|
|
Africa News afrol News
|
|
|
Africa News afrol News
|
|
afrol News, 24 November - By Rainer Chr. Hennig Once, Western values inspired backward governments towards modernisation and oppressed people to demand the human rights enjoyed by others. Nowadays, the values broadcasted from the West represent oppression of the poor and decay of civilisation. They generally seem to be loosing their appeal. After the UK Labour government of Tony Blair reversed a four-centuries trend of strengthening human rights in Britain by proposing new draconian anti-terrorism legislation, it is harder for the Congolese opposition to contradict the government's claim of a need for infringements on human rights in a situation of true national emergency. After the US government slowly but visibly counters centuries of press freedom traditions being engaged in a war on the other side of the globe, it becomes more difficult for the national press in countries victims to civil war or political instability to cry out for independent journalism. When women featured in the main bulk of Western popular culture, broadcasted throughout the globe, more and more become sexual objects, it logically becomes harder for women living in traditional, patriarchal societies claiming such basic rights as to dress as they like or choose their partners on their own. When the World Bank and the IMF - due to their structure, totally dominated by Western powers in decision-making - demand higher prices on basic goods in Ghana while subsidies on the same goods are accepted in rich countries, thus preventing imports from poor countries, Western economic liberalism is not seen as a freedom, but as oppression. When the veto holders of the UN Security Council still are composed of four Western, Christian powers and one Eastern, Confucian power, Muslim, African or Latin American countries and their citizen have no illusions on which culture represents power and thus oppression and that, when it comes to important decisions, their voices are not heard. Long time ago, Africans, Asians and Latin Americans lost their faith in the economic values represented by the North, values that had indeed "developed" these countries over the last two centuries. Attempts to copy these values mostly failed because market structures imposed by Western powers did not permit equal market access, nor were protective measures, historically used in the West, allowed to maintain prices somewhat high and thus promote and protect investments. In the seventies, these Southern governments put their trust in international agencies, such as the UN and the World Bank, to gain some influence by adapting Western economic values to their own needs. They were allowed to talk, but were not heard. Instead, they found themselves in the debt trap of the nineties, again demonstrating that Western economic values were meant to exploit them. Government trust in Western-like modernisation thus faded. Several attempts to alter the power sharing model of international agencies have since that utterly failed, lowering confidence in the indeed Western values promoted by for example UN agencies as a whole. Western domination over world agencies and treaties is demonstrated clearly by the recent failures of Kyoto/Marrakech, the failure to establish an international tribunal of war crimes and the trends in world trade policy. Why should The Gambia listen to UNIFEM's (UN agency promoting women's rights) demand for an abandonment of the harmful tradition of female genital mutilation when the US uses its muscles to prevent the implementation of the Kyoto Protocol (against global warming, which could result in the flooding of half of The Gambia's territory)? Why should Guinea spend enormous resources on hundreds of thousands Sierra Leonean and Liberian refugees when rich Australia simply ignores calls by the UNHCR (UN refugees agency) to let a ship with some hundreds desperate Afghan refugees enter its territory? UN agencies represent humanist values defined by the West after the American and French revolutions, though most of these values are rooted in non-Western societies and religions. These agencies however promote their Western interpretation and classification. Respect of these values is however undermined by the language of power, expressed louder and louder by Western governments when international agreements go against them. It seems, critics are only "allowed" when expressed towards Sudan, Rwanda or Pakistan. Human rights for long were the flagship of Western values among oppressed masses in the South. People demanded political representation and democracy. Oppositional politicians demanded freedom of speech and association and a free press. Workers demanded labour and social rights. Women demanded gender equality. Western governments, the UN and organisations willingly supported them. But somehow, one found out, not all human rights were equally important to Western pressure groups and governments. Social rights, one observed, were a sleeping human right outside the Western world. Labour rights were from times to times branded as communism, which was a bad thing indeed. So bad, that not even the other human rights counted if some government did all it could to fight communism. Then, human rights did not matter that much if economic interests were substantial - oil being the most important example. Nowadays, human rights do not matter at all if your government is totally dedicated to wage "war on terrorism". So then, the West suddenly doesn't care about Russian human rights