversation. I have got to hear Mum’s survival story, my Aunty’s survival story, so many peoples’ stories just through the Sandy Duncanson Social Justice Bursary.
Cate: Some of the stories are asylum and migration stories. What other types of human rights issues do you touch on in this film?
Grace: Domestic violence, racism, discrimination, humanitarian interventions.
Cate: How are you going to structure the movie?
Grace: I’ve never made a documentary before. I just thought it would be such a powerful vehicle to communicate with people to connect the law with real lives. So I structured the film looking at specific categories. The opening of the film starts with what it means to be a citizen. What is citizenship? How is it defined? How do we as humans fit ourselves into that concept?
And then from citizenship we connect everyone’s individual backgrounds and we start talking about the issues and the challenges that human rights are facing currently all around the world and particularly in Australia.
Cate: How do you build to the conclusion? What are your thoughts of what Citizen will be saying?
Grace: The conclusion for me has to be a question to us as the audience, to us as Australians, to us as Tasmanians. I don’t want to conclude by pigeonholing everyone’s story. I want to conclude with a message: Now what will you do? Where do you find yourself in this picture? And so for me that will always be positive, there is still hope. There is still a chance that we can engage with these stories and bring about positive social transformation. So I want to conclude with the question: What will you do for human rights in your community? In your home? We have had these laws since 1948. But we have also seen huge violations of them post 1948.
The beautiful thing I think about human rights is that it is not up to the government, nor is it up to institutions. That is a part of it, but it starts with us and our hearts and our values and then it spreads. As part of this film, I am launching a citizenship space for further conversations about what we will do together. For me the film is the beginning of a national conversation about human rights. And most importantly, a state conversation in terms of the human rights charter.
Students from any discipline at the University of Tasmania can apply for the Sandy Duncanson Social Justice Bursary and 11 have been awarded since 2011 to support a wide range of social justice initiatives. The university aims to increase the number of bursaries it issues each year if funds permit.
The Dean of Law at UTAS, Professor Tim McCormack reflected: “Sandy Duncanson was a lawyer who understood the importance of social justice and that law is not an end in itself but a means to a fairer and more just society.
“To honour the memory of Sandy Duncanson, through this bursary and through the annual lecture that we hold to honour his memory, is a really important statement.
“If we had more funds in the Endowment, we would be able to award more than two bursaries. Any additional resources would enable us to give more students the opportunity to make their own unique and really worthwhile contributions to make Tasmania a fairer society to live in.”
While Citizen will be launched today at Moonah Arts Centre, Grace Williams welcomes other opportunities to screen Citizen across Tasmania and can be contacted via http://citizentas.org or contact@citizentas.org.
Reverend Tim Costello will speak at the annual lecture series honouring Sandy Duncanson at Stanley Burbury Theatre, UTAS Sandy Bay campus, Wednesday, October 10 at 6pm. Go to www.events.utas.edu.au
Applications for this year’s bursary grants close October 31. Donations to the Sandy Duncanson Social Justice Fund can be made online at www.utasalumni.org.au/donate and select “Sandy Duncanson Social Justice Bursary” or by phoning 6226 1920
Cate Sumner is an international human rights lawyer in Hobart