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The view that support for human rights around the world is tantamount to imperialism is based on a series of misconceptions

Brian Whitaker

Guardian Unlimited

What - if anything - should we do about human rights abuses in other countries?

This may prove to be one of the key moral and political questions of the 21st century, not just because of the abuses themselves, but because whatever answer we give hinges on our attitude to several of the most crucial issues in international relations today: national sovereignty, cultural differences, the rule of law, globalisation and "liberal intervention" (the new term for what many would regard as an old-fashioned invasion).

Two recent articles on Cif have triggered some highly-polarised debate about this. In the first one, Soumaya Ghannoushi linked western concerns about Muslim women's rights to military imperialism:

"Just as there is a military machine of hegemony, there is a discursive machine of hegemony. When armies move on the ground to conquer and subjugate, they need moral and ideological cover. It is this that gives the dominant narrative of the 'Muslim woman' its raison d'etre."

In the second article, Salam al-Mahadin characterised the promotion of women's rights by westerners more in terms of cultural imperialism:

"Feminist agencies of western origin are, in the eyes of many Muslims, a postcolonial legacy. In the present climate of distrust between the west and the so-called east, there is hardly room for debates surrounding women if the sources of these emancipatory attempts are western feminist agencies.

"Human rights are hardly universal and, honour killings and stoning aside, there is a plethora of 'rights' of profound cultural nuance rendering it almost impossible to decontextualise them; what one western culture deems a gross violation is not so in another culture."

Besides hundreds of comments in the discussion threads, these articles also prompted replies from Ali Eteraz and Linda Grant, and Ghannoushi has now returned to the fray with another piece.  {mosgoogle right}

In their articles, both Mahadin and Ghannoushi set out a broadly non-interventionist argument - that we should heed "the cries of the downtrodden" but not appoint ourselves as their guardians or benefactors (Ghannoushi's latest article) or, as Mahadin puts it, "that the politics of resistance can only be formulated by those 'who wish to be otherwise than they are'".

These are not merely the views of a couple of Cif writers: they reflect a broad swathe of opinion in postcolonial countries and particularly in the Middle East - not only among Islamists but also among the more secular nationalists and, of course, the authoritarian regimes that tend to rule there.

They also have an academic following in the west, notably among devotees of the late Edward Said and Michel Foucault. One recent example is the claim by Joseph Massad of Columbia University that promotion of gay rights in the Middle East is a conspiracy led by western orientalists and colonialists which "produces homosexuals, as well as gays and lesbians, where they do not exist".

Such ideas need to be challenged - not least because they can easily open the door for all manner of abuses by oppressive regimes and self-appointed guardians of "traditional morality" under on the pretext of defending local religion, culture or national sovereignty from foreign interference.

Of course, it doesn't help that western powers do interfere in other countries, militarily and politically, for less than altruistic reasons or that some have tried to hijack the human rights agenda to advance more sinister objectives.

None of this should deter us, however, from assisting people in other countries to achieve their rights, but we need to work out the best and most effective ways of going about it. In a future article I'll try to suggest what some of those ways might be. Before that, though, I want to address some misconceptions that seem to be blowing the debate off course:

1. The west isn't one-dimensional: Both Ghannoushi and Mahadin complain about one-dimensional portrayals of "the Muslim woman" by westerners but then counter with their own one-dimensional view of western motives.

Ghannoushi says: "The 'Muslim woman' liberation warriors, the likes of Nick Cohen, Christopher Hitchens, and Pascal Bruckner, were the same people who cheered American/ British troops as they blasted their way through Kabul and Baghdad ... Soldiers shoot with their guns; they with their pens. They are hegemony's apologists."

Apparently we are meant to conclude from this that support for the rights of Muslim women and support for the invasion of Iraq are necessarily two arms of the same thing - but plainly they are not.

While urging westerners to recognise that there's more to women's rights in Muslim countries than stoning and honour killings, Ghannoushi and Mahadin seem reluctant to acknowledge that "the west" is not a monolith either and that those who promote human rights - individuals, organisations and governments - act from a variety of motives and perspectives.

2. Human rights are universal: The key point about human rights is that they apply to everyone, everywhere, without distinction. They are based on the principle of equality: an equal right to life, equal freedom from arbitrary arrest, equal freedom from torture and ill-treatment, equal freedom of expression and association, and equality before the law.

There is no room for selectively excluding some human beings on the pretext of local circumstances or cultural norms. Either we accept the equality principle is accepted in full or we do not; there are no half measures.

As fellow members of the human race, we all have a stake in protecting these rights - and that includes doing what we can to support people who are deprived of them, regardless of national boundaries and irrespective of religion or culture.

3. Culture isn't sacred: A lot of unfortunate emotional baggage is attached to the word "culture". Put simply - whether we're talking about the culture of a society or workplace culture - it's "the way we do things here". A culture should not be set in stone; at its best, it lives and breathes and adapts as circumstances change, but it can easily become a refuge for all sorts of malpractices.

Of course there is a lot of resistance to cultural change, but cultures can change. And when abuse of people's rights becomes entrenched in a culture it needs to change.

4. National sovereignty is no excuse: In the postcolonial countries especially, national sovereignty has become an obstacle to progress. Nobody wants to be ruled by foreigners but, far too often, "sovereignty" translates into the "right" of unsavoury regimes to abuse their own citizens with impunity.

It's time to recognise that we live in an increasingly interdependent world where nation states have less of a role than they did in the past.

5. Globalisation is not cultural imperialism: In postcolonial countries, even after half a century of self-government, "westernisation", "hegemony" and "cultural imperialism" are still powerful alarm calls, whether or not their use can really be justified. Too often, they are used to deflect blame for a country's ills, or to mobilise the masses behind authoritarian regimes or religious extremism.

Today, much of what is claimed to be cultural imperialism is actually something else: the effects of globalisation. Failure - or refusal - to recognise the difference is not merely self-deception; it creates yet more obstacles to progress. In the words of Amartya Sen, the Indian-born Nobel laureate:

"The misdiagnosis that globalisation of ideas and practices has to be resisted because it entails dreaded westernisation has played quite a regressive part in the colonial and postcolonial world. This assumption incites parochial tendencies and undermines the possibility of objectivity in science and knowledge. It is not only counterproductive in itself; given the global interactions throughout history, it can also cause non-western societies to shoot themselves in the foot - even in their precious cultural foot ...

"To see globalisation as merely western imperialism of ideas and beliefs (as the rhetoric often suggests) would be a serious and costly error, in the same way that any European resistance to eastern influence would have been at the beginning of the last millennium. Of course, there are issues related to globalisation that do connect with imperialism (the history of conquests, colonialism, and alien rule remains relevant today in many ways), and a postcolonial understanding of the world has its merits. But it would be a great mistake to see globalisation primarily as a feature of imperialism. It is much bigger - much greater - than that."

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