violations in Chechnya, Chinese violations in Sinkiang or dictatorships in Pakistan, Uzbekistan or Sudan. Worst of all, human rights groups now stand increasingly isolated as they have had to criticise growing human rights violations in the former model states of the US and the UK. In November 2001, Amnesty International has cried out on the trends in Britain already three times, complaining about the proposed emergency legislation and a "shadow criminal justice system" where "indefinite detention" without trial could become the result. The US started on the trend of reversing the human rights situation long before 11 September. Its record of capital punishment, outlawed in most of the world, costs the US constant criticism and for decades has complicated the promotion of human rights on other continents. US support to repressive, anti-communist regimes further discredited US engagement in human rights. 11 September made things still worse. Hundreds of detentions of Muslims without a trial set the standards. Now, US military is allowed to bring non-US citizens suspected of involvement in "international terrorism" to trial by special military commissions - something including the possibility of death penalty for foreigners without a transparent trial. The worse loss of US prestige however has been its media policy after 11 September. After a request from the Presidency, US media agreed to shut up on certain aspects of US policy and its consequences. The "enemy" was not to be heard on US media and already filtered reports from the Afghan war zone should not show too much civilian damages. Internationally, the US government asked for the silencing of the independent and balanced Arab TV station Al-Jazeera, a request denied by the emir of Qatar, preaching on the importance of a free and independent press to his American counterpart. Thus, the US is preparing a new, Arab TV channel to compete with Al-Jazeera and its own Voice of America, which regrettably had achieved some journalistic independence lately. Further, certain services, like the Somali Internet access, were simply cut off by the US. Freedom of speech suddenly became dangerous, it seems. Thus, the Southern masses, seemingly well informed of these trends, are loosing confidence in the Western origin of freedom values. Governments can easily and rightly point to the US or the UK to excuse their own human rights violations. A legitimation of human rights demands cannot longer be found pointing to Western, successful values. They are discredited. Ongoing demands for rights must thus search for other legitimation, such as traditional values or simple logic. On the other hand, Western materialism and popular culture somewhat seems to be among the few Western values still reaching out to the southern masses. Propagated worldwide through radio and TV, Western life has been an ideal - especially Western consumption. In its heydays, American entertainment reached out to a global audience. Zambians cried when Rocky got beaten and youngsters in the streets of Dar-es-Salaam knew how to dance exactly like Michael Jackson. Nowadays, when Christina Aguilera does her "Moulin Rouge", most people in those Southern countries were the video is allowed, turn away in disgrace over her glorification of prostitution, telling their daughters this is why they cannot wear make-up. Western popular cultural values truly are in decay. Top entertainment in the Western world now are reality-TV series like "Temptation Island", where beautiful people are paid to tempt couples to become unfaithful - prostitution by all "old-fashioned" definitions of the word. If you want to nurture anti-Americanism, send one episode of "Temptation Island" on an African or Asian broadcaster. But what is there to fill up the vacuum of decaying Western values? With the fall of the Indonesian dictator Suharto, "Asian values" were generally discredited as only being government propaganda of dictators. The same thus happened with the expression "African values", now mostly propagated by Zimbabwean dictator Mugabe. There is indeed a general confusion on which values might take the place of the once universal Western value set. In fact, a search for new or old values can be noted. In the ongoing so-called "clash of civilisation", the medieval branch ("fundamentalism") of otherwise modern Muslim values is attacked. Its ability to survive will be determined by the success of US military and political campaigns. A search for historic, cultural roots can be observed in all non-Western societies, though the discreditation of "Asian", "African" and "Muslim" values - through their use of the most repressive parts of their cultural roots - makes any revivalist movement deemed to meet resistance. However, peoples of Africa and Asia act more self-confident on behalf of their roots than only a decade ago. Local cultural expressions, beginning with the arts, lead on a path towards cultural autonomy, which again should influence the value set. At the same time, the southern masses have been thoroughly informed about human rights standards and are seeing the advantages of pluralism. Might one, therefore express a hope that the bearers of liberty and true cultural values in this century may become the Southern world? The fight against repression, increasingly without significant Western support, still is in its beginnings in many Southern nations. Fought with more truly indigenous values, it might even have a better chance of succeeding. Then, the answer to the question may very well be positive.
|
