Human Rights and Communist Internationalism

Abstract

Abstract In an attempt to open a fresh archive of international law beyond that of the League of Nations, the United Nations (UN), and national state archives, this portrait looks into the barracks of activism, specifically the radical activism of Inji Aflatoun (1924–1989). Neither an international lawyer, nor a new name, nor a forgotten face, Aflatoun is remembered as a famous Egyptian communist painter, a feminist, a human rights activist, and a former political prisoner. Through Aflatoun and the surrealists, this portrait shows how radical movements have used human rights when they were rooted in socialist internationalism, anti-imperialism, and feminist solidarity. Her human rights work was informed by both the eclectic leftist politics of the surrealists, as well as the traditional Marxist analysis of the communist movement in Egypt. Key to understanding her activism on international human rights is to recognize that it was one tactic among many—a fragment within a constellation of struggles, that also included armed resistance, political art activism, as well as her commitment to the illegal and underground communist movement.