We have forgotten what dooes human mean
Human rights – a handful of idealistic utopia come true a little less than seventy years ago. December 10, 1948, the UN General Assembly adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
As is often (or rather, always) the case with utopias, hardly taking tangible form, she condemned herself to the loss of meaning. From a sort of manifesto of the world, sobering World War II, human rights have become a power tool. What began as a noble idea, it turned into a set of dogmas, which successfully juggle caste “dedicated” – lawyers, diplomats, political elite.
After two world wars, it seemed that humanity sincerely wants to find a way to a peaceful existence. Human rights have been the thought that perfectly expressed the aspirations of the humanists of the Enlightenment. At the heart of the new system of morality was a man. A person who is born free and equal, endowed with intelligence and conscience has rights and freedoms. It seemed that a man made his way to a brighter future and freed from the yoke of injustice.
To some extent, these dreams were realized. It is the equality of people regardless of their color, religion or nationality preached Martin Luther King, Mahatma Gandhi and Nelson Mandela. They and their followers managed to turn in a certain sense the world in which we live. It is already difficult to imagine the laws, which explicitly stipulates that the person with the wrong color or the wrong nationality must ride in a special train car, to study in a special school or may be deprived of the right to vote or be elected.
The ultimate triumph of human rights occurred in the 80s, when after the Berlin Wall fell, one after the other communist regimes. By this time, Europe is tired to wait until the whole world fully imbued with the ideas of human rights, and set up its regional regime, based on the European Convention on Human Rights, which was underpinned by effective institutions of control over the implementation of this Convention. The most famous among them – the European Court of Human Rights. But it turned out that to build a utopia on any given continent impossible, especially if the main partner – the United States – does not share your core values, and you yourself have forgotten what is actually written in the documents.
Human rights are a mixture of religious and humanistic ideas which postulated full integrity of the basic rights of human beings, regardless of who it is. Confidence that the right to life and the right to protection against torture must be guaranteed by anyone, including any criminal, firmly entrenched in the European legal framework against the background of the horror of the tragedy of the scale of World War II.
In the US, this tragedy was felt otherwise, and there is still the state has the right to deprive a person of life, if he has committed a serious crime. American concept of civil rights , although it has a lot to do with human rights , is still based on other ideologemes, among which there is no absolute value of human life, regardless of the actions of this individual.
Instead of the expected end of the story, when the human rights and democracy were to be the backbone for the world of happiness, 90 were the beginning of the decline of these ideas. Among the many reasons that led to the crisis of the concept of human rights, I would like to highlight the philosophical problem of the relation of means and ends. In 1999, Vaclav Havel wrote the following lines: “I think that during the NATO invasion of Kosovo, there is an element in which no one can be certain that air attacks, bombs are not caused by material interest. Their character – an exclusively humanitarian: the main role is played by the principles of human rights that take precedence even over national sovereignty. This makes it an invasion of the Federation of Yugoslavia lawful even without a UN mandate. “
Leave aside the debate about the US financial and political interests and assume that the purpose of this operation were true humanitarian. However, the goals are not equivalent principles. In planning the operation, NATO generals took absolutely rational decision to carry out the bombing with a height of over 4,000 meters, above the zone of destruction of the Yugoslav air defense systems. This decision is fully consistent with the logic of war, but strongly contradicts the logic of human rights. Bombing from such a height to protect the life of the pilots – but at the cost of a high probability of errors which endanger innocent people on the ground. In only one attack on a convoy of Albanian refugees at Djakovica, which the pilot took over the military, killing 70 people. From that moment it was difficult to say that every person has an equal right to life:
The final blow to the philosophy of human rights inflicted by terrorists. The fact that modern terrorism does not fit into the concept of human rights. Any terrorist group puts their ideological goals above the rights of individual personality. But countries that commit themselves to the principles of human rights, are facing a difficult question: whether to guarantee the protection of the rights of terrorists want?
As I wrote, the concept of the US civil rights differ from the European human rights . By declaring war on terrorism, the US government withdrew from the category of terrorists civilianDeclaring them enemy soldiers who have no civil rights. This explains why most Americans continue to support the base in Guantanamo existence after an official report was published with a description of torture there. In this logic, the terrorists may be killed without trial. Do just that US drones, which cause pinpoint strikes in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia. According to recently released documents, often at such terrorist attacks after the fact acknowledged all those killed in the strike, including those who happened to be near the end.
When UN Secretary General Pan Gi Mun in May 2011, stated that “the death of Osama bin Laden – a turning point in our global fight against terrorism …” that he was “glad to hear that the man who led the international terrorism, has suffered just punishment ‘( «justice has done The Been to such a mastermind of international Terrorism» ), he received the American notion of justice, abandoning the tenets of human rights. Timid attempts to Amnesty International to raise the question of why an unarmed Osama bin Laden has not been arrested and taken to court, drowned in the universal rejoicing over the destruction of the “devil incarnate”.
When in November 2015 the terrorists give (the new name igil banned in Russia, adoptedmore recently, in France) attacked Paris, the victims were not only 130 innocent people. On a symbolic level, this attack was another blow to the concept of human rights. Judging by the reaction of the French president, the attack was successful. Saying “France is merciless barbarians from Give” and ordered the bombing of Raqqa, he acknowledged the logic of the war on terrorism. Enemies – the barbarians, and the barbarians have no rights. Noting yesterday another International Day of Human rights, few people realize that the world was once again in a situation where a certain category of people in fact deprived of this status. Those who are called terrorists, cease to be considered human beings. We deny them the right to be human. And it means that we have forgotten again, that such persons.
Author: Ivan Ninenko, civic activist
Sourse, 11/12/2015
