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Is the Notion of Human Rights a Western Concept?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 April 2024

R. Panikkar
R. Panikkar*
Affiliation:
University of California, Santa Barbara

Extract

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We should approach this topic with great fear and respect. It is not a merely “academic” issue. Human rights are trampled upon in the East as in the West, in the North as in the South of our planet. Granting the part of human greed and sheer evil in this universal transgression, could it not also be that Human Rights are not observed because in their present form they do not represent a universal symbol powerful enough to elicit understanding and agreement?

Type
Research Article
Information
Diogenes , Volume 30 , Issue 120 , December 1982 , pp. 75 - 102
Copyright
Copyright © 1982 Fédération Internationale des Sociétés de Philosophie / International Federation of Philosophical Societies (FISP)

Footnotes

1

This paper is an expanded and revised version of the presentation at the "Entretiens de Dakar," Senegal, to the annual session of the Institut International de Philosophie on Philosophical Foundations of Human Rights, a summary of which will appear in the Proceedings.

References

2 Cf. probably the first Symposium of its kind convened by UNESCO at Bangkok in December 1979, Meeting of Experts on the Place of Human Rights in Cultural and Religious Traditions, where nine major schools of religious thought discussed the issue and recognized "that many of them have not paid sufficient attention to human rights… (And that) it is a task of the different religions of the world to deepen and eventually to enlarge and /or reformulate the urgent and important issue of human rights." § 116 g of the Final Report SS-79/CONF. 607/10 of 6 February, 1980. The entire report is worth reading.

3 By diatopical hermeneutics I understand a thematic reflection on the fact that the loci (topoi) of historically unrelated cultures make it problematic to understand one tradition with the tools of another, and the hermeneutical attempt to bridge such gulfs. Cf. R. Panikkar, Myth, Faith and Hermeneutics, New York, Paulist Press, 1979, pp. 8 sq.

4 Cf. R. Panikkar, The Intrareligious Dialogue, New York, Paulist Press, 1978, p. xxii. The two words Brahman and God, for instance, are neither analogous nor merely equivocal (nor univocal, of course). They are not exactly equivalent either. They are homeomorphic. They perform a certain type of respectively corresponding function in the two different traditions where these words are alive.

5 I shall capitalize Human Rights when these words have the particular meaning derived from this "Universal Declaration."

6 The dates to recall are:

10 December 1948 — Proclamation in Paris of the Universal Declaration;

4 November 1950 — Adoption in Rome of the Convention safeguarding Human Rights and fundamental freedom, known as "The European Convention on Human Rights";

20 March 1952 — Adoption in Paris of the first additional Protocol to this Convention;

16 December 1966 — International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights; International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights; Optional Protocol (to the latter-not passed unani mously).

7 For the astounding documents of the first nine Christian centuries, cf. the collection and translation with insightful introduction bv H. Rahner, Kirche und Staat, Munich, Kösel, 1961. The first edition, published in 1943 during the Second World War with the title Abendländische Kirchenfreiheit, is in itself a document for Human Rights.

Because it is less known than the Magna Carta of King John of England in 1215, let us mention King Alfonso IX of León in 1188 with his rights to life, honor, home and property.

Interesting also is the statement and justification of Francisco de Vitoria in 1538: "Cuando los súbditos tengan conciencia de la injusticia de la guerra, no les es licito ir a ella, sea que se equivoquen o no" (emphasis mine). De los indios o del derecho de la guerra, II, 23 (Ed. BAC, Madrid 1960, p. 831). ("When its subjects are aware of the injustice of a war, it is not lawful for them to go to it, whether they are in error or not. ") And the reason he gives is to quote Rom. XIV, 23: "omne quod non est ex fide peccatum est," which he translates "todo lo que no es según conciencia es pecado" (ibid, emphasis added) The Pauline passage is usually rendered: "Whatever does not come from faith is sin." Vitoria's variation reads: "Whatever is not in accordance with one's conscience is a sin." Cf the Thomistic principle that the rational being that is Man has to follow his or her personal conscience in order to act morally.

8 Just as a memorandum, we may recall:

1689 — Bill of Rights (England)

1776 — Virginia Bill of Rights

1789 (26 August) — Déclaration des droits de l'homme et du citoyen

1798 — American Bill of Rights

9 The Paris document is a declaration, a manifest statement making clear what is already there, an explication (declarare, to make clear—from de-clarare. Cf. clarus, clear, but also loud (clamor)). It is not a law, a superimposition, a human creation, but the recognition or discovery of something intrinsic to the nature of the thing; in this case " the inherent dignity and equal and inalienable rights of all the members of the human family," as the Preamble to the 1948 Declaration says.

