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Rethinking
the Universal Universal Declaration of Human Rights:
How to redress the lack of respect for people, which is embedded in it
Throughout
my life, one aspect that I felt common to institutions that originated in the
West, and which I personally experienced very deeply has been the lack of
respect. It is manifested through the belief that people have nothing
that is worth learning from, and that they have to be taught almost everything
by professionals licensed by Western or Western-approved institutions.
People have to be instructed in almost all aspects in life: from opening
a can, to improving one’s smile, to opening a door (push/pull), to learning how
to pee or dance, to memorizing one’s rights…
For
me, the first manifestation of this arrogant belief was in religion: in the
words, attitudes, and actions of mostly sincere, honest and well- meaning
missionaries, working very hard to convert Arab Christians into
Christianity! Yes, this happened in my own home, where American
missionaries worked very diligently to convert my Christian parents into some
American “Christian” denomination or another. Remembering that
Palestinian Christians are the only indigenous Christians in the world,
converting us into Christianity is absurd – to say the least. One would
expect that Christians from Europe, North America, and elsewhere would come to
Palestine to learn how the only indigenous Christian group in the world
embodies in its perception and practice the spirit of Jesus. But that
never happened. I never heard a single missionary who ever asked a
question that manifested a desire or a recognition that any thing could be
learned from people. They were always busy preaching. For them,
people need to be taught and put on the universal track of progress!
Education
as I experienced it, both in Palestine and in the US, embodied the same
belief. As students, we were never asked what we know, how we perceive
things, what meanings we give to words; we were considered by the system of
education as if we had nothing worth learning from. The assumption again was
that students need to be instructed/ taught by professionals who are licensed
by licensed institutions in order to help us move along the “licensed”
universal path for progress.
The
belief, which was manifested in religion and in education, acted as the Trojan
Horse of modern times that facilitated colonial powers to conquer people from
within. Peoples outside the West were considered a burden on Western
countries, which felt the duty to civilize us! Rudyard Kipling, the
English poet, once said that it is the right of India to be ruled by Britain,
and it is the duty of Britain to rule India! Educated locals contaminated
this virus of “saving” peoples of the world through ready universal solutions,
and thus helped spread the disease.
Then
came the subtlest Trojan of all horses: development. In fact, development is
more like AIDS than a Trojan Horse: it conquers people and communities not
through fighting them but through destrying their natural immune systems.
On January 20, 1949, all peoples outside the Western world were lumped under
one category: underdeveloped! In a relatively short time, the term was
adopted by many around the world, especially the educated, though later it was
changed into “developing” countries. Again, it was the duty of the West
to “develop” us. Education, TV, and thousands of development projects
have been very effective in spreading the development-consumption virus.
Since then, development has been a main tool, not only in crushing and emptying
the inner worlds of persons, tearing the social fabric in societies, and
robbing resources of most countries, but also in killing diversity in living,
knowing, learning, perceiving, and relating. Healing from development as
advocated and practiced today is a pre-requisite for regaining our ability to
perceive ourselves and our relationship to the world in ways that are in
harmony with our experiences, histories, cultural soils and with our
convictions and values.
In
the five years between the end of WWII and 1950, the World Bank, the IMF, and
the UN were created. The UDHR and Development soon after were
declared. Again, the assumption embedded in all these institutions and
declarations is that the world outside the West needs help, and again the
burden falls on the West to help us!
The
central concern of the workshop is how we can redress the lack of respect
embedded in the UDHR, in order to move along wiser and diverse paths. The
lack of respect in the Declaration is manifested by the fact that it was
declared in the name of all peoples, in the absence of all peoples, and claimed
to be for the sake of all peoples! Claiming it to be universal, without
consulting peoples, contradicts four fundamental values: dignity, freedom,
equality and diversity. I already mentioned manifestations of the
onslaught on dignity and diversity. In relation to freedom, the UDHR robs
societies their freedom to articulate their perceptions of rights in a way that
is harmonious with their reality, their experiences, their values, and their
ways of living, relating, learning, and knowing. People – everywhere –
have no choice to walk along a path for progress, including progress towards
gaining rights, other than the one followed by Western societies. The
same goes for equality. For me, a most fundamental manifestation of
equality is that we are equal in our right to independent investigation of the
meanings of the words we use.
One
may ask how else could the UN have done it? The answer is simple.
The UN could have thanked the people who articulated the document, for the
tremendous effort they put into it, and then, they could have presented that to
all peoples around the world to discuss it – suggest additions,
omissions, and changes. An even more respectful approach, which the UN
could have taken, is to ask peoples around the world to put similar efforts,
and reflect on their situations and suggest articulations of how they perceive
rights. The discussion could have gone for several years, and could have
involved schools, universities, and institutions concerned about the human
condition around the world. I strongly feel that if the UN took this path, it
would have led to more fruitful and deeper ongoing discussions, as well as it
would have involved many people. By taking the approach it did, the UN
killed such a possibility and – in its place – we currently witness lifeless
ways of teaching human rights as an idol.
How
come that this seemingly obvious and logical possibility escaped the UN?
My guess is that the UN attitude and approach was a continuation of the
disrespectful path and logic that dominated the thinking and perception of
dominant institutions for almost 500 years. The UN contaminated the virus
and helped spread it. That act reflects the claim of intellectual and
moral superiority, and thus the declaration needs to be taught to the less
fortunate. The fever of teaching the rights at schools and institutions
is manifested by the thousands of NGOs that are supported today to do exactly
that. And, when the issue of rethinking the UDHR is raised, some respond
by saying that a universal answer already exists and there is no need to
re-invent the wheel!
A
first step in redressing the disrespect embedded in the way the issue was dealt
with by the UN is for the UN to issue an apology to peoples around the world
for violating one of their most fundamental rights, namely, the right to be
consulted and their right to discuss it, before it is declared in their name.
Second,
I would like to suggest that (1) we start the discussion by starting to gather
specific examples of rights, which people feel are fundamental but missing from
the UDHR, and that (2) we think of practical approaches through which we can
raise the issue again in a way that embodies respect and wisdom.
I
will start this by suggesting two rights, which I feel to be fundamental but
missing in UDHR: (1) The right of every person to independently investigate the
meaning of the words s/he uses, including the word “right” itself; (2) the
right of people to be consulted before any thing is declared in their name.
Munir Fasheh
Director, Arab Education Forum
December 2003
[For WSF 2004]
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