Humble Revolutionary

Societies need guiding ambitions and principles, but international institutions’ bounded liberal views don’t understand human complexities.

The concept of Human Rights is fundamental to modern societies. Human Rights are moral principles that guide how we behave, guarantee essential goods and services for us to live fulfilling lives, and vitally protect against the encroaching powers of businesses and the state. But who is ‘we’? Who defines ‘fulfilling lives’? And frankly, who is to say there are ‘businesses’ and the ‘state’ as we see it today? The need for rights and systems to uphold them is all relative to the foundations of that society in the first place. So does this mean that we abandon Human Rights in regards to our foreign policies or our NGO principles? Absolutely not. But we should stop kidding ourselves with the arrogant assumption that our societies’ values apply to all universally, inalienably and indivisibly. We should humble ourselves, and work from the bottom up.

Why Human Rights aren’t indivisible

I’m going to work backwards here, towards the most crucial argument of universality. The indivisibility and interdependence of Human Rights mean that, like a heart and a brain, one is needed in order for the other to work (thanks to Leila Nasr from LSE Blogs for that example); all rights must be simultaneously implemented in order for them to mean anything. It is undoubtedly true that some Human Rights facilitate others. Freedom of Expression, probably the most well-known right in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), promotes accountability in a democracy, controlling the power of the state; preventing it from infringing on other essential Human Rights.

However this logic is often limited. Paid time off, another UDHR right, isn’t possible in most developing countries, and not implementing it may benefit other rights: its absence could facilitate more business investment, in order to produce the wealth to then provide basic needs for those within that society. Similarly, public Holocaust denial is banned in Germany, and thus arguably infringes on the Freedom of Expression. Yet, many would argue that Germany is more democratic than the USA: it has less social and economic inequality, a more accountable government, and the voting system enables more political power to citizens. Ah yes, you may say, but these examples all depend on particular economic and cultural conditions. But there you have it: you are employing relativism.

Why Human Rights aren’t inalienable

This leads me on to another fundamental principle that the implementation of Human Rights is based on: inalienability. Broadly, inalienability means that no one can take Human Rights away from a human, nor can they willingly give their Rights away.

And yet, this is what we see in Germany, with a democratically elected government passing a law that limits freedom of speech; and, further, in every Western liberal state: freedom of speech doesn’t cover ‘fraudulent, defamatory or obscene statements’ in the UK, nor the USA and many others. At the same time, the judiciary must infringe on personal freedom through subpoenas. Why is this? Because people trust the institutions of these states. They see the solutions as needed in order for them to live their lives, and they know they have the power to organise and overturn these decisions. If Human Rights are inalienable, then why do stateless refugees die, have no voting rights, suffer from diseases, and are turned down the right to claim asylum frequently in Europe?

Why Human Rights aren’t universal

The universality of Human Rights is the belief that everyone is entitled to them by the simple fact of being human (they are foundational). I have already shown how Human Rights are not universal in their implementation. Further though, the current conditionality of Human Rights to statehood highlights the importance of states to society.

The institutions of the state are seen as legitimate because they are formed from the history, values and beliefs of a society, and likewise dialectically influence those history, values and beliefs. Thus they are inherently cultural, and therefore, to varying degrees, highlight how it and culture are extensions of the individual. Culture, comprising of values, beliefs and shared history, is part of our identities. So when the UDHR uses the term ‘human’, we use a misinformed definition of it according to liberal ideas, such as individualism, rationality and rational self-interest. In reality, humans are far more complex: they are irrational, unable to have a truly objective perspective, and fundamentally a collection of identities. Our cultures, our histories and values, the different patchworks of our identities, are what make us human. Therefore the UDHR is bounded by its misplaced Enlightenment moral worldview, with actors implementing these Rights misunderstanding the complexities of humans.

An example is the common Western misperception of struggles facing Muslim women, in belief that the Islamic religion oppresses them. This is highlighted by anthropologist Lila Abu-Lughod in her book ‘Do Muslim Women Need Saving?’. Her ethnographies of Muslim women from different countries find that the main issues are economic inequality and political oppression. ‘Covering up’, and Islam in general, were typically never seen as oppressing. Instead, they were arguably the opposite, and cornerstones of their values; while it was regimes, many being recent dictatorships, that were causing the oppression. Western liberal discourse, also highlighted by Abu-Lughod, fails to see the nuances of the issues, and understand the centrality of Islam to many individuals’ humanity and therefore concept of the world.

Why Human Rights should be universal

All of this is not to say that Human Rights should not be universal. While so many cultures are different, this does not preclude the capacity of humans to have a basic common understanding, humanity, based on our inherent capacity for empathy, and determination to do better and build more just societies. Therefore I’d like to employ a phrase I first found in an article by Shashi Tharoor: Human Rights should be universal, not uniform.

However, I would like to take his perspective further than just ‘indigenising’ Human Rights. To assume that social institutions are built by common consent from below, in the same way as Locke’s abstract ‘social contract’ operates, ignores how injustices in societies are as a result of historical inequalities and oppression (patriarchy in the West is an example). Meanwhile, military intervention, and other forms of hard power by the West often ignore cultural differences, and thus often makes the issues worse (Iraq is an example); comparable to how the global economic institutions of the WTO, IMF and World Bank have internationally imposed a narrow neoliberal view of the economy (amounting to neo-colonialism). Thus, NGOs and global institutions must focus on empowering people who should be the main forces of change, be that in a democracy or dictatorship. Groups who are marginalised, the oppressed, the majority that lack the political and cultural power to create an inclusive non-extractive state; these groups must be empowered. Economic power often equals political power. Let’s start there.