10 This practical a-theism and even practical ignorance of any ulterior philosophical issue or religious factor became patent in the presentation and discussion of the Bangkok Conference mentioned above, let alone in the more official meetings where Philosophy and Religion have hardly a voice.

11 Cf. R. Panikkar, "Singularity and Individuality: The Double Principle of Individuation," Revue internationale de philosophie XIX, 1-2, No, 111-112 (1975) p. 141-166, where it is argued that the ontic status of human individuals is basically different from that of all other individual entities; in short, that we cannot treat human individuals as we could peanuts or cattle, by a merely numerical individuality.

12 "The will of the people shall be the basis of the authority of government;" -Art. 21,3 of the Declaration.

13 "In the exercise of his rights and freedoms, everyone shall be subject only to such limitations as are determined by law solely for the purpose of securing due recognition and respect for the rights and freedoms of others and of meeting the just requirements of morality, public order and the general welfare in a democratic society." Art 29,2 (Emphasis of the problematic words added.)

14 We do not include here a fourth source of dissent, namely the political, because the argument in such cases bears mainly on different interpretations of facts, emphases and factors other than those related to the nature of Human Rights. Cf. as a single example: Colloques de Riyad, de Paris, du Vatican, de Genève et de Strasbourg sur le dogme musulman et les droits de l'homme en Islam, Riyad, Ministère de la Justice; Beirut, Dar Al Kitab Allubhani, 1974; and D. Sidorsky (ed.) Essays on Human Rights. Contemporary Issues and Jewish Perspectives, Philadelphia, The Jewish Publication Society of America, 1979.

15 "Human rights, in short, are statements of basic needs and interests." S.I. Benn, The Encyclopaedia of Philosophy, New York, Macmillan, 1967, sub voce Rights, speaking about the U.N. Declaration.

16 Cf. K. Marx, Zur Judenfrage I, p. 352.

17 "Keine Rechte ohne Pflichten, keine Pflichten ohne Rechte," Marx-Engels, Werke XVI, 521 apud G. Klaus, M. Buhr, Philosophisches Wörterbuch, Leipzig. VEB, 1976, sub voce Menschenrechte.

18 Cf. R. Panikkar, "Aporias in the Comparative Philosophy of Religion," Man in World, XIII, 3-4 (1980), p. 357-383.

19 Tao Te Ching, p. 18.

20 The Manavadharmaśastra (2-4) puts the same idea in a more sophisticated way: To act from a desire for reward is reprehensible. Yet without that desire, no action is possible. Laws are needed to put order into those human actions.

21 A recent example: A Catholic missionary, after over a year of really living together with an Asian tribe and sharing with the people their respective beliefs, thinks that the moment has come for some formal conversions, since they are already practically Christians. He talks matters over with the enthusiasts about Christianity: "Would you like to become officially and publicly Christians? You are already convinced…" etcetera. Answer: "No, because some other people in the tribe are not ready." "But it is your right!," says the missionary, "you have the right to decide by yourselves—all the more since you neither harm nor despise the others." The answer is cutting: "We only have the right to take this step if the whole tribe does it."

22 From the root dhr, to hold, to maintain, keep together. Cf. Latin tenere and English tenet.

23 Manu, I, 31 and I, 87.

24 Cf. the famous lokasamgraha of the Gita, and the well known definition of the Mahabharata: "that which maintains and sustains the peoples." (Karnaparvam, LXIX, 59).

25 A recent example may illuminate the issue: In Tuly 1981 the Indian nation is in an uproar because some 352 outcastes of the small village of Minakshipuram in Tamilnadu converted to Islam, probably in protest and reaction against their ostracism (to say the least) from the Hindu caste-com munities. For our point it is interesting to remark that H H. Sri Vishveshva Tirtha Swamiji of Pejavar Mutt along with many other Hindu religious leaders can now-for obviously political and opportunistic reasons-raise their voices against untouchability and discrimination without paving attention to the Manava dharmaśastra (III, 92, 150, 157; IV, 79, 213; IX, 238-239; etc.) and other sacred Laws sanctioning the system. Cf. the Indian press from May to August, 1981; e.g. The Hindu from Madras, May 26; July 15, 16, 18, 28, 29, 30; August 2; etc.