February 2018 – UAB Institute for Human Rights Blog

Civil Rights for Blacks, Human Rights for Whites (and Everyone Else)? Reclaiming the Black Human Rights Tradition

by TONDRA L. LODER-JACKSON, PhD.

Black History Month’s conclusion seems to me an opportune time for reflecting on America’s age-old tension between supporting civil rights versus human rights. As an African American woman educator, I have observed this tension among students, colleagues, community members, and the national media. The paraphrased statements below capture the essence of some of my personal encounters.

“I must admit I was initially resistant to your requirement to attend [the Holocaust-themed film] Paper Clips in a course focused on the Civil Rights Movement.”- A former African American woman graduate student

“I cannot justify investing in international human rights when Black folks in America have so many unresolved problems.” – An African American woman colleague

“I have never heard an African American speak about antisemitism.” – A Jewish woman civic leader’s public comment after an African American woman scholar’s human rights symposium keynote

“Why it Hurts When the World Loves Everyone But Us” – A Black Internet media headline highlighting the outpouring of support for emerging student gun control activists in the aftermath of the February 14, 2018 Parkland, Florida school shooting

These encounters, particularly my own disquiet with the optics of the media’s portrayal of (welcomed) nationwide empathy for school shooting victims and survivors contrasted with (ill-informed) public antipathy of The Movement for Black Lives, prompt me to pose a few questions, and retrace, in hopes of helping African Americans (and others) reclaim, our longstanding tradition of advancing human rights.

A Problem of Scope?

Why so much dissonance about what I consider symbiotic rights? Is a hierarchy of scope culpable? Civil rights – generally defined as an individual’s rights to be treated equally under typically federal law in public arenas such as housing, education, employment, public accommodations, and many more – are quite often viewed as too narrow, too mid-20th century, too Black. In contrast, human rights are defined more expansively as rights “inherent to all human beings, regardless of race, sex, nationality, ethnicity, language, religion, or any other status”. Human rights are generally viewed as being international in scope – that is, focused on human beings beyond, but tacitly excluding human beings within, the continental United States.

Yet, there are key historical moments when Black leaders in the United States strategically elevated America’s civil rights violations to international human rights violations. W. E. B. Du Bois espoused an unwavering belief in the indivisibility of national and international human rights for people of African descent. Likewise, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. used his platform as a civil rights leader to speak out against apartheid in South Africa, global poverty, and the Vietnam War. Four other notables, Malcolm X, Ralph Bunche, Mary McLeod Bethune, and Ida B. Wells-Barnett, also used their platforms as Black leaders to address international human rights. These leaders embodied polarities of diverse Black intellectual thought yet shared the view that advancing Black civil rights constituted a legitimate and worthy human rights agenda, particularly when linked to the destinies of Africans in the Diaspora.

Malcolm X (1925-1965)

After his exile from the Nation of Islam, and on the heels of his transformative pilgrimage to Mecca in April 1964, Malcolm X launched a campaign to persuade African states represented in the United Nations to bring charges against the United States’ oppression of what he then termed Afro-Americans. Malcolm X told friends in New York that he aimed to “internationalize” the Afro-American question at the United Nations in a manner similar to how South African apartheid was elevated as an international problem. The contents of an eight-page memorandum Malcolm X drafted and delivered to African heads of state at a conference in Cairo, Egypt convinced U. S. government officials of his potential for influential global leadership. They surmised that if “Malcolm X succeeded in convincing just one African Government to bring up the charge at the United Nations, the United States Government would be faced with a touchy problem”. Malcolm X suspected that the FBI and CIA demonstrated a particular clandestine interest in his aims for Afro-American advancement once he focused on internationalizing his agenda.

a picture of Ralph Bunche during conference on peace in Geneva, Switzerland — Atoms for Peace. “Closing sessions of the Atoms for Peace Conference”. Seen here at the closing session of the International Conference on the Peaceful Uses of Atomic Energy which opened here on 8 August are (left to right), Mr. Ilya S. Tchernychev and Dr. Ralph J. Bunche, Under Secretaries of the UN without Portfolio, and Dr. Homi J. Bhabha from India, President of the Conference. (Geneva, Switzerland, August 20, 1955) Source: IAEA Imagebank, Creative Commons.

Ralph Bunche (1904-1971)

Ironically, Malcolm X publicly criticized another Black leader, who shared similar human rights aims albeit not means, as a “Black man who didn’t know his history”. Ralph Bunche, whose role as a civil and human rights leader remains woefully overshadowed in American history, was the first African American to win the Nobel Peace Prize in 1950 for brokering the 1949 Armistice Agreements in the Middle East. Known as a consummate diplomat, Bunche helped found the United Nations, soliciting First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt’s support in establishing its treaties. Bunche also supported civil rights causes and was among a group of African American intellectuals W. E. B. Du Bois coined the “Young Turks.” He influenced Dr. King and other civil rights leaders and participated in the 1963 March on Washington and the 1965 Selma to Montgomery Voting Rights March. He also served on the board for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).

Mary McLeod Bethune (1875-1955)

Mary McLeod Bethune leveraged her accomplishments as the founder of Bethune-Cookman College, a national Colored Women’s Club leader, and a civil rights leader, to become a stateswoman for international human rights. As historian Paula Giddings noted, “Bethune knew how to cajole, praise, apply the right pressure here and there, to move toward a group consensus”. Joining ranks with Bunche and Du Bois as NAACP leaders, Bethune represented the organization at the 1945 founding of the United Nations. In the early 1950s President Harry Truman appointed her to a national defense committee and to serve as an official delegate to a presidential inauguration in Liberia. Bethune and Bunche were among a few Black Americans who had the ear of U. S. Presidents and First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, enabling them to elevate their causes for African Americans to an international platform.

a picture of civil rights leader Ida B. Wells — Ida B. Wells-Barnett. Source: Eleanor Jaekel, Creative Commons.

Ida B. Wells-Barnett (1862-1931)

Bethune once vied successfully against Ida B. Wells-Barnett in 1924 to become president of the National Association of Colored Women (NACW). Both well respected in the Black community, quite similar to Malcolm X and Bunche, they subscribed to different schools of Black political thought. Wells-Barnett was a fiery activist who openly criticized Booker T. Washington’s accommodationist stance on advancing Black progress. Her public attacks were taken none too lightly by NACW leader Mary Church Terrell whom Wells-Barnett once accused of excluding her from the 1899 convention of the NACW. Terrell’s enthusiasm and support for Bethune’s NACW candidacy over Wells-Barnett’s was ill-concealed. Despite these differences, Wells-Barnett joined ranks with Black women and men to expose the atrocities of American lynching to an international audience, drawing national attention and scrutiny. As Giddings noted, “A local antilynching campaign was one thing; an international one was quite another”.

Forging New Human Rights Alliances in the 21st Century

One historical lesson from the experiences of Black human rights leaders is that they forged successful alliances both within and outside of their race to advance civil and human rights. I see hopeful signs of this legacy among younger generations. Notably, twice during this academic year, I have been fortunate to participate in human rights symposia co-sponsored by the U. S. Holocaust Memorial Museum’s Campus Outreach Program, Birmingham higher education institutions, and local Holocaust and civil rights education organizations. These two symposia, hosted at the historically Black Miles College last fall and the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) last week, juxtaposed holocaust experiences in Nazi Germany and the Jim Crow South with meticulous and empathic attention to balancing the unique perspectives and representing the diverse identities of survivors and descendants of these atrocities. The Miles College symposium, according to its organizers the first ever hosted by a Historically Black College and University (HBCU), expectedly drew a predominantly African American audience with a notable number of Whites and other racial/ethnic groups whereas the UAB symposium was fairly racially/ethnically diverse. The symposium brought together a total of 413 attendees, 37 presenters, and moderators from 18 different universities and institutions in 7 states (plus DC), representing 17 different academic disciplines and programs.

