Au-delà de l'idéologie occidentale des droits de l'homme : le droit à la vie, le droit à l'égalité et à l'humanité sans partage

Abstract

Solange Barberousse and Rene Gallissot, Beyond the Western ideology of human rights : the right to life, the right to equality Despite the misappropriations and travesties evident in the campaigns for human rights in the Third World, the real action continues to afford the illusion of an easy conscience. Is there really such a difference between Europe and the Third World ? Given the conditions of inequality between societies and the precarity of material existence, is the difference not the result of the more acute character of the contradictions between the new national State which defends its legitimacy as the representative of the People, and the minorities, populations and individuals included within its social constraints, the cultural norms of the community, the forbidding of freedom of expression and of action ? The question common to both is for individuals to become subjects who desire, speak and act. One can examine history to restore to human rights their universality and their overall meaning ; one can examine the foundations of the Utopia of human rights ; the practical imperative remains of human rights being used for social and political emancipation and, in the first instance, for saving lives and life.