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Author Topic: Human Rights
Eauz
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posted 02 March 2004 09:47 PM      Profile for Eauz   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
In an International Development class, we got talking about Human Rights, and what they are and such, and it came to me a few days before, and during the lecture, that Human Rights is really something new in the world, and it is not equal at all either. I say this, because until the European Jewish population was threatened in Europe, human rights were pretty much non-existent. But why is this, when the colonists were visiting different places in the world, and pretty much taking over the lands of the native people, and declaring it for the colonisers. Look at the native population in America, and even here in Canada. Why were these people attacked, mass murdered and relocated to a certain locations? Why was this acceptable, and the holocaust was horrible? I don't want to seem like an Anti-Semitist, because I am viewing this from the point of view of other people, other than rich, western civilizations. Why was it acceptable, that the Spanish/Portuguese were allowed to colonise south and Central America just for the church, and economic wealth? The people living in these regions were quite often eliminated, and only the European population existed. Is it just because what happened in World War II was something horrible that occurred to the Caucasian population and that woke us up?

Also, Human Rights, I know are not official, but I ask, why are poor country presidents/Prime Ministers/leaders being prosecuted for war crimes, and such, when the first world countries leaders are living a great life, and yet still affecting the third world. We can take the example of the War in Iraq. Why are Bush/Blair NOT being attacked and sent to the World Court, yet Saddam invaded Kuwait because of some differences in government and other problems. Viewing it in this way, how can Human Rights exist, until there is equality for crimes? We have the same problem in Canada. If I were to go steal money from a store, I would be sent to a court, and probably imprisoned for a fair number of years, where as the problems in Ottawa with money being stolen, and spends improperly, these people who did it are not going to court, and they will not be going to jail.

*btw, I’m not sorry for any anti-Semitic comments, because I personally believe that we care too much for the Jews, and we don’t seem to care about any other groups. I don’t hate any race, group, nationality, but why do we seem to worry about anti-Semitic comments, when there have always been in the existence of humans, mass deaths, and exterminations of different populations, as well as the exploitation of third world populations?

(I guess now I’ll be labelled anti-Semitic eh?)


From: New Brunswick, Canada | Registered: Sep 2002  |  IP: Logged
jeff house
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posted 02 March 2004 10:14 PM      Profile for jeff house     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
I say this, because until the European Jewish population was threatened in Europe, human rights were pretty much non-existent

Well, it is obvious that the American Bill of Rights or the French Declaration of the Rights of Man, to say nothing of the earlier English Bill of Rights, have nothing to do with Jews.

Once you get your history right, a lot of your prejudices will fall away.


From: toronto | Registered: May 2001  |  IP: Logged
lagatta
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posted 02 March 2004 10:34 PM      Profile for lagatta     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
I'm no Mishei on questions of Zionism, but I find the original post in this thread at least borderline antisemitism.

Many people were concerned about the horrific effects of slavery - some, perhaps not enough, on the genocide of Aboriginal peoples in the Americas. As for the horrific effects of colonialism, it is important to keep in mind how little developed communications were 100 or 200 years ago. People didn't see the massacres on TV, and scarcely hear of them.

I have some poignant quotes by Rosa Luxemburg about the massacres of people in Central Africa and among the Amerindians of the North American plains - she did indeed say they were as important as the pogroms against the Jews (she was Polish-Jewish). But not to minimise pogroms - to amplify the importance of the faraway massacres.

There is something that really disturbs me about the first post, and not just because of my own fondness for a certain son of Holocaust survivors...


From: Se non ora, quando? | Registered: Apr 2002  |  IP: Logged
Tolok
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posted 02 March 2004 10:55 PM      Profile for Tolok        Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
*btw, I’m not sorry for any anti-Semitic comments, because I personally believe that we care too much for the Jews, and we don’t seem to care about any other groups.

quote:
Many people were concerned about the horrific effects of slavery - some, perhaps not enough, on the genocide of Aboriginal peoples in the Americas. As for the horrific effects of colonialism, it is important to keep in mind how little developed communications were 100 or 200 years ago. People didn't see the massacres on TV, and scarcely hear of them.

The advance of European expansionism, Vs the "New" world. The wild animals dazzled on the plain, and all that.

Lagatta, is it not easy to view a prejudice against the past through the filter of your own view of today's social justice?


Alexander should not have burned Persepolis. Iskander is still celebrated in song.

Eauz is a new warrior, who will forgive him his crimes?