I applaud these efforts because they are reminiscent of Black-Jewish alliances in the 19th and 20th centuries that helped advance Black and Jewish representation in American education. For example, the alliance between Birmingham’s Black community and Jewish school leader Samuel Ullman to establish Black schools in slavery’s aftermath. There is also the more familiar alliance between Booker T. Washington and Sears and Roebuck magnate Julius Rosenwald to build thousands of schools for Black children all across the South and extending to the Southwest and Mid-Atlantic states. Rosenwald once proclaimed in a speech: “We like to look down on the Russians because of the way they treat the Jews, and yet we turn around and the way we treat our African-Americans is not much better”. Together, Washington and Rosenwald, with the inestimable support of local Black communities, built nearly 5,000 schools with an estimated $4 million investment from the Rosenwald Project. Finally, there is the alliance between Jewish professors and HBCUs in the 1930s and 1940s highlighted in From Swastikas to Jim Crow. The U.S. South was once a safe haven for a number of Jewish intellectuals who fled Nazi oppression. Many Jewish professors found it difficult to find university jobs in the United States, especially at elite institutions; and even when they did, some were denied tenure for their socialist and religious orientations. Black colleagues at HBCUs were generally sympathetic to their new Jewish colleagues and helped socialize them to the Jim Crow South. The Jewish academics were often astounded by race relations in the South. One professor recounted that when a kind Black colleague gave him a ride home, the apartment manager called him into the office to complain that he had “Negro visitors who were not cleaning ladies or something like that.” A neighbor later warned him that if he did not cease bringing Negroes to the neighborhood that the neighbor would shoot – not at him but at his Black colleague.

History has taught us that forging alliances to address civil and human rights is never easy. These alliances have always been fraught with ideological, racial, cultural, socioeconomic, gender, and countless other differences. There have always been tensions between the aims of mobilizing intra-racial alliances (Malcolm X’s post-Mecca concession that “Whites can help us but they can’t join us.”) versus interracial alliances. Yet no real social movement has occurred without them. Dr. King’s prophetic treatise on human rights penned as a “Letter from a Birmingham Jail” resonates today:

“In a real sense all life is inter-related. All men are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be, and you can never be what you ought to be until I am what I ought to be.”

Tondra L. Loder-Jackson, PhD is an associate professor at UAB holding a primary appointment in The School of Education and a secondary appointment in The College of Arts and Sciences’ African American Studies Program. She is the author of Schoolhouse Activists: African American Educators and the Long Birmingham Civil Rights Movement.

The ‘Invisible’ Killer

Simply because you cannot see air pollution, does not mean air pollution does not exists. Often, pressing issues such as air pollution and other environmental problems such as soil contamination are dismissed because the effects of pollution are not always tangible until extreme environmental disasters occur. On December 5, 1952 the residents of London, England suffered five days of devastating toxic clouds known as the Great Smog. Various factors contributed to the creation of the smog, daunting the city of London. First, London, England was a manufacturing city utilizing coal for industrial purposes. Second, residents used coal in household heaters to brace against the December cold. Exacerbated by acrid black smoke from millions of chimneys and manufacturing plants, “a high-pressure weather system had stalled over southern England and caused a temperature inversion, in which a layer of warm air high above the surface trapped the stagnant, cold air at ground level. The temperature inversion prevented London’s sulfurous coal smoke from rising, and with nary a breeze to be found, there was no wind to disperse the soot-laden smog.”

Trafalgar Square. Source: Leonard Bentley, Creative Commons

The consequences of this event were immense, as an estimated 4,000 people died due to health conditions, such as bronchitis and pneumonia which increased more than seven-fold in the immediate aftermath of this environmental disaster.

Outdoor Air Pollution
The Great Smog is one consequence of extreme environmental pollution. In the subsequent 60 years+ since the Great Smog, countries over the world such as China and India continue to bare the effects of both outdoor and indoor air pollution on the health communities. The effects of air pollution on the health of populations is a human rights issue; it essentially affects one’s right to health and life. Numerous epidemiological studies formally recognize the negative effects of air pollution on human health. In 2013, air pollution was officially classified as a cause of lung cancer by World Health Organization’s (WHO) International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC). WHO finds “the combined effects of ambient (outdoor) and household air pollution cause about 6.5 million premature deaths every year, largely as a result of increased mortality from stroke, heart disease, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, lung cancer and acute respiratory infections.” And more specifically, the WHO states ambient air pollution globally causes:

1) 25% of all deaths and diseases from lung cancer,

2) 17% of all deaths and diseases from acute lower respiratory infection,

3) 16% of all deaths from stroke internationally,

4) 15% of all deaths and disease from ischemic heart disease, and

5) 8% of all deaths and disease from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

Human activity is a driving force behind air pollution. Human activities contributing to air pollution include industrial facilities such as manufacturing companies, power generation such as coal plants, fuel combustion from motor vehicles, and waste burning.

The morbidity and mortality contact to air pollution causes globally emphasizes how our personal contributions to air pollution not only harms us individually but also affects everybody else on this earth. Air pollution wasn’t caused by one entity, but rather accumulate to dangerous levels due to the actions of people from every single part of the world. Optimistically, there are plentiful habits people can change in their lives to promote cleaner air. On a community level, individuals can participate in carpooling to places such as school or work to reduce toxic emission from transportation, eliminating waste generation by not using plastic materials and recycling to prevent potential waste burning, and even supporting local community groups that address pollution concerns by volunteering. Education is also another tool that is needed to decrease levels of air pollution. Communities may not be aware of the consequences of exposure to air pollution. Educating communities about methods to decrease the production of pollution empowers people to improve and protect the health of their communities. As people, we will need to continue to work together to combat air pollution, educate communities, and implement sustainable life style changes.

Activists gather to demand clean air as Edinburgh Air Pollution Zone to be expanded. Source: Friends of the Earth Scotland, Creative Commons.

Indoor Air Pollution
Even though air pollution impacts the entire global community, lower income communities are at greater risk of exposure to indoor air pollution (IAP). The World Health Organization states “3 billion people cook and heat their homes using solid fuels (i.e. wood, charcoal, coal, dung, crop wastes) on open fires or traditional stoves. Such inefficient cooking and heating practices produce high levels of household (indoor) air pollution which includes a range of health damaging pollutants such as fine particles and carbon monoxide.” As a result, 4.3 million deaths may be accredited to the negative health impacts of household air pollution annually.

Exposure to air pollution is inequitable. Rural and lower socioeconomic communities do not have access to sufficient stoves, energy and indoor ventilation, creating disproportionally exposure to household indoor and potential negative health effects. WHO finds approximately 90% of the 3 million premature deaths due to outdoor air pollution transpired in low- and middle-income countries. Furthermore, the highest burden of outdoor air pollution occurred in the WHO Western Pacific and South-East Asia regions. Additionally, in 2000 60% of IAP induced deaths affected women. Women are at greater risk for exposure to IAP due to being responsible for cooking, and household duties. Finally, young and newborn children are a vulnerable population and at greater risk for exposure to household pollution due to being with their mothers while she cooks and preforms other daily activities.

