The World of Religions, September-October 2008 —
As its name suggests, the Declaration of Human Rights is intended to be universal, that is to say, it intends to rely on a natural and rational foundation that transcends all particular cultural considerations: regardless of their place of birth, their sex or their religion, all human beings have the right to respect for their physical integrity, to freely express their beliefs, to live decently, to work, to be educated and to receive medical care. This universalist aim, which was born in the 18th century in the wake of the European Enlightenment, has led some countries to express serious reservations about the universal nature of human rights for the past twenty years. These are mainly countries in Asia and Africa that were victims of colonization and that equate the universality of human rights with a colonialist stance: after imposing its political and economic domination, the West intends to impose its values on the rest of the world. These states rely on the notion of cultural diversity to defend the idea of a relativism of human rights. These vary according to the tradition or culture of each country. We can understand such reasoning, but we must not be fooled. It suits dictatorships terribly and allows the perpetuation of practices of domination of traditions over the individual: domination of women in a thousand forms (excision, death in cases of adultery, guardianship by the father or husband), early child labor, prohibition of changing religion, etc. Those who reject the universality of human rights have understood this well: it is indeed the emancipation of the individual with regard to the group that the application of these rights allows. Yet what individual does not aspire to respect for his physical and moral integrity? The interest of the collective is not always that of the individual and it is here that a fundamental choice of civilization is at stake.
On the other hand, it is perfectly legitimate to criticize Western governments for not always putting into practice what they preach! The legitimacy of human rights would be infinitely stronger if democracies were exemplary. However, to take just one example, the way in which the American army treated Iraqi prisoners or those at Guantanamo (torture, lack of trials, rape, humiliation) has caused the West to lose all moral credit in the eyes of many populations to whom we lecture on human rights. We are criticized, and rightly so, that it was in the name of defending values such as democracy that the United States and its allies invaded Iraq, when only economic reasons mattered. We can also criticize our current Western societies for being excessively individualistic. The sense of the common good has largely disappeared, which poses problems of social cohesion. But between this defect and that of a society where the individual is totally subject to the authority of the group and tradition, who would really choose the latter? Respect for fundamental human rights seems to me to be an essential achievement and its universal aim legitimate. It then remains to find a harmonious application of these rights in cultures still deeply marked by tradition, particularly religious tradition, which is not always easy. However, upon closer examination, each culture possesses an endogenous foundation for human rights, if only through the famous golden rule, written by Confucius 2,500 years ago and inscribed in one way or another at the heart of all civilizations of humanity: "Do not do to others what you would not have done to yourself. "