Critical alternatives apropos rights watcher’s latest outburst
Excerpt, minor edit by
Carolyn Bennett
Why bad worsens
endlessly
Paris, France-based political analyst Gearóid Ó Colmáin
writing in 2013, also appeared in interviews today on Press TV pegged to
release of the latest Human Rights Watch report.
“Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and similar rights-based organizations are the call girls and rent boys of a new type of hyper-individualist imperialism that threatens the future of human beings’ ability to empathize with the suffering of others.”
Dictionary
definitions of Rent boy as male prostitute who is an adolescent or young adult;
Call girl as woman prostitute who arranges appointments by telephone or
computer.
Colmáin continued. “Amnesty International is a war
propaganda organization for imperialism. In fact, the majority of the most
highly publicized human rights organizations in the West function as
ideological indoctrination agencies for neo-colonialism and imperialism.
“In this respect, they have replaced the Christian
missionaries of the 19th century who provided the justification for colonial
subjugation on the pretext of spreading ‘Christian civilization.’ Christian
value-spreading colonialism has been superseded by human rights promotion.”
Propaganda
departments of imperialism
“The concept of the ‘rights
of man’ was born with the historical rise of the bourgeoisie and the
capitalist mode of production. Therefore, human rights go hand in hand with the
rights of property. Human rights are always property rights; the rights of
exploiters; the rights of oppressors, of the terrorists.…”
Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen (Britannica
note)
“The basic principle of the Declaration of the Rights of Man
and of the Citizen was that all ‘men are born and remain free and equal in
rights’ (Article 1)…
…which
were specified as the rights of liberty, private property, the inviolability of
the person, and resistance to oppression (Article 2).
“All citizens were equal before the law and were to have the
right to participate in legislation directly or indirectly (Article 6); no one
was to be arrested without a judicial order (Article 7).
“Freedom of religion (Article 10) and freedom of speech
(Article 11) were safeguarded within the bounds of public ‘order’ and ‘law.’
“The document reflects the interests of the elites who wrote
it: property was given the status of an inviolable right, which could be taken
by the state only if an indemnity were given (Article 17); offices and position
were opened to all citizens (Article 6).
“…The Declaration is also explicable as an attack on the
pre-Revolutionary monarchical regime. Equality before the law was to replace
the system of privileges that characterized the old regime. Judicial procedures
were insisted upon to prevent abuses by the king or his administration, such as
the lettre de cachet, a private communication from the king, often used to give
summary notice of imprisonment.
“
|
Despite the limited aims of the framers of the Declaration,
its principles (especially Article 1) could be extended logically to mean
political and even social democracy. The Declaration of the Rights of Man and
of the Citizen came to be, as was recognized by the 19th-century historian
Jules Michelet, ‘the credo of the new age.’”
Colmáin continues his assessment. “…Amnesty International,
Human Rights Watch and others, have been complicit in covering up [war] crimes
[and] they should be held to account. It is not because Amnesty International
is a phony human rights organization that it is complicit in the war crimes
being committed against the Syrian people; rather, Amnesty’s war propaganda on
behalf of imperialism is simply a corollary of the bourgeois ideology adhered
to by all human rights groups.”
Taking what’s
good and making it not worse but much better
Progressive
|
alternative
“The current ‘humanitarian’ wars so zealously defended by
human rights fanatics are symptomatic of a deep crisis of civilization,” Colmáin
writes.
“We should reject abstract human rights and defend social
rights.
…Proclaim
concrete social rights;
rights
to free housing;
the
right to democratic ownership of means of production;
the
right to live in peace;
the
right to a job;
the
right to privacy;
the
right to free education, transport and health care;
the
right to healthy food and water;
the
right to freedom of expression.
The current ‘humanitarian’ wars so zealously defended by human
rights fanatics are symptomatic of a deep crisis of civilization and should be condemned,
exposed, rejected by peace activists, Colmáin writes.
“‘Man,’” he recalls Aristotle, “is a political animal, an
animal whose being is inseparable from the polis,
the social fabric, the community.…” Thus, contrary to the
position of rights organizations and the philosophy of human rights, “Human
beings cannot be conceptualized as entities born with inalienable rights but
rather as… social beings growing and evolving in
dynamic communities that impose ineluctable (inevitable, unavoidable)
duties, debts and obligations upon them towards their fellow toilers and laborers.