Disparities in the USA
Air pollution disproportionally effects lower income countries and populations. However, environmental injustice is not a foreign concept for low income minority communities all over the United States of America regardless of policies such as the Clean Air Act. Marginalized Americans continue to bear the consequences of environmental racism – “the racial discrimination in the enactment or enforcement of any policy, practice, or regulation that negatively affects the environment of low-income and/or racially homogeneous communities at a disparate rate than affluent communities.” A nationwide environmental research study highlights black, Hispanic and low income students are at greater risk to exposure to harmful toxins in school. The research found:

1) African American students make up 16% of US public school students, yet, more than 25% of those students attend schools worst affected by air pollution,

2) white school children account for 52% of all US public school attendees, however, only 28% of those white students attend schools worst affected by air pollution,

3) schools with large student of color population are located near busy roads, factories and other major sources of air pollution, and

4) five of the ten worst polluted school counties contain a non-white student populations greater than 20%.

This is just one example of lower income communities experience inequitable consequences of air pollution in the US. Other prominent examples of the negative health impacts of air pollution on minority and low income communities include Cancer Alley in Louisiana and the Anniston Community Health Survey. Epidemiological studies strongly support the relationship between health and air pollution.

Ultimately, the health and overall quality of life of communities should not be jeopardized based on socioeconomic status, gender, age and race. GASP, a local Birmingham non-profit, is an important stakeholder in keeping our Birmingham communities air clean. GASP is a local advocate for clean air by:

1) monitoring, reporting and documenting air quality issues,

2) raising awareness of the health effects of air pollution on childhood health outcomes,

3) empowering and better educating local community member on advocacy skills for clean air, and

4) promoting environmental justice through policy change. More information such as contact information is available on their website. Protecting and promoting our environmental health is a community effort.

Organizations like GASP are important in ensuring all American citizens have equal rights to health and life without discrimination. As a community we need to continue to supporting community advocacy and education initiatives about air pollution, as they are major stakeholders in the success of environmental improvement. A healthy and clean environment is possible if we continue to work together.

Moving Beyond ‘Victim’

The normative value of universal human rights is constantly scrutinized both within the academy and in the field alike, as has been previously featured on the Institute for Human Rights Blog. Universal human rights, codified in international documents such as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Convention of the Rights of the Child, are writ large by a group of representatives operating at the international level and are ideally enjoyed by everyday citizens on the societal level. Human rights are both universally created and culturally applied. Problems arise when specific, codified human rights directly contradict cultural norms of a particular society. Examples of this contradiction include female genital cutting, the right to return of refugees, and international tourism. The underlying tension is this: how can the local / global communities reconcile cultural beliefs with universal norms? Can human rights activists and scholars find a third way- marrying the universal with the particular? To evolve the conversation surrounding these issues, this blog uses the incidence of human trafficking in Benin to illustrate the discursive dimension of human rights advocacy and to counter the notion that universal human rights are incompatible with culturally particularistic beliefs.

Picture of a harbor in Cotonou, Benin — Shubert Ciencia, Creative Commons

Benin & the US: Bound by Cotton

Benin, formerly known as the Kingdom of Dahomey, is located in western Africa between Burkina Faso, Niger, Nigeria, and Togo. Benin’s capital is Porto-Novo, official language is French, and has a population of almost 10 million individuals. And finally, according to the United States’ annually published Trafficking in Persons Report (US TIP Report), Benin is grappling with a human trafficking crisis. According to the 2017 TIP-Report, vast numbers of Beninese girls and boys are:

“… subjected to domestic servitude or sex trafficking in Cotonou and across Benin’s southern corridor. Some families send children to wealthier families for educational or vocational opportunities, a practice called vidomegon; some of these children are subjected to domestic servitude.”

(Emphasis in original document)

However, before we may contextualize human trafficking trafficking in Benin, the political motivations of the TIP-Report must be unpacked.

Every year, the US compiles all available data on the incidence, prevalence, and efforts to combat human trafficking worldwide. This information is provided from policy analysts, field researchers, first-hand testimony, and a vast array of informants working with or for the US State Department (among other national agencies). Once this information is analyzed, the US labels each country a 1, 2, 2-Watchlist, or 3 Tier ranking. The lower a country’s rank, the more successful efforts a country is undertaking to prevent trafficking in general, protect trafficked persons, and prosecute traffickers. Once a country reaches the Tier 2-Watchlist (in some cases) or Tier 3 designation, the US has precedent to curtail or eliminate monetary aid and other diplomatic exchanges with the state. Danger occurs when political instrumentalism and lack of awareness of cultural beliefs thrust themselves into this ideally ‘objective’ designation process.

As an example of political gaming, China receives low rankings, despite a sprawling human trafficking plight, to maintain polite integrity of US-China relations. In the case of Benin, ignorance of cultural mores and beliefs fundamentally redefine what trafficking is and looks like on the ground; this fact is not internalized by the US State Department. Hence, Benin’s designation of Tier 2-Watchlist.

This designation means the US believes Benin is making active strides to combat trafficking, but these efforts do not meet the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking within the country as a whole. Massive structural issues complicate Benin’s anti-trafficking process, including: sweeping inequality, crumbling infrastructure, political corruption, and a national economy unable to withstand price gauging from foreign actors. The last issue is particularly germane to the incidence of trafficking in Benin, as Howard (2012) explains:

“In Benin, cotton is the major cash crop. It accounts for around 5 per cent of the GDP and almost 40 per cent of the country’s export receipts… [I]t is a household industry and provides income for thousands of families… When prices are high, people benefit… [C]otton prices have been at record lows for over a decade, in large part due to illegal US subsidies.”

(Emphasis added; Howard, 2012)

According to Oxfam, the US raised cotton subsidies, which decimated many economies in Western African dependent on cotton production from local farmers. Benin’s economy in particular is crippled; many rural and agrarian workers are unable to sell their cotton products at a fair cost. Therefore, they must turn to alternate means of income – in some cases, trafficking. This oft-unexplored antecedent of trafficking cases is the pressing economic demands of both the trafficked person and others (such as the trafficker, buyer of services, etc.) involved in the process (Bales, 2012). Here is the paradox: the US classifies Benin a Tier 2-Watchlist country on the TIP-Report (a supposed human rights-promoting mechanism) when US economic policy vampirically saps Beninese resources, thereby increasing the occurrence of trafficking in the Beninese state. The US indirectly causes trafficking in Benin and simultaneously uses diplomatic pressure to punish Benin for its trafficking “problem”. So what does this disingenuous relationship look like to human rights activists in Benin and the populations they wish to serve?

Politics in Trafficking Discourse

In his ethnographic portrayal of the lives of working Beninese adolescents, Howard (2012) explores the motivations and incentives of young Beninese persons attempting to make a livelihood for both themselves and their families. He interviews young men who often work in gravel pits in western Nigeria and young women who opt to work for families in major coastal cities within Benin itself. According to Howard’s interviews with anti-trafficking NGO workers, two concerning issues surround the designation of these young men and women as ‘trafficked persons’:

The young men and women seeking employment are underage. International law decrees childhood ends and legal consent begins (for most individuals) at age 18. In Benin, societal tradition prepares adolescents for work before age 18, and many adolescents (highly aware of their dire economic need) opt to work to support themselves their families. Due to these definitional inconsistencies, one persons trafficking survivor is another’s entrepreneur.
Many of these young men and women do not consider themselves as trafficked persons, despite using 3^rd-party cooperation to cross borders to find work. Here is a conversation that exemplifies this issue:

(Howard): Have some of you ever been away to do holiday work?

(Young Man): Yes, every single one of us! This is what allows us to continue at school! You can go to Nigeria or Savé and earn 30,000 or 40,000 FCFA in a summer!

…

(Howard): Do NGOs, white people or the government come here and say that’s bad?

(Young Man): Yes, loads.

(Howard): Why?

(Young Man): Because they can see that it can be hard, but they offer us no alternative.

