FLAC Essay Competition: “Equality of Access is Integral to the Realisation of Social Justice”
By Catherine Nikolajeva
Catherine, a third-year law and business student, is the winner of Free Legal Advice Centre’s (FLAC) annual essay competition. The essay competition serves as an opportunity for students to engage with FLAC's core values and consider the various facets of social justice, specifically here the importance of accessibility and it was met with some fantastic essays. This year’s topic was ‘equality of access is integral to the realisation of social justice’.
“Write down!
I am an Arab
You have stolen the orchards of my ancestors
And the land which I cultivated
Along with my children
And you left nothing for us
Except for these rocks.”
The fruits of social justice cannot be fully enjoyed without the key tenet of equality to access. Equality to access, and, by natural extension, equality to opportunity, is a principle that underpins entire democracies. Social justice is a simple concept to grasp –all of us, by virtue of humanity, deserve the same economic, political, and social rights and opportunities. In order to do that, we must all have equal access to education, to healthcare and housing, to freedom and all other inalienable rights. In an Irish context, the Equal Status Acts 2000-2018 justly protects the right to access by prohibiting discrimination in the areas of education, accommodation and the provision of goods and services. While Ireland is not without its flaws, these Acts have undeniably woven the threads of basic human dignities into the fabric of Irish legislation.
A Harrowing Reality in Palestine:
The landscape dramatically changes when we shift our focus to the Palestinian territories, including Gaza, the West Bank, and East Jerusalem. There, the struggle for equality of access is not a theoretical concept but a daily, heart-wrenching reality. The Western countries who pushed so fervently for the ratification of international human rights are among the first to turn their back on Palestine, demonstrating the pervasive influence of ethno-nationalist colonial ideology. The ensuing persecution of the Palestinian people is a stark reminder of the yawning gap between the promise of social justice and the harsh, unyielding circumstances on the ground.
Education as a Human Right:
Malcolm X once remarked that education is the passport to the future, a statement that resonates deeply in the context of the Palestinian territories. The right to an education is enshrined in Article 26 of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) and is widely recognised as a cornerstone of equal opportunity, serving as a critical pathway to socio-economic mobility, the betterment of generational income, and empowerment. Statistics from the World Bank illustrate that women having access to an education makes them healthier on average, reduces the levels of unplanned pregnancy, infant mortality, and the risk of domestic violence and abuse in the home.
In many parts of the world, we take the accessibility of education for granted. Everyone reading this has access to both a higher-level institution and a wealth of information available at the touch of a screen. The Palestinian Bureau of Statistics found that the Palestinian people have one of the highest literacy rates in the world, with a national literacy rate of 91.1% and a youth literacy rate of 98.2%, which are some incredible statistics when you consider the Herculean obstacles that the population face.
Education in the West Bank is compulsory until the age of fifteen, but frequent violence and restrictions on movement regularly disrupt the education system. Palestinian children face a web of checkpoints, closures, and curfews that significantly impede their ability to attend school regularly. United Nations (UN) figures reveal the existence of around twenty-one checkpoints within the occupied area where students are not only delayed but often subjected to assault, intimidation, and arbitrary arrest by Israeli soldiers. The UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Education has unequivocally pointed out that military occupations, exemplified by the Israeli Palestinian conflict, significantly hinder the human right to education. Israel's obligations under international human rights and humanitarian law with respect to education are being unmet. Universities do not escape the consequences of closures either, and the additional barrier of demolitions and funding disparities mean that Palestinian students have long been left at a distinct disadvantage. In recent weeks, the IDF have continuously bombed Palestine’s education infrastructure, flattening Al-Azhar university and targeting a school in the Jabalia refugee camp. The latter bombing led to the death of at least fifteen people. These atrocities should not be considered without recognising that education is a way for the people to navigate the post-Nakba catastrophe, both as a collective and as individuals.
Where would conferrings be on your priority list if your neighbourhood was an open-air prison being attacked by white phosphorus bombs? Clearly, the threats posed by the Israeli government which serve as a backdrop to the Palestinian student’s right to education acts as a clear barrier to access and social justice.