From: Out of Ontario | Registered: Jan 2004  |  IP: Logged
Eauz
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posted 03 March 2004 04:33 AM      Profile for Eauz   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
I'm no Mishei on questions of Zionism, but I find the original post in this thread at least borderline antisemitism.

Well, if I'm being antisemitic, than you are ignoring and saying other groups in history which were massacured are irrelivent to anything that happend to the jews. I'm not denying things at all that the jews were percicuted and there was a holocaust. I just want to know why we seem to ignore native americans, the population in south america, and the exploitation of the third world, and when there is at the slightest idea of Anti-semitism, it's the end of the world?

quote:
Eauz is a new warrior, who will forgive him his crimes?

Why?

quote:
There is something that really disturbs me about the first post, and not just because of my own fondness for a certain son of Holocaust survivors...

What about the people in these places we forget about? I'm sure if you were the son of a massacred group other than jew, you would feel the same way, but why don't they get the publicity? Why must we only remember how great someone was as a leader, and not the destruction they brought to their and other people?


From: New Brunswick, Canada | Registered: Sep 2002  |  IP: Logged
lagatta
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posted 03 March 2004 05:36 AM      Profile for lagatta     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
The above is ludicrous. Since when have I ever ignored the genocides of Aboriginal peoples etc.? I often raise such issues.
From: Se non ora, quando? | Registered: Apr 2002  |  IP: Logged
Michelle
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posted 03 March 2004 08:56 AM      Profile for Michelle   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Yeah, Eauz, "the Jews" get all the breaks, right?

Give me a break. It's not a zero sum game. Maybe some people are perhaps more aware of anti-semitism than other oppressions because the Holocaust is probably the most well-known genocide since it is the biggest and most systematic one ever, and it has happened within living memory. And I even think you're probably right that oppression of white people sometimes gets better press in the Western media than oppression of non-white people. But lots of people recognize the oppression of lots of other people besides Jews.

I'm sorry, but the idea that we "care too much for the Jews" is ridiculous. It may be true that we don't hear enough about other groups that get less attention, but the remedy for that is to bring more attention to the other groups, not to start accepting anti-semitism or ignoring it when it occurs.


From: I've got a fever, and the only prescription is more cowbell. | Registered: May 2001  |  IP: Logged
Dr. Mr. Ben
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posted 03 March 2004 09:08 AM      Profile for Dr. Mr. Ben   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by Michelle:
I'm sorry, but the idea that we "care too much for the Jews" is ridiculous. It may be true that we don't hear enough about other groups that get less attention, but the remedy for that is to bring more attention to the other groups, not to start accepting anti-semitism or ignoring it when it occurs.
Right on. There's no such thing as "caring too much" for people.

From: Mechaslovakia | Registered: Oct 2002  |  IP: Logged
Mr. Magoo
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posted 03 March 2004 11:23 AM      Profile for Mr. Magoo   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
I just want to know why we seem to ignore native americans, the population in south america,
and the exploitation of the third world, and when there is at the slightest idea of Anti-semitism, it's the end of the world?

Would it make you feel any better knowing that in parts of the world, the Holocaust is, at best, a small note in history? And that local historical events garner much more attention?

This isn't because "North America is obsessed with itself" where others aren't. We're all more aware of, and more concerned with, things happening close to home, to people we know, or to people like us.

Go to Okinawa, and ask the locals about "Comfort Women", and the bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah building.

Now go to Oklahoma, and ask about "Comfort Women", and the bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah building.

Guess who'll know, and care, more about the Comfort Women? And who'll know, and care, more about the bombing? Neither tragedy is more tragic than the other, but it's hardly unusual that not everyone sees them as equal, either.


From: ø¤°`°¤ø,¸_¸,ø¤°`°¤ø,¸_¸,ø¤°°¤ø,¸_¸,ø¤°°¤ø, | Registered: Dec 2002  |  IP: Logged
swallow
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posted 03 March 2004 01:18 PM      Profile for swallow     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
I sure don't think we care too much about the Holocaust. But i wanted to add a word on the history.

Human rights have always existed. There isn't a culture anywhere without a concept of human rights. But the idea of international human rights law is something that is still being built. The idea of human rights was there beforehand, but the laws are only recently catching up.

So lots of people cared about genocide in the Americas, but there were no effective legal mechanisms in place to stop it. The revulsion over how the Holocaust had happened gave us long-overdue laws like the international convention against genocide and the international declaration of human rights in 1948, but these were just building on earlier ideas in Europe, China etc that helped to draft the universal declaration. And now we are starting to have actual courts that hold people accountable for genocide and extreme violations of human rights.

