[Peace-discuss] Humanitarian imperialism

Wed Feb 2 10:16:26 CST 2011

A while back, a young Canadian woman came to the negative attention of the 
legislature for a Master's thesis she had written:

https://tspace.library.utoronto.ca/bitstream/1807/24619/1/Peto_Jennifer_201006_MA_thesis.pdf

This analysis is too academic for my taste, but contributes to the discussion by 
framing it within the U.S-Israel relationship (pdf p. 78):

I want to close my discussion of human rights with a word of caution. I agree 
with analyses that show how human rights discourses are a form of 
governmentality that are instrumental to Western imperialism, and I have 
demonstrated here how this discourse functions within hegemonic Holocaust 
education to further Zionist political goals. That said, I want to emphasize 
that even as I am critical of the deployment of human rights discourses within 
hegemonic, Zionist Holocaust education, and by oppressive, Western regimes 
generally, I still see the importance, and even the urgency, of using this 
discourse within popular struggles. On a practical level, human rights 
discourses can provide language and tools for resistance and struggles against 
oppressive regimes. I acknowledge that Western imperial powers often deploy this 
discourse towards racist, violent ends, which makes the use of human rights 
problematic in the ways that Grewal and Puar describe, but I also still believe 
that this contradiction is an inherent weakness of these regimes that can be 
exploited strategically. Much of the critique of human rights discourses comes 
out of the very accurate observation that they are so often aimed at non-Western 
states and cultures, thereby (re)producing Orientalist

________________________________
From: C. G. Estabrook <galliher at illinois.edu>
To: Peace-discuss <peace-discuss at anti-war.net>
Sent: Tue, February 1, 2011 6:04:44 PM
Subject: [Peace-discuss] Humanitarian imperialism

"...I see the human rights movement as opposing human rights ... The actions of 
human rights do-gooders is craziest in Darfur, where they show themselves not 
only dangerously naive but also unwilling to learn lessons from their past 
misjudgments. By their well-intentioned activism, they have given murderous 
rebel militias – not only in Darfur but around the world – the idea that even if 
they have no hope of military victory, they can mobilise useful idiots around 
the world to take up their cause, and thereby win in the court of public opinion 
what they cannot win on the battlefield. The best way to do this is to provoke 
massacres by the other side, which Darfur rebels have dome quite successfully 
and remorselessly. This mobilises well-meaning American celebrities and the 
human rights groups behind them. It also prolongs war and makes human rights 
groups accomplices to great crimes."

[Louis Proyet writes, "During the 1980s, Stephen Kinzer and Chris Hedges wrote 
one dreadful article after another about Central America in the NY Times - 
unlike fellow Timesman Raymond Bonner who was fairly openly pro-FMLN and got 
removed from the El Salvador beat by AM Rosenthal for his efforts. This article 
is fairly amazing considering his past. He has written some strong books on US 
foreign policy but this is practically Counterpunch stuff." It's not 
undebatable, but it foregrounds the usually cynical manipulation of "R2P," 
"humanitarian intervention," etc., by awful groups like the Carr Center at 
Harvard.  For a continuation of the argument, see 
<http://www.chomsky.info/articles/200809--.htm>. --CGE]

End human rights imperialism now
Groups such as Human Rights Watch have lost their way
by imposing western, 'universal' standards on developing countries
Stephen Kinzer - guardian.co.uk,
Friday 31 December 2010 11.30 GMT

Rwanda's president, Paul Kagame, has been harshly criticised by New York-based 
Human Rights Watch for his government's 'authoritarian' measures. Yet, argues 
Stephen Kinzer, his administration has brought peace and prosperity to a nation 
only recently riven by ethnic violence and mass-murder.

For those of us who used to consider ourselves part of the human rights movement 
but have lost the faith, the most intriguing piece of news in 2010 was the 
appointment of an eminent foreign policy mandarin, James Hoge, as board chairman 
of Human Rights Watch.

Hoge has a huge task, and not simply because human rights violations around the 
world are so pervasive and egregious. Just as great a challenge is remaking the 
human rights movement itself. Founded by idealists who wanted to make the world 
a better place, it has in recent years become the vanguard of a new form of 
imperialism.

Want to depose the government of a poor country with resources? Want to bash 
Muslims? Want to build support for American military interventions around the 
world? Want to undermine governments that are raising their people up from 
poverty because they don't conform to the tastes of upper west side 
intellectuals? Use human rights as your excuse!

This has become the unspoken mantra of a movement that has lost its way.

Human Rights Watch is hardly the only offender. There are a host of others, 
ranging from Amnesty International and Reporters Without Borders to the Carr 
Centre for Human Rights at Harvard and the pitifully misled "anti-genocide" 
movement. All promote an absolutist view of human rights permeated by modern 
western ideas that westerners mistakenly call "universal". In some cases, their 
work, far from saving lives, actually causes more death, more repression, more 
brutality and an absolute weakening of human rights.

Yet, because of its global reach, now extended by an amazing gift of $100m from 
George Soros – which Hoge had a large part in arranging –Human Rights Watch sets 
a global standard. In its early days, emerging from the human rights clauses in 
the 1975 Helsinki Accords, it was the receptacle of the world's innocent but 
urgent goal of basic rights for all. Just as Human Rights Watch led the human 
rights community as it arose, it is now the poster child for a movement that has 
become a spear-carrier for the "exceptionalist" belief that the west has a 
providential right to intervene wherever in the world it wishes.