To conclude, however, I will end with the need for us to humble ourselves. We need guiding principles, we need a view of where we want to be; but we must understand that this is bounded by our own world-views, the dominant ideologies we have been raised with. The UDHR has evolved significantly, and probably always will, but it, and further the Western attitudes towards Human Rights, still have a long way to go. We need to be more inclusive, understand how identity is attached to the institutions of society, and trust the perspectives of ordinary people, rather than elites, from all nations. And let’s empower those people, give them economic power, and let them create, collectively, diverse, equitable and just nations of their own.

Links to read more

For more on employing a more relativist approach, I recommend reading books by anthropologists. ‘Think Like an Anthropologist’ by Matthew Engelke is an amazing, eye-opening place to start; while Abu-Lughod’s book is also worth a read. A review of the latter’s book is available here.

Neoliberalism has culturally and economically divided us. For Labour to win the next general election, its grassroots must begin rebuilding solidarity.

Neoliberalism has been used a lot lately, without definition, so I will define what I mean by this. It is the belief in negative freedom, and the efficiency of markets, informing a political era since the 1980s that argues for a small state, and the introduction of market mechanisms wherever possible in the name of ‘efficiency’.

Tangibly, what has this done, and how does it impact the Labour Party?

I will try to make this as brief as possible, by giving two examples. The first is ‘Right to Buy’. Thatcher’s scheme was significant in many ways, not least in how it continues to undermine the power of councils. Most importantly, the ideas that it embodies and promotes, I believe, enshrine those that dominate today: radical individualism, the family unit as centre of society, measures of ‘success’ found in material wealth, and, from all of this, the burden of economic positions placed on the individual.

Yes, this mentality purveyed Western societies long before the 1980s, and many would say they are not totally against these ideas. But before neoliberalism, we also had so much more. We had communities, from Newcastle to London, built around primary and secondary industries, where families resided for generations; and unions, which, together, fought against the neoliberal governments that sought to obliterate them. Neoliberalism was not just a new wave of thinking, but an active battle against a common feature of humanity that defines the Labour Party, and its core socialist principles, from which societies thrive: solidarity.

While the world is very different today with the rise of right-wing populism, it is growing in the fields that neoliberalism has been ploughing for decades. The neoliberal (neoclassical) economists were allied to the socially liberal to produce the ‘centrism’ that defined the Blair years, which was likewise supported by the media. This was the hegemony, the consensus, what was ‘pragmatic’ (or ‘the truth’). The 2008 financial crash was the turning point, bringing with it the realisation that this was not ‘the end of history’; it was the perfect time for a real left alternative to rise again. But this didn’t happen: neoliberalism has defended itself by allying with the far right.

Donald Trump in the US, the AfD in Germany, PiS in Poland, Nigel Farage, all blame immigrants, or Islam, or the Jewish Community, in the same way that antisemitism grew in depression USA, and in pre-WW2 Europe: they make a common enemy, a scapegoat, for the injustices and failures of the economic system (as identified by the Frankfurt School). Thus, when Boris Johnson runs a campaign on a simple three-letter phrase, it cuts through: it promises change (unlike what centrists brought), and it identifies a single problem that must be overcome, building on the prejudices that have been sown by the right-wing press; and, fundamentally, it seems like the only realistic choice to alleviate the economic and social ills under the political and cultural hegemony of neoliberalism.

So what should Labour do?

Labour has finally come home to the left, but in its enthusiasm has published a radical manifesto absolutely stuffed with policies. Seemingly it’s forgotten that it’s operating in a climate of mistrust towards political commitments, and that, ultimately, it’s the media that communicate these policies to the people. This can be forgiven, given the reception of the 2017 manifesto. Yet, the right’s tactics have changed: in 2017 arguably Brexit was being done anyway, while for Johnson it has been much easier to make it a single-issue campaign; meanwhile, the right-wing media had been given years to smear Corbyn and the Labour Party with the narrative that they could not be trusted on this fundamental issue (fuelled by the agonising indecision over Labour’s Brexit policy).

To succeed in a proper transformative vision, Labour needs to cut through the media bullshit. This does not come from door-knocking every once in a while because, like it or not, people trust the Mail, their friends and family, and buy into the dominant media narrative. They may be working class, but they do not operate or identify themselves in opposition to the structures that oppress them, as we would expect them to be: neoliberalism has isolated them, eroded common humanity, and defined the enemy as one of their own. If we are to succeed, we need to be trusted, we need to be seen, and we need to rebuild that solidarity. We need radical positions (and if anything more radical than what Labour has now), not just in documents, but in local people whom they trust, whom they see are also fighting.

To be honest, I’m not entirely sure how to do this, but I have an idea: campaigns, events, activism. A grassroots movement is one that grows. We need to be actively engaging and helping people, retaking our common land that has been lost, rebuilding the communities that have been eroded, building networks of the oppressed. Whatever it may be: food, energy, housing, education, community space; all of the insecurities brought on by neoliberalism. ‘Solidarity, not charity’ (I take this from Edinburgh Helping Hands, mentioned in John Harris’s great Guardian article). Labour needs to get out of this central-government-will-fix-it mindset: communities need power. So let’s start building now, and ensure actual transformative change in the future.

Oh, and perhaps Extinction Rebellion should be taking notes too.

Links to read more

I’ve imbedded a couple of links for further info. This of course has many influences, but recently I’ve been particularly interested in the ideas of the Frankfurt School, as well as Gramsci and his ideas of cultural hegemony.

Of particular note also is ‘The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Napoleon’ by Karl Marx. A response to how his theory of a proletarian revolution didn’t work in 1848 France, a very big influence, he notes, is the isolation of the petite bourgeoisie (townsfolk, farmers, independent merchants) who identify with the bourgeoisie, although having the same interests as the proletariat. Perhaps a similar comparison can be found today?