By Nigel Thorpe
Albawaba.com Amman – Jordan
Once upon a time, long before the global Internet and the global village, human rights were simply human rights. Now at the beginning of the new millenium, human rights have taken on a multi-media dimension and merged with the broader dynamics of globalization.
In earlier, and simpler times, human rights were a matter of voting rights, or black and white pupils sharing the same bus to a multi-racial school. Now, a American cannot take a shopping trip to their local mall without knowingly, or unknowingly, becoming involved in a human rights’ issue. As the Gateway to Human Rights website (www.webcom.com/hrin) explains, “many of the purchases you make each day (clothes, electronics, shoes, etc.) have a direct effect on the lives of people you may never know. This was the lesson that popular TV celebrity Kathy Lee Gifford learned several years ago, when a garments workers' union announced that her signature clothing line was manufactured under inhumane conditions and for slave wages. She immediately set out to correct the situation.”
As part of the new era of "globalization", many multinational corporations have transferred their factories out of wealthier countries and into poor ones. This results in cheaper wages and other operating costs for the companies, but at the expense of the people who lost their jobs at the original plants. In most developing countries, unions are suppressed and there are less stringent environmental and worker safety laws, if any. Often their governments are susceptible to graft schemes and other corruption. In addition, as consumers, Americans may be indirectly helping military dictatorships, like the one in China, become stronger by increasing their export earnings.
The US State Department 2000 report documents many examples of deterioration in human rights in China at a time when the country is poised to join the World Trade Organization (WTO), and the US government is promoting Sino-American trade. As explained by webcom.com, “most American department stores are flooded with Chinese goods - goods sometimes manufactured under extremely repressive conditions. China's entrance into the World Trade Organization will also give it veto power over resolutions that promote worker rights and fair trade. The website quotes as evidence the words of journalist Anita Chan in a Washington Post article, “If you doubt that many Asians think business is a lot like war, consider a gigantic shoe factory in one of south China's busiest industrial zones. Here, where athletic shoes for Americans are assembled by young Chinese peasant women supervised by Taiwanese bosses, the myth of the Confucian ideal of worker management harmony has been overtaken by a model straight out of the military textbooks."
Jeremy Brecher and Time Costello make many of the same points in their book “Global Village or Global Pillage – Economic Reconstruction from the Bottom Up” The authors claim that the much- vaulted “globalization” will exasperate the north/south divide and set back the human rights movement.
For an American reader, the US Human Rights Report is likely to be seen as a view of the world on the “other side of the international looking glass.” Its pages document a world just as bizarre and unfair as the wonder land Alice found in Lewis Carroll’s masterpiece. King’s, presidents, prime ministers, and dictators, maneuver around national and international chess boards in their quest for fame, power and fortune with little regard for any common men who fall, pawn-like, beneath their feet.
For an Arab or African reading the report’s North Africa, Near East and Middle East section, however, the human rights issued raised by the US State Department are likely to be seen as an internal matter because they live in the “wonderland” put under the spotlight. Unlike the majority of Americans, the Arab/African reader will have the local, first hand knowledge needed to know whether the report’s conclusions are likely to be true, or untrue.
When summarized in tabular form (Table 1), the human rights situation in North Africa, the Near East, and the Middle East is, according to the US report, not encouraging.
Significant problems are reported in the Western Sahara, Algeria, Libya, Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, Syria, and Kuwaiti while improvements were noted in the Yemen, Oman, UAE and Bahrain. In some areas, the report suggests, the basic human rights situation in Egypt deteriorated.
Table 1: A Summary of the Human Rights Data for North Africa, the Near East and the Middle East.
KEY
Dark Red: Serious human rights violations reported
Light Red: Less serious human rights violations reported
Hatched: Mixed Report
White Squares: No data/report
? Uncertain / unverified reports
Up Arrow: Improvement in human rights situation
Down Arrow: Deterioration in human rights situation
The Judicial systems of the region also comes in for severe criticism with extra-judicial killings being reported from all countries except the Gulf States, Lebanon, Syria, Morocco and the Western Sahara. Torture whilst in police custody and prison is cited as a very serious problem in nearly every country in the region. The Iraq section of the report includes graphic details of the widespread torture endemic in Iraqi prisons:
“The Constitution prohibits torture; however, the security services routinely and systematically tortured detainees. According to former prisoners, torture techniques included branding, electric shocks administered to the genitals and other areas, beating, pulling out of fingernails, burning with hot irons and blowtorches, suspension from
rotating ceiling fans, dripping acid on the skin, rape, breaking of limbs, denial of food and water, extended solitary confinement in dark and extremely small compartments, and threats to rape or otherwise harm family members and relatives. Evidence of such torture often was apparent when security forces returned the mutilated bodies of torture victims to their families. There are persistent reports that the families are made to pay for the cost of executions. Iraqi refugees who arrive in Europe often reported instances of torture to receiving governments, and displayed scars and mutilations to substantiate their claims. AI noted that Iraqi authorities have failed to investigate these reports.”
