Thinking of human rights as an ideological tool

     One significant theme from this weeks reading is that human rights are a channel used to funnel – while, widely divergent agendas from the far left to the far right, essentially all Western liberal ideas. Social and political systems become hegemonic by turning their ideological priorities into universal principles and values and the notion of human rights has become a perfect disguise for this. Human rights are thus, used by the Western world to impose unity and agreement on social division. Perhaps, if formulated differently the abstract provision of human rights could subject inequalities and indignities (this idea is generally supported by Agamben, Matua, Moyn and Zizek - with Deleuze being the exception); however, this cannot happen when the critique of injustice is formulated in the terms of that which maintains injustice. The usefulness of rights thus, comes to an end when they loose their aim of resisting injustice.

      When thinking of human rights as a political tool many examples come to mind – for example, the British abolition of sati in colonial India in the nineteenth century and the recent American invasion of Afghanistan. These cases are generally understood as ‘white men saving brown women from brown men.’ The protection of women becomes a signifier for the establishment of a good society – but this has, at some moments, transgressed equity of legal policy and the poor victimized woman becomes an ideological battleground. In the case of sati, this produces a redefinition of what had been tolerated and known as ritual; but ritual is not being redefined as martyrdom but instead as murder and crime. Obviously, I am not advocating the burning of widows; but I am suggesting here that there are two contending versions of freedom where the paradox of free choice comes into play. For the female subject, a sanctioned self-immolation may bring praise for the act of choice.