(Emphasis added; Howard, 2012)

The young man in this exchange, in addition to others interviews by Howard (2012), expresses frustration the Beninese government cannot aid employable citizens to find livable wages and jobs in their home communities. These individuals now must make long and arduous journeys to find work to sustain themselves and their families. This complicates the ‘victim-mentality’ all too common of anti-trafficking efforts; in many cases, anti-trafficking NGO’s see trafficked persons in need of ‘rescue’. However, via testimony from these so-called ‘trafficked persons’, these Beninese adolescents are exercising agency and ingenuity to pursue economic stability. They are not ‘victims’ of trafficking; they are victims of structural violence, in part propagated by the US government. In one fell swoop, the US government not only crippled the Beninese economy but also victimizes many Beninese workers through human rights discourse. What does the discursive process mean for human rights research and advocacy?

Notes on top of the written text of Michel Foucault — James Shelley, Creative Commons

Discourse, in a Foucault-ian sense, describes the process of transferring one’s worldview to another via communication (Howard, 2012). When we engage in dialogue, we construct a momentary reality for the person with whom we are engaged. They do the same. These conversations are laden with our worldview, power (a)symmetries, and culture; each of us brings these elements to the table. Therefore, the way in which we speak about a subject not only tells us about the subject itself, but it also of speaker(s). To speak of someone as a victim in need of rescue is to deny them agency and autonomy. This tactic may additionally heighten the moral authority of the speaker. This power asymmetry is epitomized by the dyad of the Beninese worker & US government.

Returning to the young man’s quotations above, we may infer he is an individual seeking agency and economic independence within a state that is unable to provide these opportunities. The state, Benin, is laden with political and financial woes; in part from price gauging by the United States. The US, also according to Howard’s ethnographic research, finances and sends NGO humanitarian aid workers to Benin to aid in anti-trafficking efforts. These aid workers, when pressed about why their Beninese ‘trafficking survivors’ were unable to find work within their homeland, often had no idea about the cotton subsidies or other reasons why the Beninese economy is suffering (Howard, 2012). Without a nuanced understanding of the structural barriers compelling Beninese adolescents to seek work in foreign lands, US aid workers revictimized Beninese citizens through discursive patronage and an inability to shoulder the burden of the US’s involvement in crippling the Beninese economy.

A Beninese woman balances a gourd above her head — AdamRogers2030, Creative Commons

A Challenge for Human Rights

Human rights are universal. The notion that all persons, irrespective of religious creed, nationality, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, age, or any other identifying characteristic, deserve their dignity and personhood honored and protected is a key mainstay of modernity. The protection of human rights should be implemented by transnational actors such as the United Nations. Human rights should also be protected by states, such as the United States of America and Benin. Finally, human rights have to be guarded be ordinary people living in societies all over the world.

Conversations about human rights inform us about the speaker and how they conceive of rights. In the case of US aid workers in Benin, they considered Beninese adolescents in need of saving and as involuntary trafficking survivors falling prey to a malicious trafficker. And indeed, this is the case for many Beninese. From the other perspective, through the eyes of impoverished Beninese young women and men, earning a livable wage to support their family is paramount. They do not see themselves as victims; they see the aid-workers as misinformed. This begs the question: how do human rights activists and the communities they wish to serve negotiate power-sharing in discourse and social / economic / cultural equality within the doctrine of human rights?

A fundamental challenge within the realm of human rights is the negotiation between two groups of people who have (sometimes radically) different interpretations of what human rights mean. Eastern vs. Western, secular vs. religious, North vs. South, these are illusory differences propagated by individuals who directly benefit from antagonistic discourse between these (and many other) groups of people. Sometimes, is it not the conversation itself that is the important part; it is what each speaker is bringing to the conversation.

We see a conflict of interest between aid-workers in Benin and Beninese adolescents looking for jobs. Neither is wrong in their pursuit; both are merely taking radically different approaches to protecting the rights and fortunes of themselves and of those they care about. These differences of opinion on the interpretation of rights do not, as my colleague has written, weaken the foundational argument for the existence of universal human rights. These differences throw down the gauntlet for human rights activists and researchers to expand the table large enough for all vested parties to have an equal opportunity to negotiate a culturally-practical implementation of universal norms. It is a challenge to dismantle structural barriers to human rights (such as the US’s involvement in Benin’s cotton industry). It is a challenge to marry non-Western and Western conceptions of justice and peace. Human rights as a normative prescription of beliefs and behaviors is still in its infancy. These ideals still need an anthropologically-informed ethic, a moral system steeped in cultural pluralism through a globalized mechanism of implementation, in order to realize the full potential of universal human rights and a shared global identity of what it means to be human.

References

Bales, K. (2012). Disposable People: New Slavery in the Global Economy. Press Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.

Howard, N. (2012). Accountable to whom? Accountable for what? Understanding anti-trafficking discourse and policy in southern Benin. The Anti-Trafficking Review, 1, 43-59.

Be a Real Man: Toxic Masculinity

Man turning his head to face the camera. — He-Man. Source: Reddy Aprianto, Creative Commons

What does it mean to “be a man”? The traditional response would involve being dominant, physically strong, and emotionally closed off. Some might see someone who is tough and intimidating, who never cries in front of others, and say that he is a “real man.” Men in our society are pressured to fit perfectly into this traditional depiction of masculinity. If a man fails to be strong enough or shows too many emotions, he is often shamed by others. When a man’s masculinity is questioned, he might make a point of acting more masculine, which could lead to harmful or even violent behavior. It can have a negative effect on his mental health, contribute to the occurrence of intimate partner violence, and marginalize certain groups. When masculinity is forced upon individuals and is significantly harmful, it becomes toxic.

For the purposes of this blog, toxic masculinity refers to masculine traits, attitudes, and behaviors that are harmful, yet continue to be encouraged by much of society.

Impact of Toxic Masculinity on Mental Health

Masculinity is often associated with not sharing one’s feelings with other people. Men are not expected to be emotional individuals. When they are emotional, they are often chastised. The suppression of emotions is a negative thing for anyone to do. Bottling up everything does not make one’s feelings go away and can have long-term consequences. In a meta-analysis of 48 studies, there seemed to be a relationship between the suppression of emotions and an increase in negative changes in mental health, such as depression and anxiety. There also seemed to be a relationship between the suppression of emotions and a decrease in positive changes in mental health, such as life satisfaction.

The negative effects of societal expectations of masculinity begin in childhood. One study, which used a sample of 280 middle schoolers, found that the boys in their study began to conform to traditional expectations of masculinity between the fall and spring of their first year of middle school. The results of that study also suggest that there is a relationship between the presence of depression and conformity to traditional masculinity. The study defines traditional masculinity as, “a dominance-oriented ‘bravado’ with which individuals posture for social dominance through fundamentally maladaptive behaviors, such as physical toughness and emotional stoicism, that project social power and invulnerability.” Many of the behaviors that traditional masculinity supports are “socially dysfunctional,” such as suppressing emotions and being physically aggressive. Considering the fact that middle school is a critical point of development, one can see that long-term harm can be caused by being held to standards that relate to depression and dysfunctional social behaviors.

Suicide is the third leading cause of death for boys, which suggests that there are serious mental health issues and factors that need to be addressed. Boys who fail to fit into the norms of traditional masculinity are often bullied by those who adhere to norms well. Bullying is associated with symptoms of depression, which has the potential to lead to the occurrence of suicide. One study, which used a sample 236 students, found that individuals who had experienced bullying had more symptoms of depression and suicidality four years after initially being surveyed than those who did not report that they had experienced bullying. In addition to depression, bullying that relates to failure to meet gender norms can lead to violence against others.

