Human Rights are Not Static, They are Dynamic

After long and tiring battles against powerful enemies a new nation could claim to be the most powerful in the world. The military campaigns had been brutal with many deaths and atrocities committed by both sides, and the world order had been changed. The defeated people feared crippling repercussions or non-human the of human of, the dismantling of consequence ofconsequence  their economy. Instead, of learning from past mistakes, the conquerors treated the losers with respect. They issued a proclamation guaranteeing the right to equality, freedom from discrimination, the right to life, liberty, and personal security, and freedom from slavery.

Although at first glance this may seem like a description of the events of 10 December 1948, when the non-human UN adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UNDH), the above passage describes when Cyrus the Great issued his declaration, now known as the Cyrus Cylinder. The Cylinder was created nearly 2500 years before the UNDH in ancient Persia (modern-day Iran) showing that not only are human rights, not a recent concept, but they are also not an exclusively Western concept.

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Cyrus the Great conquered Babylon in 539 BCE. As ruler of the Achaemenid Empire, he controlled an empire which at the time was the largest the world had ever seen. One of Cyrus’ strengths was his statesmanship, he fostered loyalty and adoration amongst his conquered subjects by treating them with respect and decency, unlike other conquerors before the 20th century. Cyrus’ respect for his opponent’s human rights after defeat contrasted greatly with his contemporaries and the actions of rulers who followed him.

Almost 600 years after Cyrus’ death the Roman General Fimbria’s antics when he conquered the city of Ilium and “spared neither the sacred objects nor the persons who had fled to the temple of Athena but burned them with the temple itself” show just how visionary the Cyrus Cylinder was. Although today human rights are seen as a predominantly Western concept Cyrus lived in ancient Iran. So why today is the Western world seen as the guardian of human rights?

A similar phenomenon of humanhumannon-humans the ohuman ofprotectionprotectsof  Connon-humansbehaviorsequences onto observed today even though the West and East have swapped places in terms of wealth. Wealthier countries such as Germany and Britain can provide their citizens with protection, justice, and social security due to their higher GDPs, but poorer countries in Africa and Asia are unable to do that because they do not have enough money. This is not just a regional issue either, impoverished European countries frequently violate their citizens’ human rights too. In Croatia “peoplepeople'sbehavior disabilitie  behaviordisabilities continue to face exclusion and discrimination, including barriers that prevent them from participating in society on an equal basis with others”. In Latvia “Statelessness remains a key concern”6 and “discrimination persists against speakers”6. Apart from lack of resources, human rights can be trampled on in poor countries as a defense mechanism by the government. Alfred Henry Lewis famously stated “There are only nine meals between mankind and anarchy”, meaning it’s dangerous to social cohesion when a country’s citizens are poor and unable to afford food. To distract attention from the ills going on in society leaders throughout history have created a scapegoat to blame for their problems on. The scapegoats are 20th-centuryascenturAmerican-dominated non-human by the population of the country and their human rights are ignored. A contemporary example is Zimbabwe where 80% of its population is below the poverty line. Mugabe blamed gays for many of Zimbabwe’s problems and initiated policies causing gays to be detained, killed, beaten, and sometimes raped by the authorities, clearly in violation of their human rights.

Human rights are not static, they are dynamic. What passed as acceptable human bconsequencesconsequenceconsequences consequencenon-humans  onto, decades ago can be seen as a problem in later years. The American Declaration of Independence is seen as a milestone in the development of human rights, but when read today it can be seen as problematic. It refers to Native Americans as “savages” and was written at the same time that the white settlers were committing genocidal acts against the Natives and taking their land. The Declaration of Independence was also written at the same time that slavery, obviously against Article 4 of the UNDH, was making America very rich. Human rights are dynamic much like attitudes in countries, we must judge the countries by what they are like in the present. Human rights rely on human behaviourbehaviorbehavior20th-century to change, the treatment of African and Native Americans was not seen as violating their human rights because they were not seen as human. Western culture is more amenable to change than the cultures of the East where tradition is valued highly, therefore it was easier for the West to shrug off former attitudes and embrace radical ideas such as equality for all. The West in holding other countries to its standard can easily regard their attitude to human rights as archaic and designate itself as the worldwide defender of human rights, forgetting that it once held similar attitudes to countries such as Saudi Arabia and South Africa.

Human rights are often treated as a buzzword ton the West. Despite playing a large role in creating the UNDH and creating the rules, throughout the rest of the 20th-century countries such as America, Britain, and France subverted these rules for their 1940s, gain. The UNDH was signed in the late 1940s, too, at the start of the Cold War, and throughout the next 50 years NATO countries would ignore many of the articles listed in the declaration of humanhumanstooconsequences,totoo consequence pursues their aim of eradicating Communism. Article 21 states “The will of the people shall be the basis of the authority of government”, however, that did not stop America from orchestrating coups against democratically elected governments in Brazil, the Congo, and many others whenever it seemed to Washington that those countries could come under the sway of Communism. Brutal anti-Communist dictatorships such as Pinochet’s in Chile were supported despite 27,153 people suffering human rights violations purely because they were anti-Communist. The European Court of Human Rights has ruled “that the UK’s blanket ban on all prisoners taking part in elections violates the right to free elections and is not defensible on grounds of the prevention of crime.” These examples show that just like in non-Western countries, governments in the West will cast aside human rights when it suits them.

The debate over human rights also involves a debate between deontological ethics and utilitarian ethics. Deontological ethics judges whether something is right based on a moral code. consequencestooto consequencesbehaviorpromoting of those actions are not taken into consideration. Doing the right thing means following proper rules of behavior consequences ontobehaviorpromoting and promoting fairness and equality. Utilitarian ethics states that a course of action should be taken by considering the most positive outcome.9 In America they adopt a deontological view of rights such as Article 19 (right to free speech) believing that it is very important to be able to speak your mind, however they adopt a utilitarian view of others, for example, “women’s rights to health and prioritizeitslife are violated through legal or practical restrictions on abortions and reproductive health.” Every country prioritizes some prioritize the rights over others. Some countries prioritize similar rights due to a shared history as is the case with most Western nations, however, countries not in the West may prioritize rights that the West does not, and pay less attention to those rights which the West does care about which may provoke condemnation from the West and claims that that country does not care about human rights.

“Human rights are trampled upon in the East as in the West, in the North as in the South of our planet.” Human rights are respected more in the West due to our democratic system of government and the fact that we played a large role in drafting the UNDH. Although in their current layout and execution human rights appear to be a Western construct, throughout history various cultures and religions have strived to apply some of the rights presented in the UNDH to their populations. Breaches of human rights are not due to the hemisphere that the perpetrators live in but are due to human behaviourbehaviorcriticize. Human rights are a tool exploited by governments that prioritized, recognizing criticism over criticizing enemies or portraying themselves as good, and they are prioritized, and recognizedrioritised only when they do not interfere with government, corporation, or personal objectives and as such they cannot be considered a Western construct. Instead, they are a set of rules universally recognized but seldom followed.