Human Rights Cannot Be Both Universal and Political - Essay Example

Human Rights cannot be both Universal and Political- Discussion The issues of human right violation anchored long back in the past of human history but organized movement for human rights started several centuries ago. Rayner says, “It is essentially the product of 17th and 18th century European thought” (n.d.). The issues like the violation of women’s right, the rights of the minority, racial discrimination, etc have been for thousands of years. Scholars have given different opinions on whether women should enjoy same rights that men enjoy, whether men should enjoy unlimited freedom or whether rules and laws composed for the sake of human being promote human rights or not, and so on. The fact whether human rights can be both universal and political, or not has engendered lots of heated arguments so far. Most of these arguments spring from the concerns of individuals’ religious, cultural, social perspectives with what they consider to be rights of human beings. But in one age or place what was considered by the people to be a valid right of human beings, appeared to be invalid and oppressive in others; therefore they were amended and also changed. The concept of rights varied from place to place, age to age, culture to culture, by the geo-cultural variables. As a result the universality of human rights is questioned and often tried to be explained from a narrow political and culturally relativistic view (Cohen 1989, pp.1014-1017). But a holistic approach is made to address both the universal and the socio-political view of rights. In the context of human right movement of modern time, the universality of human right has been the most tried matter in order to enhance its applicability in a global framework. Consequently an endeavor to procure a universalized view of human right is significantly remarkable in the definitions of the scholars at the forth part of modern human right movement. This paper will focus light on the reasonability of arguments and counter arguments on the topic whether human rights cannot be both universal and political and attempt to retrieve a conclusion on the possibility of drawing a mutual line between the two. The idea of universality of human right is prompted first by the prominent European philosophers such as Grotius, Hobbes and Locke (Rayner n.d.). But internationally it was introduced immediately after the Second World War. As Görkem Birinci “Human rights were brought into the focus immediately after the Second World War with the establishment of the United Nations” (n.d., p. 1). This universality is asserted on the foundations of being or existing as human, equality and freedom. But freedom of individual is certainly to be under the guidance of reason and conscience. As it is asserted in Article 1 of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) “All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood” (UDHR 1948, Article 1). Before the “Universal Declaration of Human Rights” in 1948, several attempts were taken to preserve human rights under the statement of “Bill of Rights” in 1689, “Magna Carta”, “Declaration of Independence” in 1776, “Declaration of the Rights of Man and of Citizens”. These bills and statements were not able to encompass the all-embracing traits of human rights. Finally the “Universal Declaration of Human Rights” comes into being. According to United Nations Human Rights, “Human rights are rights inherent to all human beings, whatever our nationality, place of residence, sex, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, language, or any other status. We are all equally entitled to our human rights without discrimination. These rights are all interrelated, interdependent and indivisible” (UNHR 2008). Concept of universality of human rights in the first place is to confront the question whether universal human right is applicable and valid in a situation where there is no universal culture existing in this world. There are arguments for both relativistic and universalistic views of human rights. The conflicts between relativistic views and universalistic view of human rights emerge from the epistemological specificity of norms and culture. Pluralists argue that the idea of good is itself universal and it is relative. So norms and values that serves the purposes of guidance for the members of a society or culture cannot be universal (Galston 1999). It is because concepts of universal and natural rights of human being are intensively influenced by the socio-cultural views of individuals. Controversies may go on over the point whether human rights can be both universal and political, or not and even more, be inflamed on the question whether a universal culture is possible. Political system of a country is bound to adopt views of human rights in harmony with the norms, values, culture and religion of a society. So the question whether human rights can be both political and universal is in other words whether human rights can be both social and universal. So far as the established norms, values, culture and religion of a society are concerned with the rights of individuals in a society, the definition of human rights may vary from culture to culture, religion to religion, etc. Often in a society violation of human rights are cloaked in the apparels institutional culture, practice, customs. Even these violations may take place in the established apparatus of the judiciary systems of societies of the world. It seems to be difficult to compose an all embracing definition for rights of human being: what rights are and what are not. Simply this difficulty emerges from the concerns of views of individuals on deciding upon what rights are. What is considered to be right in a society is considered to be the violation of right. In some cases its definition appears to be self-contradictory and self-destroying. It is undoubtedly true that human rights regimes are not politically correct for all the nations of the world. These could vary from region to region, area to area and country to country. A universal manifestation of human rights stems from the fact that nearly all the regions within the world are being meted with the same kind of treatment at the hands of the tyrannical rulers. (Wright, 2001) However this is seldom the case and the peculiarities remain as far as the human rights issues and its different manifestations are concerned. The