Times change and so do attitudes and even beliefs. We may, of course, protest that we remain true to our principles and vow that that will never change even if we have to die for it.

Some brave ones actually do; the foolhardy also. But generally there is a fickleness about people that seems to define humanity, even those who profess constancy.

Take the case of human rights and groups that supposedly champion them. They have undergone a metamorphosis that makes them almost unrecognizable from their original form.

There was a time when human rights meant certain values common to all human beings. Over time, the definition of human rights has changed to include things on which all human beings do not necessarily agree. Some rights were considered basic.

That has changed. New ones have come to take their place. And some people have arrogated themselves the right to define which rights are human and determine which are more important.

There was a time, too, when human rights groups were the guardian angels of victims of conscience. That was in the bad old days of one-party states and military dictatorships.

Then, it was easy to identify the victims of tyranny. Guardian angels would then take them under their wings and speak out for them.

That was also the time of a bipolar world when there was no single bully to order everyone around and mess up the world. Several bullies existed, among them two big ones. The fear of each other enabled the rest of us to get along just fine.

Human rights groups like Amnesty International were then fairly independent. They treaded carefully between the bullies so as not to draw their wrath.

But they were also firm enough to speak for the little guys who suffered at the hands of the bullies or their lackeys.

That time is gone. The guardian angels of human rights organizations disappeared with it. They lost their independence and their ability to defend the weak and victims of all sorts of bullies.

The change seems to have occurred when they got co-opted by the bullies and began to do their bidding. The constant movement of personnel between government departments and human rights organisations in some of the big powers has been observed and documented.

For all intents and purposes, rights groups have become integral parts of the administration of these powers.

To do their work, they depend on donations by big corporations, foundations and wealthy individuals. In a free market environment, nothing is ever given for free.  It has a price.

Human rights organisations have to uphold the values of the donors or they lose their funding. Money has become more important than the values the groups profess to uphold.

Today’s human rights groups have ceased to be protectors of the defenceless. They have actually become bullies in their own right and constantly push the little guys around and accuse them of all manner of abuse.

From these changed circumstances, a strange definition of human rights has emerged. What is a right in one part of the world is not necessarily so in another.

And so, in some countries self-defence is an inalienable right. They will do whatever it takes to exercise that right. That may include dropping bombs on another country thousands of miles away from their borders without the knowledge or consent of the government of that country.

Or they may sneak into a country and murder or abduct those they consider a security threat. The abducted foreign nationals are then imprisoned without access to family or lawyers for indefinite periods.

Apparently that is in no way a contravention of anyone’s human rights. And rights groups are dutifully mum.

But when another country acts within the law and on its territory to protect the rights of its citizens, that is wrong. When authorities arrest people for threatening the security and rights of innocent citizens, that is a violation of human rights. The rights groups then find their voice and become strident in their condemnation.

In an inversion of values, the rights of terrorists and criminals, including those who have committed the worst crimes against humanity, take precedence over the rights of victims.

It is a strange perverted world in which the erstwhile guardian angels of the weak, oppressed and innocent have abandoned that role. Instead, they have taken under their wings perpetrators of the worst crimes. They seem to have succumbed to the lure of power and influence, and lost their way, and not for the first time either.

Once upon a time, other angels fell from grace for similar reasons. We know what they became – angry and vicious and relentless in their desire to pull down virtuous people.

In our own time, we are witnessing a new generation of fallen angels – from rights groups - and they can be as vicious as the earlier ones.

Twitter: @jrwagatare