Long delays in jailed suspects receiving a fair trial were reported in 12 out of the 16 countries surveyed in the regional report.
Child labor, according to the report, also continues to be widespread problem except in Jordan, Yemen and the Gulf States. This is becoming one of the main causes of concern to American human rights activists as globalization results in “third world” products, from the wrong side of the north/south divide, flooding into US shops.
The report has particularly harsh words about the treatment of women in the region with
only Tunisia and the UAE having a reasonable, and improving human rights record. Violence against women is, the report claims, a problem in two thirds of the regional countries surveyed.
The report is not as pessimistic in its sections on religious freedom and the rights of ethnic minorities with violations of human rights in this area being reported from only five countries (Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Syria and the Yemen), while seven other countries (Morocco, Algeria, Lebanon, Jordan, Qatar, Bahrain and Kuwait) are described as having a “mixed record.”
“Across the board” censure, however, returns in the sections dealing with democracy, elections and “the rights of citizens to change their government.” The report alleges that all of the regional countries in the survey, except Morocco, Egypt, Iran where the situation is “mixed”, deny their citizens this basic human right. Special mention is made of Bahrain where a movement towards democracy and representation of the minority Shia’h minority resulted in an improvement in civil rights in the closing months of the year 2000. The first Bahraini human rights watchdog, the Bahrain Human Rights Society (BHRS), gained its legal status in March 2001 and, in the words of a recent communiqué, “hopes to make a real contribution to the development of Bahrain, and support the government in implementing the new reforms envisioned by the emir.”
Press freedom joins women’s rights, and lack of democratic elections as being the most negative areas of human rights in the region from the American perspective. The only positive comments on the freedom of expression were reserved for Algeria, while Morocco and Bahrain were given “mixed reviews.”
The Human Rights Report concludes that “despite all the suffering (detailed in the report) or perhaps because of it--the cause of human rights is stronger now than ever.
The expansion of democracy and human freedom that the world has experienced over the past 25 years has many causes. This expansion rests on the fundamental belief that there are rights and freedoms to which every human is entitled no matter where he or she resides. This idea is so powerful and so universal that it gains strength with every passing year. ………………”
“The reports are a tangible manifestation of the Department of State's intense focus on human rights issues…………….”
“The year witnessed new strides towards the globalization of democracy. Many, if not most, governments, civil society leaders, and multilateral institutions now pursue and promote open economies and freer societies. A majority of people in the world now live in democratic countries or countries that have begun to implement some democratic and political reforms. The overall trend remains one of positive, incremental change, despite some reversals.”
This conclusion invites the question as to whether the US State Department really means “Americazation” rather than globalization. Does the rest of the world support the notion that American society and democracy represent the “gold standard” by which all other countries and societies should be judged? The US State Department Human Rights Report may well be “for those that have no voice” but can it be assumed that victims of human rights’ abuse always wish to “speak American” and follow “the American way?”
While an international jury would have little difficulty in unanimously condemning “black and white” violations of human rights such as extra-judicial killings and torture, they might well disagree in “gray areas” such as women’s rights and electoral systems whose norms and customs differ from country to country, and from culture of culture. A newly divorced American male, stung by crippling divorce expenses and alimony, might well be tempted to add America as a country, and men’s rights as a category, to any future international summary table of human rights.
As long as an all American “human rights jury” delivers its verdict on the “state of the world”, the possibility of a “tinted looking glass” will remain. There is a strong argument that since human rights is a global issue, the world’s human rights record in years to come should be examined by an international, multicultural jury who are also mandated to take into account the impact of globalization on the Earth’s “southern citizens”.
© 2001 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