Intimate Partner Violence

Not only does toxic masculinity harm men themselves, but it also harms the other people in their lives. One study, using a sample of 570 married men in Bangladesh, suggests that increased norms of gender equity are associated with a decrease in the use of “coercive control” over men’s partners. The men in the study were presented with a list of coercive behaviors, such as, “when I want sex I expect my partner to agree,” and, “I have more to say than she does about important decisions that affect us.” The majority of the men reported using most of the behaviors. On average, the men agreed with 5.7 of the 8 traditional gender attitudes, such as, “a woman should obey her husband,” and, “a woman’s most important role is to take care of and cook for her family.”

Another study, which surveyed 600 men, looked to test the presence of a relationship between “masculine discrepancy stress” and intimate partner violence. The study defines masculine discrepancy stress as, “a form of stress arising from perceived failure to conform to socially-prescribed masculine gender role norms. Intimate partner violence is mental, emotional, or physical violence towards an intimate partner. The results of the study suggest that “masculine discrepancy stress” was significantly effective in predicting a man’s history of committing intimate partner violence. If a man felt that their masculinity was being questioned, then they felt the need to perform strong acts of masculinity, such as acts of violence.

Men standing by a wall and talking to each other. — Men Gathering. Source: Eleni Papaioannou, Creative Commons

The Marginalization of Groups

If a boy or a man is considered to be too feminine, people might call him a girl or say he’s gay in an attempt to make him feel bad about who he is. This depicts being feminine or being gay as being a bad thing, like it is shameful to be anything other than a straight man. Why are entire groups of people being marginalized in order to demean another person? What is wrong with possessing traditionally feminine qualities?

One might suggest that it is only a problem when someone possessing those qualities breaks traditional gender roles. However, that does not explain it. Women are frequently supported for displaying certain characteristics, such as being strong, or participating in certain activities that are traditionally masculine, such as enjoying sports, hunting, and fishing. In other situations, their positive “masculine” characteristics are twisted around into negative “feminine” ones. For example, if a woman is very confident and has strong leadership skills, she is likely to be called “bossy”. If a girl is more logical and is not very emotional, then she may be considered cold-hearted and mean. A man and a woman can act in the exact same way, but they will not receive the same response from other people.

Toxic masculinity also has a significant impact on transgender men. Violence against the transgender community has been on the rise. In some situations, trans-men experience “defensive masculinity,” where they conform to traditional ideas about masculinity, whether they identify with them or not, in fear of violence. Toxic masculinity harms their mental health and puts them at risk of violence if they do not meet traditional gender norms. It is more than a matter of people not agreeing with non-traditional ideas about gender. Toxic masculinity has the potential to be an issue of life and death for transgender individuals.

Why Is Toxic Masculinity an Issue of Human Rights?

Ultimately, traditionally masculine traits themselves are not bad, but they become negative when they are expected and forced upon people. Toxic masculinity has the potential to violate human rights. It can be harmful to mental health and lead to intimate partner violence, both of which are public health and human rights issues. According to Article 3 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, “Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person.” Toxic masculinity can also act as a barrier to gender equality and harm the LGBTQ community. Article of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights says that all people are entitled to the rights given in the declaration, “without distinction of any kind, such as race, color, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status.”

For years people have tried to explain away toxic masculinity as “boys just being boys” and simply “the way men are,” but that is not fair to anyone. The way people act is hugely impacted by the way people expect them to. Societal expectations need to change to support boys and men in being kind and being open with their emotions. Violence and aggression cannot be accepted as granted parts of masculinity. Men do not have to be strong and domineering to be men.

Nonviolence as a Demonstration of Black Identity

Congress of Racial Equality conducts march in memory of Negro youngsters killed in Birmingham bombings, All Souls Church, 16th Street, Wash[ington], D.C. (LOC). Source: Library of Congress, Creative Commons.

February is Black History Month. This blog series seeks to challenge the narrative of Black criminality, inferiority, and violence by presenting a counter-narrative that explores the ethic of nonviolence as a method for the acknowledgment of existence, rejection of exodus, and expression of identity for Blacks.

Nonviolence is a demonstration of Black identity. It is an identity, which under the weight of oppression, falls silent while waiting for the proper moment for a revolutionary uprising. Nonviolence is a philosophy that emerges from a personal ethic–an ethic cemented in the tactical decision not to resort to violence. For Mahatma Gandhi during the Salt March and India’s quest for independence from Britain, and Martin Luther King, Jr. during the civil rights movement in 1963 Birmingham, Alabama, in conjunction with Freedom Rides and sit-ins, a nonviolent ethic which spawned movements, revolutionizing the people and nations where they took place. The validation of brute force occurs when police meet with a perceived or actual violent response.

“…Anyone in his right mind knows that this will not happen in the United States. In a violent racial situation, the power structure has the local police, the state troopers, the national guard, and finally the army to call on, all of which are predominately white… Violence as a way of achieving racial justice is both impractical and immoral. It is impractical because it is a descending spiral ending in destruction for all. The old law of an eye for an eye leaves everybody blind. It is immoral because it seeks to humiliate the opponent rather than win his understanding; it seeks to annihilate rather than to convert. Violence is immoral because it thrives on hatred rather than love. It leaves society in a monologue rather than a dialogue. Violence ends by defeating itself. It creates bitterness in the survivors and brutality in the destroyers.”

However, when nonviolence is the position of choice, the revelation of brutality and personification of the law is unjust and excessive.

In his book, Why We Can’t Wait, King describes why 1963 proved the perfect timing for nonviolent revolution in pursuit of the freedoms and rights awarded by the Constitution. He points to the Emancipation Proclamation of 1863 guaranteeing Americans of African descent were entitled to receive the same rights as Americans of European descent as citizens of this country. Rights garnered to them as creations of God, who made all men equal, yet the law and the nature of exacting justice on behalf of Blacks continued to fail 100 years later. The struggle of Black Americans under the burden of denial that rendered a deafening and paralyzing silence had finally become too heavy. The process of attaining acknowledgment as an individual and as a race would come only as a means of constructing an unanticipated identity: nonviolent.

Mark Kurlansky claims although there is no exact word defining nonviolence, its existence is evident throughout history:

“Nonviolence is not the same thing as pacifism…. Pacifism is treated almost as a psychological condition. It is a state of mind. Pacifism is passive; but nonviolence is active. Pacifism is harmless and therefore easier to accept than nonviolence, which is dangerous. When Jesus Christ said that a victim should turn the other cheek, he was preaching pacifism. But when he said that an enemy should be won over through the power of love, he was preaching nonviolence. Nonviolence, exactly like violence, is a means of persuasion, a technique for political activism, a recipe for prevailing. It requires a great deal more imagination to devise nonviolent means…while there is often a moral argument for nonviolence, the core of the belief is political: that nonviolence is more effective than violence, that violence does not work” (6).

Many whites, whether European or American, consistently viewed Blacks as inferior. The arrival of Anglo-Saxons and other Europeans on the shores of Africa, island nations, and America speak to the savagery of conquest and the brutality inflicted upon the colonized by the colonizer. To the colonizer, the colonized would become identifiable in terms of animals: savage and barbarian. Classification and ranking based upon physicality and skin tone defined the interactions of the colonized with the colonizer. The terms of existence, foundation, and implementation for the “other” assumed classification.