For many years as a foreign correspondent, I not only worked alongside human 
rights advocates, but considered myself one of them. To defend the rights of 
those who have none was the reason I became a journalist in the first place. 
Now, I see the human rights movement as opposing human rights.

The problem is its narrow, egocentric definition of what human rights are.

Those who have traditionally run Human Rights Watch and other western-based 
groups that pursue comparable goals come from societies where crucial group 
rights – the right not to be murdered on the street, the right not to be raped 
by soldiers, the right to go to school, the right to clean water, the right not 
to starve – have long since been guaranteed. In their societies, it makes sense 
to defend secondary rights, like the right to form a radical newspaper or an 
extremist political party. But in many countries, there is a stark choice 
between one set of rights and the other. Human rights groups, bathed in the 
light of self-admiration and cultural superiority, too often make the wrong 
choice.

The actions of human rights do-gooders is craziest in Darfur, where they show 
themselves not only dangerously naive but also unwilling to learn lessons from 
their past misjudgments. By their well-intentioned activism, they have given 
murderous rebel militias – not only in Darfur but around the world – the idea 
that even if they have no hope of military victory, they can mobilise useful 
idiots around the world to take up their cause, and thereby win in the court of 
public opinion what they cannot win on the battlefield. The best way to do this 
is to provoke massacres by the other side, which Darfur rebels have dome quite 
successfully and remorselessly. This mobilises well-meaning American celebrities 
and the human rights groups behind them. It also prolongs war and makes human 
rights groups accomplices to great crimes.

This is a replay of the Biafra fiasco of the late 1960s. Remember? The world was 
supposed to mobilise to defend Biafran rebels and prevent the genocide that 
Nigeria would carry out if they were defeated. Global protests prolonged the war 
and caused countless deaths. When the Biafrans were finally defeated, though, 
the predicted genocide never happened. Fewer Biafrans would have starved to 
death if Biafran leaders had not calculated that more starvation would stir up 
support from human rights advocates in faraway countries. Rebels in Darfur have 
learned the value of mobilising western human rights groups to prolong wars, and 
this lesson is working gloriously for them.

The place where I finally broke with my former human-rights comrades was Rwanda. 
The regime in power now is admired throughout Africa; 13 African heads of state 
attended President Paul Kagame's recent inauguration, as opposed to just one who 
came to the inauguration in neighbouring Burundi. The Rwandan regime has given 
more people a greater chance to break out of extreme poverty than almost any 
regime in modern African history – and this after a horrific slaughter in 1994 
from which many outsiders assumed Rwanda would never recover. It is also a 
regime that forbids ethnic speech, ethnically-based political parties and 
ethnically-divisive news media – and uses these restrictions to enforce its 
permanence in power.

By my standards, this authoritarian regime is the best thing that has happened 
to Rwanda since colonialists arrived a century ago. My own experience tells me 
that people in Rwanda are happy with it, thrilled at their future prospects, and 
not angry that there is not a wide enough range of newspapers or political 
parties. Human Rights Watch, however, portrays the Rwandan regime as brutally 
oppressive. Giving people jobs, electricity, and above all security is not 
considered a human rights achievement; limiting political speech and arresting 
violators is considered unpardonable.

Human Rights Watch wants Rwandans to be able to speak freely about their ethnic 
hatreds, and to allow political parties connected with the defeated genocide 
army to campaign freely for power. It has come to this: all that is necessary 
for another genocide to happen in Rwanda is for the Rwandan government to follow 
the path recommended by Human Rights Watch.

This is why the appointment of James Hoge, who took office in October, is so 
potentially important. The human rights movement lost its way by considering 
human rights in a vacuum, as if there are absolutes everywhere and white people 
in New York are best-equipped to decide what they are.

Hoge, however, comes to his new job after nearly two decades as editor of 
Foreign Affairs magazine. He sees the world from a broad perspective, while the 
movement of which he is now a leader sees it narrowly. Human rights need to be 
considered in a political context. The question should not be whether a 
particular leader or regime violates western-conceived standards of human 
rights. Instead, it should be whether a leader or regime, in totality, is making 
life better or worse for ordinary people.

When the global human rights movement emerged nearly half a century ago, no one 
could have imagined that it would one day be scorned as an enemy of human 
rights. Today, this movement desperately needs a period of reflection, deep 
self-examination and renewal. The ever-insightful historian Barbara Tuchman had 
it exactly right when she wrote a sentence that could be the motto of a 
chastened and reformed Human Rights Watch:

"Humanity may have common ground, but needs and aspirations vary according to 
circumstances."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2010/dec/31/human-rights-imperialism-james-hoge

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64 views of the superiority of the West. However, that should not preclude 
aiming this discourse at Western regimes to expose the tragic hypocrisy of 
Western human rights violations. Yes, this tactic operates within a hegemonic 
framework rather than challenging it, and as a result will not likely overthrow 
these regimes, but used strategically, it can lead to improvements in the lives 
of individuals and communities. This is, in part, why human rights have been 
taken up within struggles worldwide; a fact that we in the West cannot ignore 
especially when doing solidarity work with struggles internationally. 

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