Marx, Marxism and Human Rights

Abstract

We live in strange, almost unbelievable, and certainly scary time. In a scene right out of the 1931 film Frankenstein, 70,000 Poles brandishing torches marched in protest of immigrants in Poland. Demonstrations like this are repeated in Germany, France, and much of Western Europe as rightwing (some say fascist) parties witness increasing support in local and even national elections. One Republican US presidential aspirant urges the use of torture and advocates the killing of families of known (and perhaps suspected) terrorists. Another claims the only way to control terror is to increase police presence and vigorously patrol Muslim communities in the US (never mind that there are no calls to do the same in right-wing Christian areas – a scan of murders will show that in the US since 9/11 more people were killed by anti-abortionists and anti-government activists than by Islamic extremists). France has considered revoking the citizenship of terrorists, broadly defined, while US politicians ponder the degree to which we might deport people and block all immigration from Muslim nations. Add to that, and much to the horror of most compassionate observers, millions of people displaced by the madness in Syria, Iraq and most of the Middle East and North Africa live in limbo as they must flee the warfare and destruction in their own lands but are shunned by countries in a position to take them in and offer safety and support. The United States, a country founded on the backs of immigrants, perhaps literally (and on the genocide of native peoples and African slaves), is increasingly sounding like a country trying to protect some sort of national identity (whatever that may be) through restrictions on immigration. Citizens of a country, where most don’t have to go back more than two or three generations in their own family histories to find immigrant tales of struggle and success, now pretend that they must protect the US from ... what? In short, people in this country are defending rights and privileges they never had in the first place. The world is facing a crisis over human rights, whether it is about the treatment of minorities and women everywhere, about the plight of child laborers and the growing business of human (and mainly female) trafficking, about the access to clean and safe drinking water (see Fasenfest and Pride, 2016, for events in the US), or about problems facing people dispossessed of their homes, whether occupied by foreign forces (like Palestinians) or dealing with forces in opposition to their governments (for example, areas controlled by Boko Haram in Nigeria). Human rights include the right to work, to be free to express cultural differences, equality before the law, the right to selfdetermination, access to education, access to safe food and water, expectations of social security and many more rights, as outlined or implied in the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Yet these seemingly basic standards are not being met, and so people suffer. 645720 CRS0010.1177/0896920516645720Critical SociologyEditorial research-article2016