White superiority is the product of the social construction of race. The “globality”, a term coined by Charles Mills, of white superiority manifests in cultural racism and cultural theft. For du Bois, the overarching reach of white supremacy is fourfold:

It oppresses. The tentacles of white supremacy affect everything: “history”, interpersonal relationships, politics, justice, and economics—creating systematic and systemic oppression.
It symbolizes the gain achieved due to the exploitation of nonwhites, more specifically blacks.
It hinges on false ideals and narratives of black inferiority. The underlying and overarching theme of Black inferiority remains the domestic narrative (in the US). This mischaracterization cultivates a culture wherein Whites exists in an environment perpetuated by rumors, innuendos, accusations, and fear. The replication of this “self-fulfilling prophecy” of black criminality inevitably demands for whites to see Blacks as a criminal at every turn.
White supremacy consumes every civic and social contribution made by nonwhites, namely blacks, as a method of continually undermining the cultural and social identity, as well as expunge the existence.

Negro drinking at "Colored" water cooler in streetcar terminal, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma (LOC) — Negro drinking at “Colored” water cooler in streetcar terminal, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma (LOC). Source: Library of Congress, Creative Commons

In “The Negro Revolution—Why 1963?”, King asserts the Negro Revolution generated quietly as a response of more than “three hundred years of humiliation, abuse and deprivation”. European culture, history, and religion served as qualifiers in the distorted assertion that white and European descendants are civilized while nonwhites are ‘wild’ and ‘savage’; setting the stage for colonization and imperialism as precursors to slavery, racism, and white superiority. Colonizers portrayed the colonized as societies without and impervious to values. “He is, dare we say it, the enemy of values. In other worlds, absolute evil”. The notion of values for the colonized were lost on the colonizers, who customized their abuses and depravity like a trademark. The reduction of Blacks to “zoological terms” dehumanized the colonized; however, the colonized knew they were not animals, and upon the remembrance of their humanity, began to “sharpen their weapons to secure its victory”. Slavery and its dehumanizing conditions shaped the culture of Black resistance and a social identity embracing nonviolence.

Charles Henry (1981) insists changes in values spark revolutions, while Stephen Reicher (2004) argues human social action understood within the context of social interaction, is bound to the parameters of the mind and its processes. Violent revolutionaries like Nat Turner and John Brown dotted the Southern landscape of cotton fields but remain the exception rather than the rule. There is a temptation to classify almost every slave rebellion as violent or aggressive; yet, whether feigning sickness, breaking tools, learning to read in secret, or running away, nonviolent direct action was the weapon of choice for the enslaved person demanding freedom through acknowledgment.

Nonviolent direct action has been a method of resistance for Blacks for centuries, from cotton fields to Harlem and the Great Migration; 1963 was simply the moment when the resistance could no longer remain invisible to the world. For Reicher, the definition of Self is complicated by personal identity as a lone individual and by social identity as a member of a group. To shift from interpersonal behavior to intergroup behavior, an understanding of the seamless nature of the internal “pivot between the individual and the social” is necessary. Social identity requires social context for understanding, and social context has redefined the individual in social terms. Social identity addresses the ideological and structural features of the social world; any attempt to view a portion of whole apart from the whole will distort the perception of both the part and the process.

King questions the reasons for the consistent misery plaguing the Negro and responds “a submerged social group” will create an uprising because they are propelled by justice, lifted with swiftness, moved by determination, and unafraid of risk or scorn. They are a collective; no longer in isolation, aware they are stronger together than apart. He advocates for and presents a meta-analysis framework necessary for understanding individual social identity and behavior in conjunction with identity and behavior of the collective by introducing the concept of behavioral flexibility. Behavioral flexibility becomes identifiable in the cultural changes illuminated by segmentation and categorization through which humanity ascribes meaning, assigns assessment, and determines interaction with another. In short, behavioral flexibility is the basis of culture creation. This creation takes place at both the individual and collective levels.

Rabaka believes culture is the coalescence of collective thoughts and practices, yielding belief and values systems created for the development, enhancement, and sustenance of a people who share a past, present, and future. The goal of culture is to expand and contract through the engagement of individuals, seeking to make sense of the world as a means of altering it for the betterment of self and others. Culture, though created through flexible behavior, is rigid when utilized as a constraint for some. Constraint assumes an understanding about a misapplied identity. Flexible behavior can prove detrimental to a cultural system because human uniqueness provides for the creation of worlds, rather than simple adaption to worlds. It is here the will to counter the “culture of domination” materializes.

Black leaders employed various perspectives and strategies for dealing with the injustice of racism in America. Each differed from the nonviolent direct action of King. For Booker T. Washington, a leader during the Reconstruction Era and the rise of Jim Crow, Blacks simply needed to remain subservient to the degradation because eventually hard work will help us “pull ourselves up by our bootstraps”. W.E.B du Bois asserted the advancement of a few Blacks, “the talented tenth”, would carry the rest. Separation and journey back to Africa stood firm as the solution for Marcus Garvey, while for Malcolm X, internal separation, through force if necessary, would counter the need for equality with and dependence upon whites. King reminds us that the “elusive path to freedom…for a twice-burdened people” requires the presentation of their bodies–rather than fleeing or cowering under the disappointment—as freedom from the oppressor is “never voluntarily given”, it is demanded.

White supremacy is not only a global and social issue but also a political and personal one. The discourse surrounding white supremacy can no longer remain reduced to exposing racism. It must include the denial of human rights, specifically the deprivation of identity, the poverty of culture, and the theft of ideas. Additionally, the critical notion that white supremacy is a culture of structural and physical violence must become a part of this dialogue. An undoing of structural violence should become the mandate of all races, including whites. Those in power have a responsibility to collaborate with those who are not to dismantle structural violence. The creation of a new global culture is crucial to this process – one including an unwavering commitment to and enshrinement of nonviolent tactics to subvert the hegemony of power in the face of systemic injustice.

Iran and the Conflict Over Human Rights

An Iranian propaganda poster in Tehran. — Teheren_US_Embassy_propaganda_statue_of_liberty. Source: Phillip Maiwald, Creative Commons

Throughout his work, the Iranian poet and academic Hasan Honarmandi vividly illustrated the predominant Iranian view of the West in the wake of the Islamic Revolution of 1979. In his poem The West is Fast Asleep, Honarmandi claimed “[f]rom the land of glitter all happiness has left / Chains abound, but of faith it is bereft / Naught but numbers fill the Western brain / For joy without anxiety you’ll search in vain / […] No longer has the West a message to convey.” Yet in his own life, the poet failed to take heed of his own message, succumbing to the mind-numbing alienation and atomization he associated with Western modernity. After moving to Paris to continue his studies, Honarmandi, “who never married and lived in a small apartment”, “committed suicide by ingesting sleeping pills and drinking cognac,” forever doomed to slumber in the West.

With the arrival of Ayatollah Khomeini at Tehran’s Mehrabad Airport on the first of February 1979, Iranians believed they successfully defeated the symptoms of modernity to which Honarmandi surrendered. Although many rose up against the monarchical regime of the Shah in protest of its “corruption, repression, despotism, and the plight of the disenfranchised,” the vast majority of the millions of ordinary Iranians from every walk of life that greeted Khomeini upon his return rose up in opposition to the same concepts of modernity condemned by Honarmandi:

The grassroots of society […] opposed the Shah’s Westernization programs, which contrasted sharply with Islamic values. […] Ayatollah Khomeini highlighted the cultural decadence and spectacularly mobilized the masses by a reinterpretation of Shi’a theology fused with anti-Americanism.

