In recent years, citizens in Western countries are being encouraged to think of the concept of “human rights” as something universally objective. Moreover, they are also being prompted to think that, despite utterly euro-centric subtleties of this concept, it fully applies to just about any “human”, regardless of his or her racial, religious, and cultural affiliation. The theoretical inconsistency of such an approach is quite visible even to a naked eye – the very definition of “human rights” implies that it is only humans who are being entitled to these rights. However, even today there are no legally bounding mechanisms of distinguishing humans from animals, in existence. In his book “Political Theory: An Introduction”, Andrew Heywood points out the fact that the issue of “human rights” is objectively controversial: “The concept of human rights raises a number of very different questions, about both who can be regarded as “human” and the rights to which human beings are entitled” (Heywood 2004, p. 185). Moreover, as we are well aware, the concept of a legal right has been first formulated by Roman law, which refers to it as simply the legal recognition of a certain status quo, within a context of how individuals relate to each other. In other words, under no circumstances can we refer to the notion of one’s right as something “given”, as Liberal politicians would like us to believe, but rather as something “taken”. For example, according to British law, the inhabitants of colonial America did not have the right to even think of gaining political sovereignty. Yet, they did attain the right to be referred to as America’s citizens rather than British subjects by winning the War of Independence. This is exactly the reason why, after the end of this war, the rights of Americans, as representatives of an independent nation, have been recognized by the international community.
It is important to understand that it is quite inappropriate to discuss the concept of one’s right outside of jurisprudence’s framework. Jurisprudence is concerned with the law. In its turn, the law is something that is being forcibly imposed upon society by a political authority. What legalizes such authority is its willingness to utilize violence, as the mean of achieving its agenda. As Chairman Mao had once said – “Political power comes out of the barrel of a gun”. Therefore, the concept of “human rights”, as something that equally applies to all on this planet, is being deprived of any legal sense, for as long as there is no World Government in existence, which could have enforced these “rights” on a worldwide scale, and for as long as there is no universal definition as to what entitles an erected, taleless, ape-like creature, with two hands and two legs, to be considered human, in the first place, especially when “humans” who were never able to evolve beyond Stone Age are concerned.
This is exactly the reason why nowadays; the concept of “human rights” serves as the tool of political propaganda, rather than a legal mechanism of protecting people’s well-being. For example, America’s official explanation as to why NATO planes were bombing peaceful civilians in Yugoslavia and Iraq is concerned with the protection of these people’s “human rights”. Another example – U.N. bureaucrats never cease of declaring “access to drinking water” as an essential human right. Yet, people in Africa did become less thirsty, because of it. And the reason for this is simple – in a post-industrial world, the existence of legal notions de jure does not necessarily correspond to the existence of such notions de facto. For example, despite the fact that all people are assumed to be biologically equal (egalitarianism), citizens’ average rate of IQ in Equatorial Guinea equals 45, while in Japan is equals 110, which in its turn, explains why Guinea (as well as other African countries “liberated of White oppression”) are now rapidly regressing into primeval savagery, even though U.N. bureaucrats continue to refer to these countries as “developing”. Therefore, it is not only that we cannot refer to the concept of “human rights” as an objective legal category, which applies to humanity as a whole, but there are also no reasons for us to even think of “human rights” other than simply another neo-Liberal notion, which does not correspond to reality
Bibliography
- Heywood, A 2004, Political Theory: An Introduction, Palgrave Macmillan
- Lynn, R 2001, Eugenics: A Reassessment. Westport, CT: Praeger.
- Vanhanen, T & Lynn, R 2002, IQ and the Wealth of Nations. London: Praeger Publishers.