Human Rights: “Gift of west to the rest”

Fucked up because it makes west seem like the only place of independent thought and gracious
generosity. Also the gift happened through colonialism and neocolonialism and shit.

There is inherent violence in the paradigm of modern human rights. Three identifiable hegemonic
claims on origins of human rights according to dominant discourse are Evangelical, historic, and
impossibility thesis.
 Evangelical: An obnoxious messenger brings in an intinsically sound message. The
message is propagated by those predatory powers that respect it the least. (Britain, the
colonizer and the tyrant, brings in the idea of rights) The discourse message involved
rejection of the humanity of the colonised savages and the white man’s burden to
make them sufficiently human to be worthy of the gift of human rights.

White man’s burden justifies the violence sustained across generations. The
capitalist wild west constructed the mission of reconstitution of the Non-
European order to such an extent that rivalry existed between the leading
european nations who conceived colonisation as a moral imperative. This
“aquisitive mimesis” later translated into Cold War “spheres of influence”,
contemporary economic globalization, and the war on terror, as a result of entry
of the socialist West as well.

Socialist evangelism believed that humans under bourgeois oppression were not
sufficiently human. Only those insufficient bourgeois humans who were
transformed into a global socialist comrade-citizen and became carriers of post-
capitalist imagination were sufficiently human. Thus white man’s burden was
attempted to be discredited by the British but it was only reinforced.

Evangelism is highly complex and contradictory as far too many violations of

human rights have been committed in the name of human rights. But also benign
evangelism through NGOs is taking place.

 Historical claim:
Untrue to say that nonWestern societies did not historically possess notions of human
rights. Jut like in the West, they existed in theistic natural law. However, the idea of
the historical claim is that a particular type of tradition that was justified human rights
originated in the west.

 Impossibility thesis:
Impossible for human rights to have originated outside the west. Human rights
traditions emerged and grew with capitalism. Impossible to happen in pre-capitalist
social formations as they overthrew sanctity of property rights and focused on human
duties more.

First implication: Tethers the origin of human rights in the west to a historic position
through capitalism.

Second implication: Being human becomes possible only with the idea of human as
free agent and capable of participating in deliberative form of common life, that is,
 politics.

The thesis is highly egotistic and weakenss when communitarian logics of identity
and rights are taken into account.

The adaptation of ideas of human rights that rose through capitalism and Enlightenment
that nonWest communities were able to interrogate their traditions that were devoid of
human rights. A normative and narrative epicenter of human rights is the West and
quakes and aftershocks occur in the periphery which is either a receiver of gift or an evil
outlier (i.e. one that accepts willingly or one that battles against it)

Centralism (of the west), Universalism (what’s good for the west is good for the rest) and
a good/evil dichotomy (where the evil is addressed by nuclear bombs and crusades) are
the primary concepts associated with human rights discourse. Communities have often
contested these hegemonic versions of human rights at a great price. It must be
recognised that all nations come as strangers to the task of protection and promotion of
human rights. The discourse should be made less Euro-centric by discovering Non-
Western human rights traditions. Only then will the future of human rights be secure.

Modern v Contemporary Human Rights

Exclusive:
Colllective right of some to subjugate the
“inferior” peoples along with the absolutist right
to property)
At the service of governments that uphold human
rights while making some groups suffer by stating
that they are not sufficiently human.
Ascetic:
Very limited in their application, would not let the
dispersal of rights to other groups (maximum
extent was labour rights)
Human Suffering:
Regarded large-scale imposition of human
suffering as just and right, in pursuit of a
Eurocentric notion of progress. Silenced and
justified suffering.
Inclusive:
Based on premise of radical self-determination.
Insists that governance be based on the
recognition of equal worth and concern for each
and every person.
Opens up sites of resistance and struggle (serves
for both governance and governed)
Carnival:
Very exuberant in their dispersal and application.
Actively find those groups that were previously
unrecognised in avenues of justice and make sure
human rights discourse proliferate there as well.
Increasingly Inclusive.
Human Suffering:
Suffering is taken much more seriously.
International desire to render problematic the very
notion of politics of cruelty.