My Take | Global South to restore balance on social and human rights
- The West has for too long imposed its skewed version of rights on the rest by weaponising them, and the time has now come to correct that
Which sets of rights are more important? There are the economic, social and cultural rights. These are usually summarised as the rights to adequate food and water, housing, education, healthcare, social security, cultural life, and the rights to sanitation and work.
Then there are the political and civil, or if you like, democratic rights: the right to peaceful assembly, free expression, free press, the right to vote, and freedom of religion, as well as freedom from discrimination and the right to privacy.
Over the years, I have argued, off and on, with pro-democracy politicians and activists about what they were fighting for. One usual answer was human rights. When I asked what those were and why they fought, they usually argued along the lines of “rights are universal”, and therefore their struggle was “universal”. And the universal rights they quoted were inevitably what we call civil and political rights, but rarely or almost never, social rights. It was a peculiar bias, almost a religious belief.
I have sometimes joked to friends that I would be less “anti-Western” or “anti-American” – as some of my faithful hate readers have charged – if the United States and its allies, just for once, invade or sanction a poor developing country not to give them democracy and “the right to vote”, but to make sure everyone in the targeted country gets adequate water and proper sanitation.
“A working toilet for everyone” – how’s that for a slogan? I am sure many of the locals would welcome the invasion or sanctions. It would also save many lives, rather than having them killed.
Far from being universal, the privileging of civil and political rights was actually the outcome of the Cold War. When the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was first promulgated at the United Nations, no distinction was made between civil and political rights, and social and economic rights.
Each set depends and rests on the other, as they should and do. If you are homeless, jobless and don’t have enough to eat, it’s pointless to claim you are an equal citizen because you are entitled to vote as much as a billionaire tycoon.