Moving human rights beyond capitalism
Abstract
What do human rights mean when those who hold power and wealth throughout the world actually treat many of those beneath them as not fully human? The categorization of peoples as non-human, subhuman, or not fully human has appeared throughout human history. But this categorization has flourished especially since what has been called the “rosy dawn” of capitalism.[1]
Rooted in European capitalism, racism, imperialism, colonialism, neocolonialism, and patriarchy, the elites of capitalism have enslaved millions of people, mainly from Africa, and have exterminated millions more through genocide that wiped out indigenous populations, especially in the Americas and Asia. Slavery and genocide also have occurred within some imperialist countries of Europe, as fascist elites have used racist categorizations within their own realms. Racist ideas have justified these and other unacceptable conditions imposed on human beings considered less than human, while those not really human beings have generated immense wealth for elites intent to accumulate capital.
[1] Eduardo Galeano, The Open Veins of Latin America (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1997), Part I; Karl Marx, Capital, volume 1, chapter 31, https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch31.htm.
References
Eduardo Galeano, The Open Veins of Latin America (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1997), Part I; Karl Marx, Capital, volume 1, chapter 31, https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch31.htm.
From a related perspective these two groups, who fall within versus outside the realm of the human rights discourse, constitute “civil society” versus “uncivil society.” For instance, see Michael Neocosmos, “Transition, human rights and violence: rethinking a liberal political relationship in the African neo-colony,” Interface 3(2) (November 2011): 359-399.
Frantz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth (New York: Grove Press, 1963).
“Human Rights Advocacy and the History of International Human Rights Standards,” University of Michigan, 2022, http://humanrightshistory.umich.edu/accountability/; Besson, Samantha, “The Bearers of Human Rights’ Duties and Responsibilities for Human Rights: A Quiet (R)Evolution?” Social Philosophy and Policy 32,1 (2015): 244-268.
This lack of historical perspective has received emphasis in recent critiques of the traditional human rights discourse. For instance, Mamdani has highlighted this problem as follows:
“Human rights deny the existence of history, instead looking only to the here and now and asking who did what to whom, so that perpetrators may be punished and victims vindicated. The arena of human rights is that of the courtroom, specifically the post-atrocity tribunal. When atrocities are committed, human rights activists find the perpetrators, name them and shame them, maybe even put them in jail. What these activists rarely seek to do is understand why the atrocities happened or what they tell us about the political community. Extreme violence in the postcolonial condition is very often nationalistic violence, as ethnic groups, organized as separate tribal units under colonialism, vie for privileged access to public goods. Human rights ignore this historical background, thereby depoliticizing violence and treating it as merely criminal. Where violence is merely criminal, we can only see it as a function of individual pathology. We cannot see it as a political outcome calling for a political solution.On the other hand, in this recent book, Mamdani does not refer to capitalism or racial capitalism. Mahmood Mamdani” Neither Settler nor Native: The Making and Unmaking of Permanent Minorities (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2020), p. 21.
Illuminating uses for some of these terms include: Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth, and Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed (New York: Continuum, 1993).
For an in-depth analysis of the defects within the traditional human rights discourse, especially as applied to African history in general and the position of African women in particular, see Sylvia Tamale, “Repositioning the Dominant Discourses on Rights and Social Justice,” in Decolonization and Afro-Feminism (Wakefield, Quebec, Canada: Daraja Press, 2020), chapter 6. Additional helpful critiques of the human rights discourse appear in: Aragon Eloff, “The very idea of rights: a critique of human rights discourse,” Medium, Oct. 4, 2016, https://medium.com/@aragorneloff/the-very-idea-of-rights-a-critique-of-human-rights-discourse-84706f002c85; Eva Brems, “Enemies or Allies? Feminism and Cultural Relativism as Dissident Voices in Human Rights Discourse,” Human Rights Quarterly 19 (1997): 136-164, https://www.jstor.org/stable/762362?seq=1&cid=pdf-; Amit Singh, “A Critical Analysis of Human Rights: How Human Is Human Rights? Countercurrents, December 26, 2017, https://countercurrents.org/2017/12/critical-analysis-human-rights-human-human-rights/; Michael Neocosmos, “Can a Human Rights Culture Enable Emancipation? Clearing Some Theoretical Ground for the Renewal of a Critical Sociology,” South African Review of Sociology 37,2 (2006), https://www.academia.edu/29700064/Can_a_human_rights_culture_enable_emancipation_Clearing_some_theoretical_ground_for_the_renewal_of_a_critical_sociology; Makau Mutua, Human Rights: A Political and Cultural Critique (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2002).
A very helpful additional critique of the human rights discourse appears in the pathbreaking work of Issa J. Shivji, especially The Concept of Human Rights in Africa (London: Codesria, 1989). Shivji examines ideologies of human rights discourses and distinguishes between “ideologies of domination,” associated with the traditional human rights discourse, and “ideologies of resistance,” associated with revolutionary transformation. This transformation involves anti-imperialist, anti-colonialist, and anti-neocolonialist elements. The new “revolutionary human rights framework” breaks with the dominant discourse while integrating some elements of the old perspective:
… what is being suggested for the new perspective is an ideological and theoretical break with the dominant discourse on human rights. This does not of course mean that certain elements from the old perspective cannot be fruitfully integrated in the new one…. To put it another way, the new always partakes of what is good and meritorious in the old. Neither social transformations nor ideological breaks in that sense begin from a clean slate. While the new revolutionary human rights framework moves beyond the historical legacy of imperialism, colonialism, and neocolonialism, Shivji’s formulation does not necessarily include moving beyond capitalism itself.
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Much of the information in this section benefited from personal communication with Erika Arteaga Cruz in Quito, who based her comments on articles by Francisco Lopez Bárcenas, Inti Cartuche Vacacela, Alberto Acosta, Mario Unda, and Pablo Ospina.
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