Righting human rights.

Demand is outstripping supply and prices are multiplying. Fuel and food, the fundamentals of life, are proving to be insufficient for an extension of the Euro-American social model to the entire human race. Though it had long been obvious that meat eating gas-guzzlers could only be a privileged minority, while the rest of humanity (notwithstanding Tata Motors) should be content with millet and muscle power, the dream persisted, backed by intense mass media diffusion. All the more so that ideology was the basic ingredient of the Cold War. “Be like us, not like them.” Or rather, “If you want to be like us, join our side.” Human rights and free enterprise were the gateposts to universal prosperity. And, as it is the wealthiest nations that win wars (cf. Paul Kennedy), so the West won. And the Western model was consecrated as the planetary standard. However, now that this model has passed the limits of planet Earth’s capacity to produce our needs and absorb our wastes, it is becoming daily more apparent that the model is flawed and has brought us to the brink.
Human rights and free enterprise, and the second of the two always gets the blame. Unleashed capitalism, the world market, tax havens, and so on, these are the villains of the play. Whereas human rights, as declared in 1948(1), are a beacon lighting up the darkness of economic rapacity. And yet, the two are intertwined and form an inextricable whole. And if one is at fault, the other is acquiescent.

All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. Etc. (Article 1)
Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in the Declaration, etc. (Article 2)

So we are equally entitled by birth to freedoms and rights. The freedoms are straightforward enough. They include the freedom of movement and residence (Art. 13), the freedom of opinion and expression (Art.19), the freedom of “peaceful” assembly and association (Art. 20). We may exercise these freedoms if we wish to. The rights as such are more ambiguous.

Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person. (Art. 3)

This simply confirms our birthrights. Being born, we may go on living. Born free, we remain so, secured by laws that are equal for all (Art. 7). We have these rights at birth and keep them for life. But, as we grow up, things get more subtle.

Everyone has the right to education. Education shall be free, at least in the elementary and fundamental stages. Elementary education shall be compulsory. Technical and professional education shall be made generally available and higher education shall be equally accessible to all on the basis of merit. Etc. (Art. 26)

Here the right becomes compulsive. A child must ingurgitate the state curriculum and his future depends on his capacity to do so, on his “merit”.

Everyone has the right to work, etc. (Art. 23)
Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for [the] health and well being etc. (Art. 25)
Everyone has the right to rest and leisure, etc. (Art. 24)

Here the rights are considered a free choice, subjected neither to compulsion by law nor to measure by merit. But, though very few of us are born with work and almost all of us are obliged to work for a living, the material necessity of work and the psychological necessity of leisure are ignored. So the right to work, adequate living and leisure remains formal and is, at best, a right to social benefits.

Everyone has a right to take part in the government of his country, etc. (Art. 21)

This cannot be the same right as the right to work and leisure as there is no personal life and death necessity to partake in politics. Moreover, government should concern society as a whole, whereas work concerns individuals, the employer and the employee. However, politics have become so personalised that the process is little more than a mediated face to face between individuals, the elector and the elected.

Everyone has the right to a nationality. No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his nationality nor denied the right to change his nationality. (Art.15)

Nationality is a birthright linked to the place of birth or, in some cases, to the nationality of the parents. We are born members of a nation and changing this fatality is wholly dependent on acceptance by other nations. And, though left unmentioned, the right to nationality is in fact compulsory, as no one may be (arbitrarily?) nation less.

Everyone has the right to own property alone as well as in association with others. No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his property. (Art. 17)

Though stated in almost identical terms, this right to own property is clearly different from the right to a nationality. Property is not a birthright that is shared equally and identically by all. Unlike nationality and the access it grants to the commonwealth, property is a private matter, a matter of private inheritance. Nor is property compulsory, be it by law or necessity (most own little or nothing), though the psychological and ideological pressure to climb the ladder is obsessively applied to all. The right to property protects those who own from those who do not. The right to own property protects the state, the church and the rich, and offers nothing but a day-dream to those “born with a plastic spoon”.
So human rights were built to measure for free enterprise, with compulsory education and nationalism for the foundations and private property for the corner-stones. But then, how could it have been otherwise, considering when and by whom they were drawn up. On the eve of the Cold War, human rights were a crusading banner for the “free” world, thirty verses full promises and the subtleties of language. A declaration of rights that carefully avoids the definition of what a right really is. And even blurs the concept by putting on a same standing education and nationality, work and marriage (Art. 16), property and government, life and liberty, public and private, society and individuals. However, in 1948, the Declaration was a sign of hope for budding nations in Africa and Asia, in the Pacific and the Americas. Now, sixty years on, the non-definition of the rights of human beings has run its course. More precision is a pressing necessity. Unfortunately, the brief window of opportunity offered by peace, between the end of the Cold War (1991) and the start of the War on Terror (2001), has been missed and the Clinton imperium will for ever be associated with Monica Lewinsky’s deep throat. Such a small step for humanity!

1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Declaration_of_Human_Rights