As the Shah fled from country to country after the collapse of his regime, Khomeini victoriously proclaimed the establishment of the Islamic Republic of Iran, which would exist in a “permanent state of revolutionary fervor” deemed necessary to ward off “cultural imperialism and […] ‘ethnocide’ at the hands of their Western adversaries.” Khomeini ultimately received his wish, although presumably not in the manner in which he originally intended. Since the Islamic Revolution of 1979, the Islamic Republic of Iran continually suffers from protests, such as those in 1999, 2003, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2011, and now in 2017-2018. In all of these instances, the Iranian government employed physical force – ranging from rubber bullets and water cannons to armed militias and counter-protestors – against its domestic detractors, often resulting in deaths and always drawing swift condemnation from its Western peers. However, where the West observes a government violating its citizens’ human rights, the Iranian leadership and its supporters genuinely believe “some Western countries intended to impose on other societies their own social ethical decline, to which they themselves confess, within the attractive package of human rights.”

Ultimately, the differing perspectives of the Islamic Republic and the West demonstrate a crucial question facing the human rights community: Are human rights, in fact, universal? Or, do they differ based on history, culture, and other factors?

Iranian women protest against the Shah. — Iranian_Revolution_Women. Source: Khabar, Public Domain

“No longer has the West a message to convey”

At its very essence, the Western conception of human rights contends such rights apply to all humans, regardless of nationality, ethnicity, religion, gender, or creed. But what if a society rejects core aspects of this conception? If a large enough segment of the human population expresses opposition to many of these rights, can the Western conception of human rights legitimately be referred to as “human” rights? Indeed, at its core, the ongoing conflict between the United States and Iran represents a struggle between two, often-contradictory, worldviews.

In the years prior to 1979, the West – in the eyes of many Iranians – sought to impose its worldview on Iran through the Shah, who, for all intents and purposes, served as a Western puppet. Their White Revolution promoted the abolition of the veil, suffrage for women, Western-style judicial and education systems, and neoliberal economic reforms, among other supposed hallmarks of modernity. As noted by Ali Mirsepassi, this resulted in:

ideas of “home,” or being and belonging, [having] very strong resonance in Iran during the rapid modernization program imposed dictatorially by the Shah, and greatly helped to shape the “nativist” philosophy of the revolution in terms of both a “spiritual” sensibility and a defense of “local” culture against universalism grounded in a […] “return” to a “pure source” of being or “authentic” identity.

From the very beginning, therefore, the Islamic Revolution represented a categorical rejection of Western values by the people of Iran. Although the majority of the revolution occurred relatively peacefully, protestors regularly assaulted symbols of Western culture, such as alcohol stores and movie theaters. This opposition to Western modernity continues in the Islamic Republic to the current day, according to Seyed Hossein Mousavian and Shahir Shahidsaless, who observe:

Within Iran, there is a debate […] on how to address the issue of human rights. There are some who adamantly believe that the West seeks to impose their own version of human rights at the expense of Islamic values. Proponents of this view are reluctant to accommodate a Western interpretation of human rights and will not succumb to pressure – specifically on issues such as hijab (the wearing of a scarf or veil) and corporal punishment. Another school of thought recognizes the innate differences between Islamic and Western values. […] The focus is on seeking to understand and accommodate such cultural variety.

On one hand, the conservative viewpoint, espoused by figures such as Supreme Leader Khamenei, essentially subscribes to the clash of civilizations theory, contending culturally and ethnically distinct civilizations (i.e. the West, Asia, the Middle East, and so on) will naturally conflict with one another as globalization brings these civilizations into greater contact with one another during the twenty-first century. This political faction, known as the Principalists, view Western Modernity and Islam in terms of an irreconcilable dichotomy – one can possess their “variant and traditional familial, tribal, ethnic, religious, and national identities/attachments” or one can possess “the tediously monotonous materialism of the present age.”

On the other, the moderate viewpoint, as championed by current Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, believes in a world organized along the idea that societies and cultures should remain separate, but ultimately equal, based on qualities such as mutual respect and non-interference in one another’s domestic affairs. However, unlike the conservative school of thought, the Reformists do not perceive the necessity of conflict between cultures – instead, they stress emphasizing commonalities in order to minimize conflict between Islamic and non-Islamic societies.

Despite their nominal opposition to one another, these Iranian schools agree on a crucial point – both reject the universal conception of human rights as “the Trojan horse of the powerful West.” Indeed, “every political faction in Iran, including moderates,” believes that the West employs human rights, economic sanctions, and other elements of its soft power “either to change the nezam’s identity and impose Western values, or to completely topple it and replace it with a puppet state.”

A rally supportive of the Iranian regime. — Qom_rallies_2018. Source: Mohammad Ali Marizad, Creative Commons

“The West which itself is helpless now, in a torture test”

While the Islam of the Iranian Revolution seeks to “export the revolution” throughout the Middle East, Western liberalism seeks to force its values – including its particular conception of human rights – on the rest of the world. Countries must possess liberal democracy – the choices of the voters, without which democracy does not exist, do not matter if they choose illiberal democracy. The constant attempts to undermine the Islamic Republic illustrate this fact, as does Western support for the military coup against President Morsi of Egypt and European Union threats to sanction Poland over its judicial reforms. Countries must accept the Western conception of human rights or potentially risk a politically motivated, “humanitarian” intervention.

Both Western liberalism and the Islamic Republic – despite their apparent antagonism – exhibit a similar drive towards universalizing their values; however, they also possess drastically different conceptions of values and the world. Different values necessarily result in different conceptions of human rights, especially when “both sides also claim to be champions of universal values, justice, equality, and dignity.”

Ultimately, these arguments weaken the underlying assumption that human rights are universal. Critics of this viewpoint suggest the universality of human rights emerges from the various international documents that codify such rights. Yet this ignores the fact that Westerners – specifically, the Western liberal political elite – overwhelmingly participated in the drafting of these documents. Furthermore, the conception of these documents served an explicitly political purpose – buttressing the post-war, liberal world order as conceived by President Roosevelt and American planners. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights played a direct role in crafting the appearance of universality for the Western conception of human rights.

Throughout history, political systems and values developed slowly – city-by-city, region-by-region, and nation-by-nation– over the course of several thousand years. The true radicalism of the modern, Western-conceived human rights regime lies in its attempt to ignore this fact, imposing its rules on the entirety of the globe in barely seven decades. Seeing as many countries only recently received independence from the last Western attempt to impose its values on the world, it should not surprise that many possess little appetite for this latest iteration of Western universalism.

The solution lies in what Guillaume Faye refers to as the “Autarky of Great Spaces” and Samuel Huntington denoted as “civilizations.” Rather than jumping directly from the nation to the globe, this solution calls for the implementation of human rights regimes at the level of civilizational blocs (i.e., Europe, Eastern Asia, Sub-Saharan Africa, MENA, etc.) as an intermediate step. As observable in the Western culture wars and the Iranian-Saudi proxy wars throughout the Middle East, even within civilizations – “defined by common objective elements, such as a language, history, religion, customs, institutions, and by the subjective self-identification of people” – there exist significant divides; therefore, the attempt to engineer a universal, human rights philosophy without intermediary steps towards practical implementation and the negotiation of wide cultural differences represents putting the cart significantly before the horse.

The term “autarky” refers to the idea that “only those things that cannot be produced domestically [by a country] are imported.” Although Faye, as well as most others, employs it in a purely economic sense, autarky also makes sense in terms of values and culture. Different civilizations possess similar core values, yet differ on the implementation and applicability of these values– hence, the clash of civilizations over these values as globalization increases contact between them. Ultimately, these should serve as the basis for the human rights regime of each civilization or Great Space.

For the conflict between the West and Iran, such a human rights philosophy promises to reduce conflict for various reasons:

1) This regime acknowledges human diversity, both in opinion and in culture. Thus, both the West and Iran receive independence in crafting their own, culturally relevant human rights systems.

2) The principles of mutual respect and non-interference in one another’s domestic affairs – often specifically demanded by Iran and other non-Western nations – serve as key components. Emphasizing these principles also addresses non-Western concerns regarding the selectivity the West displays in terms of its use and endorsement of humanitarian intervention.

