Example 8.0.3.2.2: Political Values

Version 1.2 December 2016                          (Previous Version)

In the past, European countries, like all the others in the world, made war against each other to control resources, increase the wealth and power of their rulers, and to promote their religions. 

●  For centuries, there were religious wars between Catholic, Protestant and Orthodox Christians, between the colonial powers for control of other regions of the world and within Europe itself, culminating in the First and Second World Wars. 

●  For centuries there have been religious wars between Sunni and Shiite Muslims.  These are still ongoing, as proxy wars in Syria, Iraq and Yemen, supported by (Sunni) Saudi Arabia and (Shia) Iran.  Much of the Muslim world has avoided modernising its political structures, except for Turkey, Indonesia, and perhaps Malaysia and Tunisia.

●  After WW II three changes show evidence of a convergence in values towards human rights:

o   The leading nations of the world created the United Nations (UN) and accepted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.  Over time more treaties have been created which further the rights, especially, of women and children.

o   The major European protagonists in WW II, particularly France and Germany, to prevent a repeat of the devastation in Europe (leaving aside the rest of the world) have created the European Union, with its own charter of human rights, enforceable by law within the EU.

o   The pace of decolonisation increased as India, Indo-China, the Middle East and many African nations obtained independence, though for some only after protracted struggles.

●  The end of WW II also sparked another major change that initially impeded the global progress towards human rights, but as it unfolded there seemed to be another chance.

o   The Cold War, between the capitalist West, led by the USA and the two communist empires, dominated by Russia (the USSR) and China, impeded progress on human rights globally, for several decades, as they oppressed their own peoples and those of their satellite countries, encouraged proxy wars and limited progress at the UN. 

o   After the collapse of the USSR and the capitalistic economic reforms in China in the 1980s there was an opportunity to further expand human rights, but both Russia and China failed to progress into true democratic pluralism.

●  Now the Muslim world is being enmeshed in wars that are ostensibly religiously based, but have their roots in the imperialism of the Ottoman empire and Western Europe colonialism.

o   Peoples of the middle east were oppressed by the Ottoman empire, then by the western powers that carved up that empire after World War I, then by the kings and tyrants installed or supported by the West seeking their oil, all complicated by arbitrary national borders.

o   Fanatical groups such as Al Qaeda attack the West bringing on devastating retaliation.

o   Oppressed people in Tunisia, Libya and Egypt overthrew tyrants but the latter two descended into tribal warfare or back to tyranny before stable democracy could take hold.

o   Sunni and Shi states and their proxy militia groups continue to fight each other and oppress other minorities, such as the Manicheans and Yazidis.

o   The West, led by the USA, and its non-western supplicants, blatantly breached human rights in its treatment of supposed “unlawful enemy combatantsâ€�, humiliating and torturing people in prisons, rendering prisoners to other countries for torture, and unlawful assassinations by remote controlled drones

o   Western countries have also restricted and abused their own citizens, with draconian anti-terrorist legislation, often illegal, intrusive spying, and demonization of refugees.

 

●  So while certain historical developments, such as the creation of the UN and its agencies, the creation of the EU, and the end of the Cold War, can be seen as positive developments, tending towards a convergence of values, other circumstances, such as human rights abuses in Russia, China, the Middle East and the West, counter that trend. 

●  Though real progress on the ground is slow and disjointed, overall, the conversation has changed: all major political parties talk in terms of human rights. 

o   Russia denies it commits human rights abuses;

o   China discusses its progress with human rights in diplomatic circles, and criticises Western countries for their breaches;

o   The West proclaims their draconian anti-terrorist laws are there to defend human rights.

o   All the warring parties in the Muslim world are criticised for their human rights abuses.

●  So without being blind to the negative trends we can see a long term global convergence to using human rights as at least the standard by which behaviour is to be judged, even if the standard is often breached.  The gradual introduction of international law, and such institutions as the International Criminal Court (despite opposition from the USA), gives cause for hope that the required enforcement may back up the public espousal of human rights.