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Rethinking the Concept of Human Rights
I speak as one of Amne sty's former prisoners of conscience, For 52 days in 1987 1 was detained without trial under Malaysia s Internal Security Act (ISA) It was a short period tn prison considering that many others have been detained for much longer stretches of time
There are tens of thousands of such men and women In this planet of ours. Amnesty’s newsletters and annual reports faithfully document their tri umphs and tragedies.
Amnesty, tn its 30 years of struggle, has helped to secure the freedom of thousands and thousands of Individuals whose non-violent advocacy of some cause or other had earned them the wrath of those in authority It is good to know that every day in some corner of the globe a Amnesty letter lights a candle of hope for some forlorn human being be hind some prison wall.
As a person who cares for human dignity and social justice. 1 am beginning to wonder whether Amnesty's high profile international role has. unwittingly. created in the public mind a certain image of what human rights is all about, which. In an indirect sense, may have hampered the growth of a more holistic understanding of human dignity and social Justice. This needs some explanation.
Because Amnesty is often equated with the worldwide human rights struggle, a signif leant segment of the intelligentsia In both Western and non-Western societies have begun to believe that what Amnesty fights for or fights against is the sum total of the human family's human rights agenda.
In other words, detention without trial, disappearances, torture. extra-Judicial executions. capital punishment — this is what human rights is mostly about. Sometimes, one may choose to place all these
violations within the larger context of the struggle to protect political and civil rights
In fact human rights as the Intelligentsia, and the middle and upper classes, as a whole, understand them. Is synonymous with political and civil rights. Now and then, certain cultural rights, like the right to speak one s language or practise one s religion, would also be included in their definition of human rights.
It would be wrong, of course, to put the whole blame for this narrow understanding of human rights upon Amnesty. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948 shows overwhelming concern for po lltlcal and civil rights and gives meagre attention to economic, social or cultural rights.
Though the International Covenant on Economic. Social and Cultural Rights adopted by the United Nations in 1976. largely through the insistence of Third World countries, seeks to rectify this Imbalance, human rights continues to be equated with political and civil rights.
Western governments with their liberal-democratic Ideologies have also, via pronouncements. policies and practices, helped create the erroneous belief that human rights is essentially political freedoms and civil liberties. Given their overwhelming economic, technological, cultural and political power at this Juncture tn history, they have succeeded in convincing people everywhere that human rights equals political and civil rights and nothing mon-
In the evolution of human
right* within European ctvlli *atk>n since the 17th century, the dominant characteristic was the emerging middle class’s quest for political and civil liberties.
Amnesty International, in that respect, is rooted firmly tn the European Intellectual and political tradition More than that, its concept of. and approach to. human rights parallels that of most contemporary Western governments What this means is that Amnesty, like most Western governments, emphasises human rights practices and human rights violations which come within the ambit of polit leal and civil liberties
Needless to say. this has had some negative consequences for other equally legitimate dimensions of human rights. Economic and social rights have received much less emphasis than they deserve. The human right to food, to clothing, to shelter, to education, to health, tn employment is fundamental to the very survival of the human being. For the vast majority of the human race in Asia. Africa and Latin America, it is these rights that matter most.
Of what use Is the human rights struggle to the poverty-stricken billions of the South if it does not liberate them from hunger, from homelessness, from Ignorance, from disease? Human rights Interpreted mainly in terms of pobMcal and civil rights will not satisfy the 3uest of the poor for human ignlty and social justice. Life and liberty, food and freedom
should go hand In hand If we want to develop a more hobs tic integrated vision of human rights
It is a pity that even In the South there are very few groups operating as human rights organisations which are committed to a compreliensive view of human rights that embraces the different facet) of human life Most of them seek to defend political and civil rights, as they are convention ally understood.
Thus, freedom of expression. freedom of association, the right of dissent, the rule of law the independence of the Judiciary are among their main, sometimes sole, concerns. It reflects the powerful psychological influence and impact of Western human rights groups upon their counterparts tn the South.
If there are groups which do take up issues connected with poverty or illiteracy, they would be seen as development NGOs or alternative movements. Even the groups concerned would perceive themselves as pursuing goals which are not really linked to human rights.
This widely prevalent perception of human rights is inimical to the interests of the people of the South in yet another way. Unlike Western governments which see human rights as rights revolving around the individual, there is in Asia and Africa in particular a strong notion of the rights of the collectivity, the community. the nation.
This has a lot to do with the colonial experience of Asian and African states Subjected to alien, colonial rule for centuries. fighting for freedom for whole generations of Asians and Africans came to mean fighting for the freedom of their people. There Is. there-
fore, a concept of collective freedom and the rights that go with that freedom in the historical baggage of the Aslan and African •
This explains why freedom for most post-colonial societies has been more than a litany of personal liberties. It is a collective ideal Inextricably Inter twined with the quest of whole communities, of entire nations for human dignity and social justice Today, we are witnessing such a quest for collective freedom in the valiant strug gles of the South African and Palestinian people.
To be concluded tomorrow