Without
such complex relations of interdependence, there would be no society and
consequently no human beings.
Sources and notes
2013
“Amnesty International, War Propaganda, and Human Rights
Terrorism,” by Gearóid Ó Colmáin: “Peace activists should not only denounce,
expose, and condemn Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and similar
rights-based organizations’ lies and manipulation but the very philosophy of
human rights itself.” Posted at Dissident Voice: A radical newsletter in the
struggle for peace and social justice, August 8, 2013, http://dissidentvoice.org/2013/08/amnesty-international-war-propaganda-and-human-rights-terrorism/
Gearóid Ó Colmáin is a political analyst based in Paris and
a frequent contributor to Russia Today, Radio Del Sur and Inn World Report. He
also appears in interviews on Press TV.
Merriam Webster: Polis
po·lis \'pä-ləs\ n,
pl po·leis \'pä-"lās\: (1884): broadly, “a state or society especially when characterized by a sense of community
Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen. (2013). Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia
Britannica Deluxe Edition. Chicago:
Encyclopædia Britannica.
Declaration
of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen
[1789] Adopted by the National Assembly during the French
Revolution on August 26, 1789, and reaffirmed by the constitution of 1958.
Preamble:
“The representatives of the French people, formed into a National Assembly, considering
ignorance, forgetfulness or contempt of the rights of man to be the only causes
of public misfortunes and the corruption of Governments, have resolved to set
forth, in a solemn Declaration, the natural, unalienable and sacred rights of
man, to the end that this Declaration, constantly present to all members of the
body politic, may remind them unceasingly of their rights and their duties; to
the end that the acts of the legislative power and those of the executive
power, since they may be continually compared with the aim of every political
institution, may thereby be the more respected; to the end that the demands of
the citizens, founded henceforth on simple and uncontestable principles, may
always be directed toward the maintenance of the Constitution and the happiness
of all.”
2015
“Western countries including US responsible for world
crisis: HRW”: “Human Rights Watch says Western countries, including the US,
play a major role in generating or aggravating most of today's crises across
the world by facilitating rights abusers' crimes. The director of the leading
human rights group, Kenneth Roth, said governments increasingly deem human
rights a luxury they fail to properly afford; and this in turn fans the flames
of global crises. Roth stressed that the rights records of countries such as
the US are full of wrongdoings, which provide a fertile ground for
proliferation of extremist groups such as the ISIL. He specifically referred to
the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq as an instance of these violations. The HRW chief
was citing the rights group’s world report 2015.” Press TV January 29, 2015,
http://www.presstv.com/Detail/2015/01/29/395284/Western-countries-including-US-responsible-for-world-crisis-HRW
A lifelong American writer and writer/activist (former academic and staffer with the U.S. government in Washington), Dr. Carolyn LaDelle Bennett is credentialed in education and print journalism and public affairs (PhD, Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan; MA, The American University, Washington, DC). Her work concerns itself with news and current affairs, historical contexts, and ideas particularly related to acts and consequences of U.S. foreign relations, geopolitics, human rights, war and peace, and violence and nonviolence. Dr. Bennett is an internationalist and nonpartisan progressive personally concerned with society and the common good. An educator at heart, her career began with the U.S. Peace Corps, teaching in Sierra Leone, West Africa. Since then, she has authored several books and numerous current-affairs articles; her latest book: UNCONSCIONABLE: How The World Sees Us: World News, Alternative Views, Commentary on U.S. Foreign Relations; most thoughts, articles, edited work are posted at Bennett’s Study: http://todaysinsightnews.blogspot.com/ and on her Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/carolynladelle.bennett. http://www.prweb.com/releases/2014/08UNCONSCIONABLE/prweb12131656.htm http://bookstore.xlibris.com/Products/SKU-000757788/UNCONSCIONABLE.aspx Her books are also available at independent bookstores in New York State: Lift Bridge in Brockport; Sundance in Geneseo; Dog Ears Bookstore and Literary Arts Center in Buffalo; Burlingham Books in Perry; The Bookworm in East Aurora
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