A quibble on Magoo's point: i don't think people necessarily care more about things that happen close to them. It's politically easier to approve a Holocaust museum in North America than it would be to approve a museum to the victims of slavery or the destruction of indigenous peoplas, and i think part of that is because the Holocaust can be blamed on foreigners, whereas the others would require an admission of America's own guilt. I'm thrilled that we now have a Holocaust remembrance day in Canada, but i wish we also had a day for atonement/acknowledgement of what Canada did to its original people.


From: fast-tracked for excommunication | Registered: May 2002  |  IP: Logged
Rebecca West
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posted 03 March 2004 02:59 PM      Profile for Rebecca West     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by swallow:
A quibble on Magoo's point: i don't think people necessarily care more about things that happen close to them. It's politically easier to approve a Holocaust museum in North America than it would be to approve a museum to the victims of slavery or the destruction of indigenous peoplas, and i think part of that is because the Holocaust can be blamed on foreigners, whereas the others would require an admission of America's own guilt. I'm thrilled that we now have a Holocaust remembrance day in Canada, but i wish we also had a day for atonement/acknowledgement of what Canada did to its original people.
I agree. I wouls also like to add that Canada and the US (and other countries as well) are still racist states, that racism is a continuance of the attempted destruction of First Nations people and the enslavement of people of colour. Until we adequately address and rectify contemporary forms of racial oppression, we aren't going to be at all comfortable about recognizing them.

From: London , Ontario - homogeneous maximus | Registered: Nov 2001  |  IP: Logged
Eauz
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posted 03 March 2004 08:59 PM      Profile for Eauz   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
And now we are starting to have actual courts that hold people accountable for genocide and extreme violations of human rights.

But the point about that section I was trying to make, was the fact that only the people who are not of Western Belief are the ones being tried in international courts. How come we allow MNC's can go out and exploit other countries causing death, poverty, and internal destruction of the developing nations, yet they are not viewed as terrorists, mass murderers, rather promoters of economic freedom? In this way, I see that we can't have any idea of human rights, until we can say that everyone is affected equally. These MNC's might not be killing the large scale of people, yet they are killing the internal workings of a family and a culture of different countries. Why not think of your life in a non-western view, and then imagine how your life would be.


From: New Brunswick, Canada | Registered: Sep 2002  |  IP: Logged
jeff house
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posted 03 March 2004 09:50 PM      Profile for jeff house     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
the people who are not of Western Belief are the ones being tried in international courts.

Not true at all. Milosevic is a Western Marxist.


In any event, there will be a fifty year fight to extend the jurisdiction of the international court to everyone. You may recall that the Clinton administration signed the initial documents, and may well have ended up approving the court. But the Bush gang reversed that entirely.


From: toronto | Registered: May 2001  |  IP: Logged
Cueball
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posted 03 March 2004 10:08 PM      Profile for Cueball   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Don't get me started Jeff.
From: Out from under the bridge and out for a stroll | Registered: Dec 2003  |  IP: Logged
swallow
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posted 03 March 2004 11:46 PM      Profile for swallow     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
How come we allow MNC's can go out and exploit other countries causing death, poverty, and internal destruction of the developing nations, yet they are not viewed as terrorists, mass murderers, rather promoters of economic freedom?

It's allowed, i think, because the corporations are powerful, and the idea of holding non-state actors responsible for their actions is newer. But this is changing too:

quote:
Today, a United Nations human rights body in Geneva adopted the first set of comprehensive international human rights norms specifically applying to transnational corporations and other businesses.... Historically, international human rights law has focused on state responsibilities. While international law also places obligations on businesses, there is a need to clarify the scope of those obligations in a changing world. As global businesses have expanded their power in the world, an increasing number of U.N. bodies and others have recognized that with greater power should come greater responsibility. By adopting today the new "U.N. Norms on the Responsibilities of Transnational Corporations and Other Business Enterprises with regard to Human Rights," the U.N. Sub-Commission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights fills the gap by pulling together into one document the key international human rights laws, standards, and best practices applying to all businesses.

Non-governmental organizations welcome new guidelines on corporations & human rights.

Norms on the Responsibilities of Transnational Corporations and Other Business Enterprises with Regard to Human Rights

I don't know how far this has gone in the UN system yet, but with some help by human rights activists, it has a good chance of becoming part of customary international law.


