As a former colony we too have been “on the receiving end of foreign hegemonies, it is one of our main moral duties to prevent the West from again following the path to domination, which as we know, leads to all too familiar destinations.” Senior Spanish diplomat Luis Francisco Martinez Montes, goes on to say that one way of doing this, is to ensure that today’s civilised human beings include in their education “other (non-Western) cultural references, necessarily including the other great civilizations.”
In his book ‘Spain, A Global History’ he challenges the narrow definition of the ‘West’ restricted to an elitist “North-Atlantic view” that excludes substantial parts of Western culture created by the South within it, such as Spain. Montes argues that if we are to learn to live together as equals, we must be inclusive and expansive to be able to embrace the cultural diversity of the whole world.
He has no illusions that abstract sentimentalism is enough to find ways of living together as equals. Human history is made up of “living with each other, fighting each other, loving each other, learning from each other and rejecting each other.”
Bringing together different civilizations, not to destroy each other, but to live together is not easy at all.
In a similar vein, while celebrating its 90th anniversary the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) of New York, acknowledged that when it opened it excluded the works of many artists who were not male and white and who worked far from the Western metropolis. These exclusions were not based on the intrinsic merit of the artists but were due to the “socio-political circumstances and the realities of the institutional power structures.”
A one-size-fits-all narrative conceals the dominant perspective of the person who creates it and relegates to the periphery “individuals, communities and geographical areas considered marginal” to a hegemon wanting to rule the world.
In the MOMA essay ‘Reimagining the modern’ it is made clear that the “complex fabric of multiple histories” cannot be captured in “a universal perspective or single comprehensive account.”
After 500 years the domination of the West is being challenged seriously. The process of de-colonization is continuing and “global” institutions mostly set up by the Western (mostly US and UK) elites to serve their interests are being called into question.
500 years ago, the West set out to colonize the rest of the world to civilize it, by among other things, converting it to Christianity. 50 years ago, poet and public intellectual Aime` Cesaire from Martinique in his ‘Discourse on Colonialism’ asks the question: “has colonization really placed civilizations in contact? Or if you prefer, of all the ways of establishing contact, was it the best? I answer no.”
The Doctrine of Discovery
On May 4, 1493, Pope Alexander VI issued his ‘Doctrine of Discovery’ decreeing that “any land not inhabited by Christians was available to be discovered, claimed and exploited by Christian rulers.”
He declared that “the Catholic faith and the Christian religion be exalted be everywhere increased and spread, that the health of souls be cared for and that barbarous nations be overthrown and brought to the faith itself.”
Different Popes since John Paul II, including Pope Francis, have been asked to rescind and revoke it formally, but they have not done so.
This Papal Bull has provided the spiritual, political and legal justification for colonization and the seizure of land not inhabited by Christians in Africa, Asia, Australia, New Zealand and the Americas. It fuelled white supremacy and gave European settlers the belief that they were instruments of design and possessed cultural superiority over the erst of the world. It created the ideology that supported the dehumanization of those living in the newly discovered lands and made acceptable the dispossession, murder and forced assimilation of the indigenous people.
Is today’s doctrine of human rights a modern-day version of this 500 year old Doctrine of Discovery? The West continues to carry out a self-righteous crusade to evangelise the rest of the world, casting itself as a choir of democratic angels among hordes of autocratic devils. Is this the best way to promote democracy and human rights, so much needed in today’s world?
Free and fed
When accepting the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006, Bangladeshi economist Mohammed Yunus said:
“Peace should be understood in a human way − in a broad social, political and economic way. Peace is threatened by unjust economic, social and political order, absence of democracy, environmental degradation and absence of human rights. Poverty is the absence of all human rights.”
Michelle Bachelet, the UN Human Rights Commissioner, stress that human rights are indivisible: social, economic and political. Our ideal should be to create a world where we can all live free “from fear and want”.
Different countries weaponize their own definition of human rights, excluding those aspects which are lacking in their societies.
Lifting people out of poverty is a huge step forward in terms of human rights. But it is not enough to be fed and unfree as much it is not enough to be free and unfed ... to live a decent life in dignity, people must be both fed and free.
We need to be inclusive when we strive for human rights. We should not talk about minority rights but about rights for all as rights should not depend on the number of people involved. It is not a matter of what rights one should give to a person, whoever that person may be, but what rights do you want to deprive that person of, and why?
To promote democracy and human rights we need a lot of humility: we must avoid the blindness of self-righteousness and crusading for human rights and preaching to other countries. Is not perhaps the best way to promote democracy and human rights to address our shortcomings at home and if anything, lead by example? We all have shortcomings when it comes to democracy and human political, social and economic rights as they are fragile and we cannot afford to be complacent about them.