PHA-Exch> Food for an opinionated thought

[Claudio Schuftan]

Human Rights Reader 177


*IN SOME CASES, THE HUMAN RIGHTS DISCOURSE IS RELIGION-SKEPTIC.*
**

Nobody can abuse, neglect, violate or infringe on the rights and liberties
of people with impunity any longer. And if anybody does so, we will hold
them accountable and responsible --no matter who they are.**

1. Human rights stand for the inalienable entitlement of *all* individuals
by the virtue of their being human. That is why human rights (HR) need to be
promoted universally. Hence it is imperative that activists, the world over,
get involved in the defense and promotion of all HR for all individuals on
an equal footing.

2. Not all NGOs committed to work in the name of religion, especially in
Africa, are specifically focusing on HR violations (i.e., representing the
rights and interests of all people including animists, non-religious and
freethinking people).

3. Religion is thus not always practiced in regard of the human rights,
dignity and basic freedoms of everybody, i.e., these NGOs strengths are not
always used to decisively and outspokenly relieve *all* human beings from
conditions of exploitation or discrimination. Other religion, non-religious
or atheist individuals are not infrequently excluded, discriminated against
by omission and/or are thus deprived of their fundamental HR in subtle or
overt ways; they are perceived and often treated with indignity.
Non-believers may not be given the same protection than their religious
counterparts. For centuries, freethinkers (and other mostly minority
groups*) in Africa have suffered from intolerance in silence --with nobody
taking their side; they need to be given the opportunity to break this
silence, to tear down the wall of theistic ideology, and to assert and
demand their rights: a definite role here for HR activists.

4. Generally, Africa has lost a lot of its human potentials to religious
orthodoxy of different denominations. The black continent has wasted much of
its human capital in the service of rigid religious institutions, of
imposed, alien and sacred misconceptions, and even of magical thinking and
superstitions. African women (*) have particularly been victimized and
exploited by the upholders of supernatural values and myths (including
religion). The time has come to denounce these HR violations when and where
such denouncing is due, and to hold nations that commit them accountable and
responsible. The time has come to confront African states with the HR abuses
they perpetrate, contribute to or abet --in no unimportant part in the name
of religion or superstition.

5. What is needed is to address those areas of HR where Africa has made very
limited progress, in part due to such religious inflexibility. Among other,
these include areas like the decriminalization of homosexuality (*), the
elimination of all forms of discrimination against women (*) and against
non-religious (freethinking) people, the rights of religious dissenters or
animists (*), the abolition of blasphemy laws and of the death penalty, and
the separation of religion and state.

6. To start with, as HR activists (and not only in Africa), we need to
document the encroachment of religion into the public and political space
while highlighting potential HR abuses associated with it.  We also need to
ensure that governments act as secular entities, and that there is no bias
for or against individuals with different religious or non-religious
beliefs.

7. The situation in Africa is not just one where religion and politics are
often mixed, but one in which the dominance and direction of politics, of
education and of legislation is not infrequently dictated by self-proclaimed
emissaries of God and/or their cohorts and surrogates. It is only when
governments are religiously neutral in their actions that they can be
impartial arbiters and guarantors of the human rights and liberties of all
citizens. It is when governments are truly secular that they can be truly
democratic.

8. Governments are thus to be led to a point where they put into practice
what has been guaranteed and enshrined in the UN Covenants on Human and
Peoples' Rights --and that is: equal rights for all regardless of (in this
case) religion and belief.

9. As HR activists, we are still in the closet on this, because there is
nobody that takes-on-religion-when-in-the-wrong and thus defends the human
rights and interests of people negatively affected by it. There is no group
that makes representations on behalf of these individuals on a variety of
issues concerning their rights (at least in Africa: we have to encourage
activists there to get out of the closet).

10. Is it thus surprising that the human rights discourse is sometimes
religion-skeptic?

Claudio Schuftan, Ho Chi Minh City

cschuftan at phmovement.org

[All Readers can be found in www.humaninfo.org/aviva under
No.69<http://www.humaninfo.org/aviva%20under%20No.69>
]

__________________________________________________________
Adapted from Leo Igwe, Banjul, The Gambia.
www.politicalcortex.com/story/2007/10/24/1308/6990
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