From: fast-tracked for excommunication | Registered: May 2002  |  IP: Logged
nonsuch
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posted 04 March 2004 01:06 AM      Profile for nonsuch     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
"Either all human beings have equal rights or none have any." Annie Besant (1847-1933)

I think this is the concept Eauz meant to introduce. He needs to hone his communication skills, but the question is not invalid.

Why is a crime utterly damned when commited by a dictator long dead, and not considered a crime at all when done by modern business? Why do we talk and talk and talk, in reverentially hushed tones, about one tragedy, while glancing (sure we care) off five others of similar nature and scope?*
(*Before anyone quibbles about numbers, think percentage of population.)

Partly it's because of when something happened. The further back in time, the less relevant it seems to current discussions. Of course the conquerors of 1600 had no standard of human rights. Might made right back then. The peasants and servants of their own nationality had almost no rights; why should savages (by convention, all people with inferior weapons) who could hardly even be considered human?
Partly, it's availablity of information: the more something has already been discussed, the more confident we are of its accuracy: we'd rather refer to a familiar event than have to research, explain and prove one that isn't common knowledge.

But, let's not kid ourselves - or Eauz. It would be a lot more uncomfortable to talk about the abuses that result/ed in our own prosperity. We put the 'Indian stuff' firmly in the past and compartmentalize it as a side-issue that "sure we care" about, but never dwell upon, nor learn the particulars. We put the 'Chinese stuff' firmly on the other side of the globe - "sure we care", but what's that got to do with the issue at hand?
Otherwise, we might have to feel guilty about benefiting from past and continuing atrocities; we might even be forced to entertain some notion of cessation, maybe atonement, perhaps restitution. Worse, we'd have to contemplate the prospect of all the hate and anger we... might... just... possibly... deserve.

Deception - whether of others or of self - is natural to humans. It's a set of skills we've developed very highly. If the truth is unprofitable and unpalatable, deny, obfuscate, displace, externalize; redefine the terms; classify the topic as sensitive, rude, inappropriate, unmentionable. If none of that works, accuse the person who questions our values of something indefensible in the current political or social climate.

[ 04 March 2004: Message edited by: nonesuch ]


From: coming and going | Registered: Sep 2001  |  IP: Logged
Rufus Polson
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posted 04 March 2004 03:42 AM      Profile for Rufus Polson     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
That's cool and all, but maybe he should make clear who he's talking about.
I think activists such as frequent this particular board make a definite habit of discussing human rights violations, genocides and slaughters around the world and here at home. So if he wants to give people a hard time about only paying attention to the plight of the Jews, maybe he should find someone else. There are plenty of groups, some influential, of which this kind of analysis is true--we just happen not to be one of them.

Meanwhile, as to the history of human rights, I would like to point out that there was a major, persistent, and ultimately somewhat successful against great odds, human rights campaign in the late nineteenth century to end the unjust plight and horrors inflicted on the population of the Belgian Congo. The brave and indefatigable activists in that struggle have been almost entirely forgotten, along with the evils of the Belgian Congo itself. But they were real, and they, mostly white Europeans, fought hard for the blacks of the Congo. There were manifestly people who did believe in human rights and did extend the concept beyond whites well before the Holocaust. Not enough of them, either then or now, but they were there.


From: Caithnard College | Registered: Nov 2002  |  IP: Logged
Eauz
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posted 04 March 2004 09:37 AM      Profile for Eauz   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
We put the 'Indian stuff' firmly in the past and compartmentalize it as a side-issue that "sure we care" about, but never dwell upon, nor learn the particulars. We put the 'Chinese stuff' firmly on the other side of the globe - "sure we care", but what's that got to do with the issue at hand?

Why can't we put the holocaust in the past? Is it because we only care about what happens to our population?

I'd also like to know why when a countries army labels the oppenent as "terrorists" yet the army is pretty much doing the same thing as the "terrorists"? You know, the Coalition attackes Al-Qaieda members who are protecting themselves, and we say the Coalition found some Al-Q'da terrorists, yet aren't the Coalition army pretty much doing the same thing as the "terrorists" ?


From: New Brunswick, Canada | Registered: Sep 2002  |  IP: Logged
Rufus Polson
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posted 04 March 2004 03:58 PM      Profile for Rufus Polson     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Eauz, it's called propaganda. I don't see what's mysterious here.
From: Caithnard College | Registered: Nov 2002  |  IP: Logged

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