The redefinition of human rights?

The readings this week share the common idea that human rights have ended or never really existed in the first place. Rather, some believe, they are ideological constructs perpetuated by the Western world, in an unconscious (of conscious?) effort to spread Western beliefs and values around the world, and smother other forms of cultural diversity. Here are my thoughts on two of the readings (space constraint prohibits me from sharing my thoughts on all of the readings).

The Ideology of Human Rights

Mutua is very pessimistic about the idea of human rights. He is one that believes human rights, as they are defined and exist today, have only evolved from the Western perspective of what is right and wrong, and primarily serve to promote an ideology, namely Western democratic liberalism and capitalism. He therefore insists that that the human rights movement of the post-1945 era is merely an evolution and branching off of the Western liberal democratic ideology, and as a result, insists that human rights movements are in fact a political ideology centred around Western norms and values. The more I read of Mutua, the more I started to see his side of the debate. While I may not necessarily agree with him, here are some of the thoughts I was having while reading his paper and comprehending his argument:

Is the idea that we are responsible for bringing human rights to the rest of the world (namely the global south) not a continuation of the “white man’s burden,” our crusade to right the “wrongs” in countries, to help the “others” in backward nations. Is this not another form of a Western superiority complex—what we are doing is right and therefore what anyone else does is wrong? From this perspective, we don’t take into consideration the values and cultures of other nations. We are culturally insensitive and only pushing our liberal democratic ideals onto other people, who do not necessarily want it, but only think they do because that is what the “superior” Western cultures are doing. Is it not a form of propaganda?

Also, is it a coincidence that most INGOs concerned with “human rights” have arisen out of the West (as opposed to the global South, or even developed Asian countries such as China, Japan etc.). Why don’t we have as many organizations from the South promoting human rights as we do from the North? Furthermore, why is it that the heads of the these organizations are either “Westerners” or Western educated? Is it because this is the only way to ensure that they will embrace and promote the values Western liberalism?

Mutua also points out that most human rights authors state (whether it be explicitly or implicitly) the notion of an inescapable link between human rights and democracy; it is insinuated that human rights cannot prosper without a democratically elected government in which citizens have the legal right to vote and participate in the democratic process of choosing a leader, who will then govern them, according to the laws of human rights. These authors suggest that a dictatorship will never be a suitable breeding ground for practicing human rights and thus we must turn the world into an entirely democratic system if we want “human rights” to thrive.

I like the idea of cultural agnostics—people who believe human rights would be more accurately defined if different cultures, not just the Western ideals and values, were taken into consideration. Mutua points out that if this were to occur, it is very likely that different cultures would find that they agree on many of the same issues—the important thing here is to incorporate other cultures’ values into defining what a human right is, rather than pushing our Western definition onto them.

The role the United States has played in equating human rights with democracy has also been important to defining human rights in a strictly Western perspective. For example Regan linked democracy with a promotion of human rights when garnering support for the fight against communism: he propagandized that a vote for democracy was a vote for freedom (the fundamental principle of a human right, is it not?) and that it was necessary to save the Soviet people from the political system that was stealing their rights away.

Beyond Human Rights:

From this article I realized it is important to note the distinction between refugee and a stateless person. A refugee is fleeing political, economic, social, or environmental persecution or hazards while a stateless person does not belong to a specific country. It is interesting however that a refugee can decide to become a stateless person, but a stateless person is not necessarily a refugee. Furthermore, it was remarkable that at one time, powers, such as Fascist Italy, could strip a person of their nationality if they committed an act that was un-Italian. This apparently gave the government the right to take away a person’s right to belong to a certain group or classification of people (i.e. Italian).

I was also interested in the rather optimistic notion of creating an “aterritorial” Europe—one without state boundaries that create hostilities between governments and thus refugees would be free to flow in and out of.  This however is a very idealist dream and I severely doubt will be attainable, at least not in my lifetime. There are too many contradicting factors, such as different cultures, languages, religions, beliefs etc. that will keep a landmass, such as Europe, with millions of people from different backgrounds, from melding into one giant super country. The idea of a world without national boundaries however is incredibly enticing. Would that not solve many of our biggest problems today (for instance the fight between Israel and Palestine over recognition of territorial rights)?