Throughout my life, one aspect that I felt common to institutions that originated in the West, and which I personally experienced very deeply has been the lack of respect. It is manifested through the belief that people have nothing that is worth learning from, and that they have to be taught almost everything by professionals licensed by Western or Western-approved institutions. People have to be instructed in almost all aspects in life: from opening a can, to improving one’s smile, to opening a door (push/pull), to learning how to pee or dance, to memorizing one’s rights…
For me, the first manifestation of this arrogant belief was in religion: in the words, attitudes, and actions of mostly sincere, honest and well- meaning missionaries, working very hard to convert Arab Christians into Christianity! Yes, this happened in my own home, where American missionaries worked very diligently to convert my Christian parents into some American “Christian” denomination or another. Remembering that Palestinian Christians are the only indigenous Christians in the world, converting us into Christianity is absurd – to say the least. One would expect that Christians from Europe, North America, and elsewhere would come to Palestine to learn how the only indigenous Christian group in the world embodies in its perception and practice the spirit of Jesus. But that never happened. I never heard a single missionary who ever asked a question that manifested a desire or a recognition that any thing could be learned from people. They were always busy preaching. For them, people need to be taught and put on the universal track of progress!
Education as I experienced it, both in Palestine and in the US, embodied the same belief. As students, we were never asked what we know, how we perceive things, what meanings we give to words; we were considered by the system of education as if we had nothing worth learning from. The assumption again was that students need to be instructed/ taught by professionals who are licensed by licensed institutions in order to help us move along the “licensed” universal path for progress.
The belief, which was manifested in religion and in education, acted as the Trojan Horse of modern times that facilitated colonial powers to conquer people from within. Peoples outside the West were considered a burden on Western countries, which felt the duty to civilize us! Rudyard Kipling, the English poet, once said that it is the right of India to be ruled by Britain, and it is the duty of Britain to rule India! Educated locals contaminated this virus of “saving” peoples of the world through ready universal solutions, and thus helped spread the disease.
Then came the subtlest Trojan of all horses: development. In fact, development is more like AIDS than a Trojan Horse: it conquers people and communities not through fighting them but through destrying their natural immune systems. On January 20, 1949, all peoples outside the Western world were lumped under one category: underdeveloped! In a relatively short time, the term was adopted by many around the world, especially the educated, though later it was changed into “developing” countries. Again, it was the duty of the West to “develop” us. Education, TV, and thousands of development projects have been very effective in spreading the development-consumption virus. Since then, development has been a main tool, not only in crushing and emptying the inner worlds of persons, tearing the social fabric in societies, and robbing resources of most countries, but also in killing diversity in living, knowing, learning, perceiving, and relating. Healing from development as advocated and practiced today is a pre-requisite for regaining our ability to perceive ourselves and our relationship to the world in ways that are in harmony with our experiences, histories, cultural soils and with our convictions and values.
In the five years between the end of WWII and 1950, the World Bank, the IMF, and the UN were created. The UDHR and Development soon after were declared. Again, the assumption embedded in all these institutions and declarations is that the world outside the West needs help, and again the burden falls on the West to help us!
The central concern of the workshop is how we can redress the lack of respect embedded in the UDHR, in order to move along wiser and diverse paths. The lack of respect in the Declaration is manifested by the fact that it was declared in the name of all peoples, in the absence of all peoples, and claimed to be for the sake of all peoples! Claiming it to be universal, without consulting peoples, contradicts four fundamental values: dignity, freedom, equality and diversity. I already mentioned manifestations of the onslaught on dignity and diversity. In relation to freedom, the UDHR robs societies their freedom to articulate their perceptions of rights in a way that is harmonious with their reality, their experiences, their values, and their ways of living, relating, learning, and knowing. People – everywhere – have no choice to walk along a path for progress, including progress towards gaining rights, other than the one followed by Western societies. The same goes for equality. For me, a most fundamental manifestation of equality is that we are equal in our right to independent investigation of the meanings of the words we use.
One may ask how else could the UN have done it? The answer is simple. The UN could have thanked the people who articulated the document, for the tremendous effort they put into it, and then, they could have presented that to all peoples around the world to discuss it – suggest additions, omissions, and changes. An even more respectful approach, which the UN could have taken, is to ask peoples around the world to put similar efforts, and reflect on their situations and suggest articulations of how they perceive rights. The discussion could have gone for several years, and could have involved schools, universities, and institutions concerned about the human condition around the world. I strongly feel that if the UN took this path, it would have led to more fruitful and deeper ongoing discussions, as well as it would have involved many people. By taking the approach it did, the UN killed such a possibility and – in its place – we currently witness lifeless ways of teaching human rights as an idol.
How come that this seemingly obvious and logical possibility escaped the UN? My guess is that the UN attitude and approach was a continuation of the disrespectful path and logic that dominated the thinking and perception of dominant institutions for almost 500 years. The UN contaminated the virus and helped spread it. That act reflects the claim of intellectual and moral superiority, and thus the declaration needs to be taught to the less fortunate. The fever of teaching the rights at schools and institutions is manifested by the thousands of NGOs that are supported today to do exactly that. And, when the issue of rethinking the UDHR is raised, some respond by saying that a universal answer already exists and there is no need to re-invent the wheel!
A first step in redressing the disrespect embedded in the way the issue was dealt with by the UN is for the UN to issue an apology to peoples around the world for violating one of their most fundamental rights, namely, the right to be consulted and their right to discuss it, before it is declared in their name.
Second, I would like to suggest that (1) we start the discussion by starting to gather specific examples of rights, which people feel are fundamental but missing from the UDHR, and that (2) we think of practical approaches through which we can raise the issue again in a way that embodies respect and wisdom.
I will start this by suggesting two rights, which I feel to be fundamental but missing in UDHR: (1) The right of every person to independently investigate the meaning of the words s/he uses, including the word “right” itself; (2) the right of people to be consulted before any thing is declared in their name.
Munir Fasheh
Director, Arab Education Forum
December 2003
[For WSF 2004]