concept of human right was propounded as freedom and dignity of human being by philosophers protesting against the rigidity and the choking dominance of a minor group, in most cases with austere religiosity and political despotism. It is evident in the following statement of Birinci, “The Universal Declaration of Human Rights emphasizes the Western tradition of individual human rights, which asserts that persons must be protected against the arbitrary use of power by the state to limit their freedom of expression, and asserts their rights to safety and security of persons and ideas” (n.d., p. 4). Accordingly in the UDHR it is asserted, “All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights” (1948). But freedom of one man, as it is often argued by the oriental sages, may prove to be violation of others’. This argument necessarily pertains to some human right issues like women’s right, right of choice, etc. In the oriental societies freedom of women in some social and family affairs like marriage, education, and outdoor activities is viewed as anarchy. These societies are more inclined to draw a distinction between the two sexes basing on the physical inferiority. This physical inferiority of women is also supported by the famous Greek philosopher Socrates, as he says, “There is therefore no administrative occupation which is peculiar to woman as woman or man as man; natural capacities are similarly distributed in each sex, and it is natural for women to take part in all occupations as well as men, though in all women will be the weaker partners” (Plato n.d., p. 167). Here consumerism of the western society is grossly accused of handling individual freedom related human right issues to retrieve their political and commercial goals. Often it is told that for the benefit of few people the issue of individual freedom handled in a way that is detrimental for the majority. These handful business magnets need freedom to display sexual and obscene episodes to increase the appeal of their million dollar films more than a pair of lovers need freedom to make love publicly. The application of such freedom related human rights in the third world countries seems to be far more different and devastating than the western countries. As to the concept of individual political freedom Messer says that leaders of the Asian countries such as china, Malaysia, Indonesia, etc. have argued these rights to be foreign to their communal socio-cultural traditions (Messer 1997). Every culture and society has their own view of human rights compatible with their social norms, cultures and customs. A close study of the Asian societies shows that these societies have their own ways to protect and preserve rights for their members. These ways, manifested as rules and laws, function as parts of the organic whole of the society. Some scholars are of the view that if any right of the members in any Confucian society in one way is mutilated by any rule or law, the mutilated right is compensated with others. According to Islamic values and also the values of some aristocratic Indian Hindu society women are not permitted to go outside of their houses for job. But it is also true that these women enjoy some other facilities which the male members do not get in these societies. Anyway this theory of compensation can be easily proved invalidated on the point that a king in irons is more pitiable than his free clergyman. A striking feature of the Western concept of universal human rights is that it is self-consuming and self-contradictory. On one hand it preserves ultimate freedom of individual choice. Individuality is promoted and encouraged by the this concept of universal right up to such a point in an individual is permitted to go against the social norm and on the other hand, Article 8 (2) asserts, “States should encourage popular participation in all spheres as an important factor in development and in the full realization of all human rights” (UDHR 1948). Here the article easily can serve as the duopoly of the Western concept of universal human right. But both individual and society are interdependent. But now the question is whether there is any possibility whether human rights can be both universal and political, or not. As human rights necessarily refer to rights that are imposed upon one only because of being human, these rights are obviously bound to be universal. But this universality is questioned in its application in different socio-cultural contexts. As the causes and premises of human rights are universal, and as every society has its own ways to address these issues, a universal culture of human rights can be created by avoiding the conflict between the application and the cultures of the world. Apart from this, one should believe that these human rights, which are truly worldwide and enforceable, include a right to be called as a free individual and have complete freedom within the practice of one’s religion, living in a country which is democratic by nature and given the basic human rights that are so very important on the part of society to give to everyone. (Gibson, 1991) Bibliography Birinci, Görkem., n.d. Global Pluralism versus Universal Human Rights. Available at: www.wiscnetwork.org/getpaper.php?id=128 - Cohen, R., 1989, “Human Rights and Cultural Relativism: The Need for a New Approach”, American Anthropologist, New Series, Vol. 91, No. 4, pp. 1014-1017. Galston, A. W. 1999, ‘Value Pluralism and Liberal Political Theory’, The American Political Science Review, Vol.93, No. 4, pp. 769-778. Gibson, J S. 1991, ‘International Organizations, Constitution Law and Human Rights”. Praeger Publishers International Council on Human Rights, 2002, “Human Rights after September’ 11. Versoix Messer, E., 1997, “Pluralist Approach to Human Rights”, Journal of Anthropological Research, Vol. 53, No. 3, Universal Human Rights versus Cultural Relativity, pp. 293-317. Plato, n.d., Republic, Penguin: publisher p. 167 Rayner, Moira., n.d. History Of Universal Human Rights - UP TO WW2, Available at: http://www.universalrights.net/main/histof.htm United Nations Human Rights., 2008, Your Human Rights, Available at: http://www.ohchr.org/EN/Issues/Pages/WhatareHumanRights.aspx "Universal Declaration of Human Rights adopted by General Assembly resolution 217 A (III) of 10 December 1948". Wright, S. 2001. International Human Rights, Decolonization and Globalization: Becoming Human. Routledge Read More