A daily dose of Human Rights

The concept of human rights is constantly under political pressure. No matter if in the so-called advanced and developed countries of “the North” or in the remote and unknown dungeons of the world’s torture states, human rights can be little more than an abstract and general notion. Often seen as a threat to those wielding unchecked power, efforts to uphold and further human rights encounter numerous obstacles. For those of us who are fortunate enough to live under relatively free and democratic conditions, human rights are easily assumed to simply “exist” and not much thought is given to the need to defend these rights on a daily basis. Of course this does not meant that we must all attend to human rights rallies or campaigns day in day out; what matters is the personal commitment to be prepared to defend and further these rights where they are in danger of being eroded, dismantled, neglected or even thrashed. Such commitment extends beyond local or national levels of commitment and extends to the international arena, where double standards all to often seem to rule.

Human rights are an ideal and a democratic fundamental; they are subject to daily threats, at home and abroad. It is not easy to come to terms with the contradictions that arise when some human rights are violated or discarded for the sake of upholding them in other circumstances or under politically unacceptable conditions. More clearly: are we prepared to accept so-called “co-lateral damage”, cooperate with regimes that either were or continue to boot human rights or to turn a blind eye to abuses committed by groups who are deemed allies for largely political reasons? Of course, this directly relates to Afghanistan today, but the point I wish to make here, is that the point continues to arise as it has in the past in places like Central America, South East Asia or Southern Africa.

If one proclaims to be defending human rights and democracy, many more eyes will be focused on those who expect their own interpretations and human rights practices to ubiquitously apply around the world. Human rights need mending and fending at home as abroad, whereby the degree of realization certainly does matter but does not suffice to serve as an excuse for tolerating scaling down of human rights standards at our doorsteps.

It seems to me that discussion and debate on human rights and how to strengthen and promote them needs to be very broad-based, not left to the formal political sphere of democratic civil society. Suite101 readers may find it both interesting and stimulating to discover the breadth of the human rights concept, elaborately documented as international human rights instruments by the United Nations HIGH COMMISSIONER FOR HUMAN RIGHTS http://www.unhchr.ch.

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