Claudio Schuftan, a Chilean pediatrician (U. of Chile) and public health specialist, married for more than 50 years with Vietnamese, a son gynecologist; quintilingual. I left Chile on January 13, 1974, a few months after the coup (no comment), destination Nashville, 3 years at Meharry Medical College, work in a training program in maternal and child health for nurses and midwives from Africa. First trip to Africa, 1975 (5 countries to recruit students for the program). In 1978, I moved to New Orleans to Tulane School of Public Health as a lecturer in international health and nutrition. During the 10 year period at Tulane, one year resident in Cameroon working in nutritional planning. Returned to New Orleans and completed multiple consultancies in Africa.

In 1988, Tulane sent me to Nairobi for 2 years to work in the Ministry of Health on a program to decentralize the health system to the district level. After that, we decided not to return to Tulane and stayed 7 years in Kenya; more consultancies (total in 21 countries of the continent). In 1995, we decided to come to Vietnam. I worked for 3 years in the Ministry of Health in Hanoi helping to organize a primary health care unit. After that, we decided to stay... and we have been here for 29 years now. In 2003, we left Hanoi to settle in Ho Chi Minh City. I was appointed Honorary Consul of Chile in this city (I still am). More consultancies follow all over the world... In total, there are 100+ missions. (In short, about this: I have been a mercenary—a brain for hire.) But enough of these biogeographical bits and pieces.

In terms of activism. From 1998 to 2000, I worked with a global group of activists preparing in 2000 the 1st World People's Health Assembly—that the following year became a movement (the PHM). Served more than 15 years as a member of its steering council. We now have a presence in more than 70 countries (see the link to see what our militant activism is about). I then became interested in deepening my knowledge about the right to health, and in 2007, I started publishing a weekly blog on human rights (in English): The ‘Human Rights Reader’. There are now 750+ of them with a readership of +/- 2000 (the readers can be found at website). It is selections from future blogs that I intend to start sharing with you on Meer.

In academic terms. I have been teaching and reached the level of associate professor. I have just over 100 peer-reviewed publications in scientific journals and have just published with Howard Waitzkin a bilingual English-Spanish book entitled 'Moving Human Rights Beyond Capitalism/Mover Los Derechos Humanos Mas Allá del Capitalismo.' (Hard or electronic copies are available by writing to me).

In ideological terms. I am a militant of life, am anti-neoliberal, and a socialist, although I am critical of the parties and individuals who, today, call and consider themselves socialists.

In terms of what worries me. The world is getting worse and worse with each passing year (or month?). But the wretched of the earth have been abused, trampled, and humiliated since time immemorial. I want to share something that touches me very closely... and it begins with a short story: Around 1969, when I was in my medical internship, twice a week, I participated in evening activities at the Center for Medical Anthropology that was close to the hospital. My biomedical and not at all socially oriented studies left a void in what I wanted for my education. The Center gave me that compliment. Apart from political discussions, we talked about philosophy, sociology, and, of course, anthropology and literature, including poetry. One day, Beco, one of the staff, brought a mimeographed text with poems by young Venezuelan poets.

He began to read to us... and saved for the end a poem he wanted us to discuss. It was called Rosalía. In his deep voice, Beco read slowly, and there was absolute silence. In the discussion, he told us that he had no idea who the author was, even though he had his name. Rosalia stayed in my head. I shared it (before the internet) with everyone I knew would appreciate it. Then I set about translating Rosalia into English, trying hard to keep its poetic nuances... more people to share it with. Since then, I have used this poem in various meetings, seminars, and congresses, always followed by an introspective silence. In this, my presentation at Meer, I want to share Rosalia with you—and I must say that I still don't know who Orlando Leon was or is—not for lack of trying.

Rosalia

Rosalia Sanchez has seven children, twelve diseases, three abortions, and a shanty and garbage for a sociologist's fruition. Rosalia is twenty-seven years, one hundred years, and five thousand years old. For fifty years, one hundred years, five hundred years, Rosalia has needed to eat. Who wants to buy the eating machine of Rosalia? Who wants to buy five hundred years, five hundred Rosalias? ... not making a technical fuss about the quinquenia? Rosalia is a maid who once had a policeman, who once had a sharecropper, who once had a child, ... seven times a child. Rosalia is made of bones, is made of flesh; the same as a cow, the same as a hen, but without a pasture, without a coop.

Hey, for Rosalia! Maze for Rosalia! Rice for Rosalia! For five hundred, one thousand, and twelve thousand years, since the times of Ur and Uruk, Rosalia has wanted maize. When they were painting in the caves of Altamira, Rosalia was twenty years old, had three children, and the moon was shining... Rosalia has always had three children, twenty years of age, one abortion, and the moon was shining... Pregnant, Rosalia lives under a bridge. I can see Rosalia. Rosalia is lucky to live in an organized world!...

Rosalia fills out forms to ask for a little house. Rosalia stands in line in the Ministry of Public Health, lines lasting five hours, with a pissed child in her arms. The President says, "No citizen will..., etc." Indeed, Rosalia lives in an organized world... There are constitutions, human rights, prostitution, and the church. But if Rosalia doesn't have enough to eat a biscuit, how can she understand the palpitations of a refrigerator, to soak in milk an automobile, or lying on a sofa switch on a record player?

And this is Civilization, now that Rosalia cannot squeeze, at five o'clock, a jazz in tea? Rosalia has to live in an organized world! We have already gone to the moon: "I'll drop you a line from the moon, love!" Potatoes in photosynthesis, carnations in photosynthesis, roses in photosynthesis. Through a chemical orchard the insects will fly. But Rosalia has seven children, in the midst of civilization, a metaphysical civilization that cannot solve the problems of Rosalia... How many years is it that Rosalia has been going with her children from dung to dung, from Constitution to Constitution, from God to God!? Rosalia is twenty-seven years old, one hundred years old, five thousand years old. Rosalia has dung in her dreams; Rosalia dreams about dung, but dung is not herself.