Housing as a Human Right:
When we turn our attention to housing, we see a matter that's deeply human and immediate. The right to freedom from housing discrimination is not some abstract concept; it is a fundamental human right that touches the lives of real people. For Palestinians in the occupied territories, the struggle for housing is marked by an unending cloud of uncertainty and fear. Noam Chomsky's description of collective punishment against Palestinian communities hits the mark, capturing the harsh reality faced by individuals and families. Measures such as house demolitions and punitive actions against entire communities in response to the actions of individuals clearly, and severely, inhibit the Palestinian people's right to housing. Furthermore, we can also see how the expansion of Israeli settlements in the occupied territories leads to the dispossession of the civilians living on that land. The Israeli government will actively incentivise these settlements, worsening the equality of access to housing that the Palestinian people should enjoy but are systematically denied. Aside from being morally reprehensible, the lack of equality to access housing and the forcible eviction and dispossession of Palestinians from their homes serves to exacerbate social injustice in the region, proving beyond a shadow of doubt that the two are inextricably linked. Evidently, equality of access is a cornerstone for the realisation of social justice.
Healthcare and Water – Goods and Services as Human Rights:
Much like housing and education, access to healthcare and water are commonly regarded as human rights –this much is explicitly stated in Article 25 of the UDHR. I would be remiss if I did not mention that the access to healthcare, while universal, affects women in a unique way. In a conflict-torn region, restricting access to healthcare makes pregnancy and childbirth that much more dangerous than it already is. Approximately 30,000 Palestinians who live in the West Bank face severe barriers to accessing healthcare, something that can be tied directly back to more than half of that area being under direct Israeli civil and military control. According to the World Bank, only 66 percent of all Palestinians do not have access to "reasonable and customary" healthcare. The Gaza strip is home to thirteen hospitals, all of which treat thousands of patients, some of them casualties of the IDF. Last Friday, the 4th of November, saw the IDF bomb a convoy of ambulances at the gate of al-Shifa hospital, the largest in Gaza. The civilians in this area have been repeatedly told to evacuate, as if that is a reasonable course of action for patients in a hospital who have their roots on that land. Many have seen attacks in their immediate vicinity. This is a clear demonstration of clear genocidal intent and indubitable evidence that the realisation of any form of social justice cannot be achieved without equality to access.
Only 10% of Gazans have access to safe drinking water in their homes, and we all have access to video evidence of ordinary civilians rationing their limited water supply. Occupation and blockade limit Palestine water resources, and the over-pumping of wells depletes the fresh water supply while polluting what's left. Water is such a basic necessity and so instrumental in the survival of all living beings, and yet the average Palestinian consumes way less than the WHO’s daily recommended amount of water. B’Tselem, Israel’s biggest human rights organisation, has documented the consequences of this unequal water allocation.
These issues may seem like distant problems to us, but these are the daily lived experiences of many human beings, and we cannot continue to ignore them. Empathy and compassion go a long way. The struggle to access these basic amenities is clearly one of many issues halting the realisation of equal opportunities in Palestine, and one only has to look as far as the neighbouring occupiers and their livelihoods to be able to see that.
Conclusion:
Equality of access is the very essence of social justice, whether it is in Ireland, in Palestine or elsewhere. It is the foundation of an inclusive, just society that allows everyone to thrive. As it stands, the harsh realities faced by Palestinians at the hands of the Israeli government mean that social justice has been abandoned to the point where the people affected are barely surviving. We must acknowledge the instrumental role that settler-colonialism plays in the ongoing violence in the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, and East Jerusalem, we must too acknowledge the glaring contrast between the ideals of social justice and the stark realities endured by those besieged populations who are denied equality of access. Ní saoirse go dtí saoirse na Phalaistín.
The UCC Free Legal Advice Centre (FLAC) is a student society at the forefront of law student life in University College Cork (UCC).
We provide an essential legal service on campus and our primary objective is facilitating free, confidential, and professional legal advice with a team of local solicitors and barristers.
Major events that UCC FLAC holds annually include the Annual Conference which is the 12th March on immigration and refugee rights! We also hold regular information events which serve to educate students on areas of the law most relevant to them and invite practitioners to discuss their experience in working in varying areas of legal practice.