Only once the intra-civilizational divides on values and human rights reach a sufficient conclusion can inter-civilizational divides hope to receive adequate attention and a truly universal human rights regime formulated. Ultimately, the implementation of this human rights regime could serve as a veritable Peace of Westphalia for human rights.

Identify: An Olympic Spotlight on Transgender Athletes

The Olympic rings modified with male and female gender symbols — Sex LGBT Olympics. Source: Nevit Dilmen, Creative Commons

The Olympics are often heralded as a celebration of international cooperation, but they also reflect the current political and cultural moment in which the games take place. Explained in the book The Games: A Global History of the Olympics, the first modern Olympics in 1896 were only composed of white males, mirroring those who had sole power in society. As the decades passed and the world changed, other races, women, and those with disabilities were added to the Olympic competition roster. This path of progress wasn’t free of setbacks, but the addition of these athletes put out a signal to the world that these groups were to be seen as Olympians; on equal footing as those who had come before. This process of inclusion is still ongoing, and within the past few years a new set of competitors have been given approval to go for gold.

In July 2017, the Olympic Channel launched a new original series, Identify, following the stories of five athletes in the US who identify as transgender, defined as “a person whose gender identity differs from the sex the person had or was identified as having at birth.” Those interviewed ranged in level from a Division III college volleyball player to a professional hockey player, but each of their stories share common threads in terms of their deep passion for their sport and the difficulties of navigating the regulations around being a trans competitor.

The choice to produce the show did not come out of a vacuum. As addressed at the beginning of each video, text appears reading, “In 2016, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) advised that transgender athletes can compete without undergoing surgery, making history in the sports world.” This sentence is referring to a meeting that took place in late 2015 aimed at revising the previous rules on transgender athlete eligibility. Dr. Richard Budgett, Medical Director of the IOC, describes that prior to the new ruling, the IOC policy recommended that in order to compete as a trans man or woman in their desired category the athlete must undergo full lower surgery with internal and external modifications.

Chris Mosier is the first transgender athlete to compete for Team USA. The old policy did not permit him to race at the Sprint Duathlon World Championship so he decided to challenge the ruling. “My whole thing was that I qualified for Team USA just like the rest of the guys on the team, and I knew that I belonged at the starting line representing our country. What it did was position me as a name and a face to say ‘I’m a real athlete who is not able to compete because you’re asking me to modify my body in a way that I don’t want to.’” Pushed by his advocacy, the International Olympic Committee reconvened with their medical advisors to review the current scientific literature, and from the session drafted the “IOC Consensus Meeting on Sex Reassignment and Hyperandrogenism”.

In the document, there are three categories of athletes covered under the new recommendations. The first category addresses transgender men and states that “Those who transition from female to male are eligible to compete in the male category without restriction.” This allowed Chris to be able to join his team at the world competition, but also opened the door to other athletes profiled in the series, such as Schuyler Bailar.

Schuyler Bailar speaking at 2017 Pride and Prejudice Conference — Schuyler Bailar. Source: Wymzee, Creative Commons

For his piece in the Identify series, Schuyler begins by recounting how ever since he was little he has been in the pool. “I’ve just always loved being underwater… and it’s always that kind of moment of ‘This is the only thing I’m supposed to be doing right now, this is the only place I need to be.’ That brings me a lot of peace I think that I don’t have in my daily life.”

An injury in high school afforded him the space he needed to process his identity outside of swimming, and soon after he began identifying as transgender. However, he says that “It took me another year until I told most of my friends and asked them to call me male pronouns and refer to me as a boy and solidify the idea of ‘Oh, this has actually always been me, and I’m not actually changing myself, I’m just presenting the truest part of myself.’”

When he’s not at practice for the Men’s Swimming and Diving Team at Harvard, Schuyler can be found speaking in front of audiences about the experiences he has gone through as his public sport’s career and personal identity have intersected. “I love motivational speaking because I’m really invested in sharing my story, and sharing the possibility for this kind of happiness and this kind of peace with yourself, especially with something so complicated as being transgender, but also so simple as just wanting to be happy.” Introduced as the “first openly transgender athlete to compete in any sport on an NCAA Division I team,” Schulyer takes the stage and begins speaking to a crowd of administrators, sharing with them how important a role his teachers and coaches have played in supporting him throughout his life.

As trans men, Chris and Schulyer are both now free to compete for a spot on Team USA just like any other male athlete, without restriction. For trans women however, the rules become more complex. The IOC consensus states that a trans women is allowed to compete in the female category as long as she 1) agrees to make permanent her female gender identity for a minimum of four years, 2) shows that her testosterone level is not above 10 nmol/L at least 12 months prior to her first competition, and 3) submits to testing of these levels.

The focus on testosterone is one which has been hotly debated around the discourse surrounding the inclusion of trans athletes, and it stems from the fear that trans women will have an advantage over other women in competition. The only episode in the Identify series to follow a trans woman featured Chloe Anderson, a Division III volleyball player for the University of California, Santa Cruz. Out of the five episodes posted on Youtube, she has the largest dislike ratio, coming in at just under 50%. One comment sums up the negativity towards her by stating incredulously, “So, basically they allow cheating in the form of men competing versus women but steroids are an ‘unfair advantage’?”

When closely examined however, the general assumptions on what makes a man “better” than a woman in sports, or even how to properly define those categories, becomes much more nuanced and mired in legal battles. Aside from the discussions on whether nationally funded training programs, genetic variations, and economic privileges give some athletes a competitive advantage over others, a recent dispute over testosterone levels in women’s sports shows how difficult it is to pinpoint a single variable for developing a winning athlete.

Dutee Chand bites her medal on the left while standing with her three teammates. — Dutee Chand, Srabani Nanda, Himashree Roy And Merlin Joseph Of India (Bronze Winners). Source: Athletics Federation of India, Creative Commons

Dutee Chand is an Indian sprinter with hyperandrogenism, defined by the Gale Encyclopedia of Medicine as an “Excessive secretion of androgens (male sex hormones).” The New York Times reports that Chand was “barred from competing against women in 2014 because her natural levels of testosterone exceeded guidelines for female athletes” by the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF). This decision to draw a line in the sand as for what constitutes a female athlete caused anger in the sports community, and after the court ruled in Chand’s favor by allowing her to race in the qualifiers for the 2016 Olympics in Rio, the decision-making panel released a statement remarking that “Although athletics events are divided into discrete male and female categories, sex in humans is not simply binary… As it was put during the hearing: ‘Nature is not neat.’ There is no single determinant of sex.”

The IOC specifically addressed this ruling during the consensus meeting, and the discussion around the ruling also sheds light on the reasons the IOC amended its policy on transgender athletes. Trans women are now beholden to the limit of 10 nmol/L of testosterone, within the range of the average female competitor, even though there may be other women who may match or exceed that level. Chloe gives a personal description of what it was like transitioning, disclosing that “Transitioning is like going through puberty backwards, the other direction, twice as far. There’s a noticeable difference in my athleticism… It was pretty challenging at first, just having all my muscle basically melt off my body.” With the legal decision and the current body of evidence, the IOC and the IAAF have both come to the conclusion that opening the female division to trans women who have not undergone surgery still meets the requirements of an equal and level playing field.

While the door has opened wider for transgender athletes to join Team USA, there will be no openly trans athletes competing in PyeongChang this month. However, should you still like to support the LGBTQ+ community at the Winter Olympics, the Human Rights Campaign has made a detailed list of several athletes to cheer for on their website, including skier Gus Kenworthy and figure skater Adam Rippon. Good luck you two!