Groups such as Human Rights Watch have lost their way by imposing
western, 'universal' standards on developing countries
Stephen Kinzer
Friday December 31 2010
guardian.co.uk
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2010/dec/31/human-rights-imperialism-james-hoge
For those of us who used to consider ourselves part of the human
rights movement but have lost the faith, the most intriguing piece of
news in 2010 was the appointment of an eminent foreign policy
mandarin, James Hoge, as board chairman of Human Rights Watch [http://
www.hrw.org/en/news/2010/01/24/hoge-chair-human-rights-watch-board].
Hoge has a huge task, and not simply because human rights violations
around the world are so pervasive and egregious. Just as great a
challenge is remaking the human rights movement itself. Founded by
idealists who wanted to make the world a better place, it has in
recent years become the vanguard of a new form of imperialism [http://
www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/jun/23/human-rights-imperialism-western-values].
Want to depose the government of a poor country with resources? Want
to bash Muslims? Want to build support for American military
interventions around the world? Want to undermine governments that are
raising their people up from poverty because they don't conform to the
tastes of upper west side intellectuals? Use human rights as your
excuse!
This has become the unspoken mantra of a movement that has lost its
way.
Human Rights Watch is hardly the only offender. There are a host of
others, ranging from Amnesty International and Reporters Without
Borders to the Carr Centre for Human Rights at Harvard and the
pitifully misled "anti-genocide" movement. All promote an absolutist
view of human rights permeated by modern western ideas that westerners
mistakenly call "universal". In some cases, their work, far from
saving lives, actually causes more death, more repression, more
brutality and an absolute weakening of human rights.
Yet, because of its global reach, now extended by an amazing gift of
$100m from George Soros [http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/sep/07/
george-soros-100-million-human-rights-watch] - which Hoge had a large
part in arranging - Human Rights Watch sets a global standard. In its
early days, emerging from the human rights clauses in the 1975
Helsinki Accords, it was the receptacle of the world's innocent but
urgent goal of basic rights for all. Just as Human Rights Watch led
the human rights community as it arose, it is now the poster child for
a movement that has become a spear-carrier for the "exceptionalist"
belief that the west has a providential right to intervene wherever in
the world it wishes.
For many years as a foreign correspondent, I not only worked alongside
human rights advocates, but considered myself one of them. To defend
the rights of those who have none was the reason I became a journalist
in the first place. Now, I see the human rights movement as opposing
human rights.
The problem is its narrow, egocentric definition of what human rights
are.
Those who have traditionally run Human Rights Watch and other western-
based groups that pursue comparable goals come from societies where
crucial group rights ? the right not to be murdered on the street, the
right not to be raped by soldiers, the right to go to school, the
right to clean water, the right not to starve ? have long since been
guaranteed. In their societies, it makes sense to defend secondary
rights, like the right to form a radical newspaper or an extremist
political party. But in many countries, there is a stark choice
between one set of rights and the other. Human rights groups, bathed
in the light of self-admiration and cultural superiority, too often
make the wrong choice.
The actions of human rights do-gooders is craziest in Darfur, where
they show themselves not only dangerously naive but also unwilling to
learn lessons from their past misjudgments. By their well-intentioned
activism, they have given murderous rebel militias ? not only in
Darfur but around the world ? the idea that even if they have no hope
of military victory, they can mobilise useful idiots around the world
to take up their cause, and thereby win in the court of public opinion
[http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jul/12/bashir-charged-with-
darfur-genocide] what they cannot win on the battlefield. The best way
to do this is to provoke massacres by the other side, which Darfur
rebels have dome quite successfully and remorselessly. This mobilises
well-meaning American celebrities and the human rights groups behind
them [http://news.yahoo.com/s/time/20101228/wl_time/08599203988700].
It also prolongs war and makes human rights groups accomplices to
great crimes.
This is a replay of the Biafra fiasco of the late 1960s. Remember? The
world was supposed to mobilise to defend Biafran rebels and prevent
the genocide that Nigeria would carry out if they were defeated.
Global protests prolonged the war and caused countless deaths. When
the Biafrans were finally defeated, though, the predicted genocide
never happened. Fewer Biafrans would have starved to death if Biafran
leaders had not calculated that more starvation would stir up support
from human rights advocates in faraway countries. Rebels in Darfur
have learned the value of mobilising western human rights groups to
prolong wars, and this lesson is working gloriously for them.
The place where I finally broke with my former human-rights comrades
was Rwanda. The regime in power now is admired throughout Africa; 13
African heads of state attended President Paul Kagame's recent
inauguration, as opposed to just one who came to the inauguration in
neighbouring Burundi. The Rwandan regime has given more people a
greater chance to break out of extreme poverty than almost any regime
in modern African history ? and this after a horrific slaughter in
1994 from which many outsiders assumed Rwanda would never recover. It
is also a regime that forbids ethnic speech, ethnically-based
political parties and ethnically-divisive news media ? and uses these
restrictions to enforce its permanence in power.
By my standards, this authoritarian regime is the best thing that has
happened to Rwanda since colonialists arrived a century ago. My own
experience tells me that people in Rwanda are happy with it, thrilled
at their future prospects, and not angry that there is not a wide
enough range of newspapers or political parties. Human Rights Watch,
however, portrays the Rwandan regime as brutally oppressive [http://
www.hrw.org/en/news/2010/02/10/rwanda-end-attacks-opposition-parties].
Giving people jobs, electricity, and above all security is not
considered a human rights achievement; limiting political speech and
arresting violators is considered unpardonable.
Human Rights Watch wants Rwandans to be able to speak freely about
their ethnic hatreds, and to allow political parties connected with
the defeated genocide army [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/
288937.stm] to campaign freely for power. It has come to this: all
that is necessary for another genocide to happen in Rwanda is for the
Rwandan government to follow the path recommended by Human Rights
Watch.
This is why the appointment of James Hoge, who took office in October,
is so potentially important. The human rights movement lost its way by
considering human rights in a vacuum, as if there are absolutes
everywhere and white people in New York are best-equipped to decide
what they are.
Hoge, however, comes to his new job after nearly two decades as editor
of Foreign Affairs magazine [http://www.foreignaffairs.com/]. He sees
the world from a broad perspective, while the movement of which he is
now a leader sees it narrowly. Human rights need to be considered in a
political context. The question should not be whether a particular
leader or regime violates western-conceived standards of human rights.
Instead, it should be whether a leader or regime, in totality, is
making life better or worse for ordinary people.
When the global human rights movement emerged nearly half a century
ago, no one could have imagined that it would one day be scorned as an
enemy of human rights. Today, this movement desperately needs a period
of reflection, deep self-examination and renewal. The ever-insightful
historian Barbara Tuchman [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Barbara_W._Tuchman] had it exactly right when she wrote a sentence
that could be the motto of a chastened and reformed Human Rights
Watch:
Humanity may have common ground, but needs and aspirations vary
according to circumstances.
guardian.co.uk Copyright (c) Guardian News and Media Limited. 2011
--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the "USA-Africa Dialogue Series" moderated by Toyin Falola, University of Texas at Austin.
For current archives, visit http://groups.google.com/group/USAAfricaDialogue
For previous archives, visit http://www.utexas.edu/conferences/africa/ads/index.html
To post to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue@googlegroups.com
To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue-
unsubscribe@googlegroups.com
No comments:
Post a Comment