Editor, Human Rights as a concept is highly complex, encompassing rights in the fields of social, economic, cultural and political arenas. Many countries look at all these rights as being closely intertwined and mutually supportive: the right to vote regularly may have very little meaning to a man or a woman who cannot ensure a square meal a day for his or her family, have access to health care or education for his or her children and be sufficiently educated to dissect and understand offers made by wily snake-oil salesmen in a treacherous political marketplace. Without political rights, citizens may not be able to influence overall economic, social and cultural rights to their advantage. But without economic, social and cultural rights, political rights are themselves almost meaningless. The US Government policy has always favoured political and property rights exclusively, refusing to fully recognise economic and social rights, including the rights to education, health, housing, work and social security. It holds that it is under no obligation to fulfil these rights; that their attainment should be left to the market. Many other countries, including a majority of Western liberal democracies, strongly disavow this fundamentalist market ideology, holding that the state has a critical role in guaranteeing access to these rights for all, including the poorest. And when we talk about human rights, it is important to identify which specific set of rights we are referring to as few countries agree on which should be the topmost priority. We also need to recognise the way in which human rights have been commandeered by Western governments to violate the human rights of people in developing countries; the obscenity of bombing people to pieces (men, women and children) allegedly in order to bring them freedom from their local dictators. We remember these kinds of verbal contortionisms from the Vietnam War era when American Special Forces were destroying peasant hamlets “in order to save them”. These kinds of practices end up giving human rights a very bad name. The damage is made infinitely worse when we realise how closely those who call themselves “human rights” organisations and activists work so closely and in concert with their governments and rich plutocratic individuals to bring their own versions (and only their own) to the peoples of the developing world. It soon becomes apparent that what they want is to deprive you of your most fundamental right after life itself—that of your own agency—so that they can replace your own will with their own. Mwene Kalinda Reaction to the letter, “Human rights a smokescreen that serves interests of worst abusers” (The New Times, December 12)
