Providing Rights With a Modern Definition
In his important work from 1992, The State of Human Rights After the Cold War, Hardial Bains writes:
"Human
beings are not only social in the way they acquire their living,
but in
all aspects of their life, they constitute a break with the
animal
condition. This break with animal existence -- with the vagaries
of nature -- places a new, vital condition on all humans, the
condition of
being.... This condition of being dictates ... that human beings
must
have a say in the production and reproduction of real life. The
demand
of a say emerges out of the condition of socialization and leads
to
further socialization.... The condition of being demands that
everything be judged on the
basis of the extent to which the conditions permit the
actualization of
human rights."
"A right is fundamentally a phenomenon of human civilization [and] reminds the powers-that-be that we are human beings and that we should be treated in a way which befits human beings," Hardial Bains writes. He explains:
"A clash between the act of being, Authority, which refuses to do its duty, and the act of being, Condition, which is demanding that the people do their duty, is the order of the day.... The act of being of the condition has assumed the primary position over the formalities and abstractions used as justifications by various authorities. When authorities do such a thing [neglect their duty], the right to conscience is violated.... Either the authority must bring about changes in the conditions, that is to shoulder its responsibilities so as to favour the right to conscience, or the conditions will continue to deteriorate until the people terminate the authority....[The people] are doing their duty by claiming their rights from the act of being in definite conditions; they want to overcome those conditions."
The violation of human rights today is done by asserting the right to be of Authority in the face of anarchy and violence and the danger to the security of that Authority. This is to cover up that Authority has become anarchy and violence in the form of a state which "never stops claiming that it is innocent of any wrongdoing and that everything which is being done is for the well-being of the entire people and humanity. But the very act of being, the very existence of anarchy and violence, refutes such a claim.... If such a government were fighting for the interests of the people, and were actually doing its duty, anarchy and violence would not take over. This is because the people, who despise anarchy and violence above all else, since they are the ones who suffer from it the most, would certainly side with such a government.... When a government claims to combat anarchy and violence through the massive use of force, by an all-round assault on the mass of the people and through their humiliation, it is not beyond belief that such a government may have created that anarchy and violence in the first place."
The peoples of the world are doing their duty by "demanding their rights on account of their conditions of life." They are striving to end conditions which violate the human rights of the people and their right to conscience, their right to be. Hardial Bains writes:
"People are seeking to abolish the conditions which give rise to violations of human rights in the first place. They want to protect their right to conscience and use the content of their conscience to improve their condition of being.... It is the Authority which is increasingly coming under fire and it is the conditions which are more and more crying out to be changed and an increasing number of people are coming forward to take up their duty.... Forms will vary, but in every instance they will reflect the contradictory process posed by the clash between the claims of authority and the demands of the conditions.... The act of being is what has to prevail. The act of being of conditions overrides any claims of authority."
The struggle for human rights today is the struggle for the emergence of the modern democratic personality which upholds democratic principle as an act of being. Those who take up their duty to themselves and society force the Authority to change the conditions. An Authority which refuses to do its duty to the people and society, an Authority which refuses to submit to the Necessity for Change will be overthrown by the very force of history itself to remove all blocks in the path to progress.
Those whose Authority is out of tune with the needs of the times will be more concerned with the trappings and symbols of the Authority than in doing their duty to the peoples and their societies.
"By
depriving the people of the right to conscience, Authority is
being
turned into a cult and conditions are being worshipped as final
and
immutable," Hardial Bains writes. He notes:
"Whether or not the right to conscience exists in real life, will actually determine whether a people live or die. It is the fundamental question of our time, along with matters related to the nature of a state, its form of organization and the economic system. It is at a par with these, and it actually overrides them in its importance.... Rights can only find their concretization in the solution of the problems facing a modern society, be they related to the economic well-being of the people or to the peace and harmony between peoples within a nation or between nations, or to matters of a spiritual and social nature.... Rights will be realized when Authority changes the conditions in favour of the people and the people carry out their duty by ensuring that Authorities do such a thing. People can perform their duty only if they have the right to conscience. This struggle, then, is the fulcrum on which the uplifting of the world and its renewal rests."
(The State of Human Rights After the Cold War -- A Theoretical and Political Treatment, Hardial Bains, 1992)
This article was published in
Volume 53 Number 29 - December 2023
Article Link:
https://cpcml.ca/Tmlm2023/Articles/MS53293.HTM
Website: www.cpcml.ca Email: editor@cpcml.ca