2004-10-27 - 1:16 a.m.
went to a panel at BU today called "the dark side of human rights work" or something- i thought it'd might be critical of first world human rights groups- but it wasn't (not a big surprise)
it was horrible- there was a hypothetical of explaining to a minister of education of some third world country that women should get an education- one guy talked about speaking in kuwait about a woman's right to vote and how it was impossible to communicate because the idea of democracy was so alien-
the problems are obvious- why is there no question of who leads these campaigns? why was there no mention of the vibrant women's movement in kuwait? why the assumption that brown people are stupid and backward? the hypothetical was telling- the real question should have been, how do i found out what movements are currently existing and what i can learn from them and what kind of role i might play with them-
the soviet union gave women the right to vote before the u.s. after all- should the soviet union have done some sort of 'humanitarian intervention' to educate the u.s.? (going over the head of the decades strong women's movement?)
the u.s. is the place that needs some serious 'humanitarian intervention'-
the things i heard were infuriating- humanitarian intervention, civilizing mission, the most powerful countries have the most time to think about moral issues (or something)- it was impossible to tell whether they were always being serious because the things they said were so horrific all the time that i couldn't differentiate-
the underlying logic of it all was something about rich white first world people civilizing poor brown people- humanitarian / human rights work, i'm convinced, plays the same role as the 'civilizing mission' under naked colonialism- the civilizing mission/imperial justification has changed in character, of course, but that's because imperialism has changed character-
i have a hunch that amnesty international is to imperial globalization what christian missionaries were to pre-WWII colonialism- of course amnesty opposes america's use of torture etc.- however mitigating these types of positions may be to any normative judgment of amnesty or human rights watch or whatever, it's getting hard for me to see the differentiation from civilizing mission counterparts pre-WWII- surely, christian missionary groups were against torture at the same time they supported the ideology of intervention- white slave abolitionists in america were often christians- but an ideology of racial superiority underpinned slavery and was common to pro-slavery forces as well as pro-christian civilizing mission forces
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this thursday, somerville alderman (city council) will vote on the israeli divestment resolution!! it all comes down to this!
