Humberto Prado, once an inmate in one of South America's most notorious prisons, has spent years campaigning for reforms in Venezuela's prisons. Since he denounced the government over a prison where inmates rioted in June, he claims he has received numerous death threats. Venezuelan activists say that these threats are common when the government has been criticized of human rights abuses. Before President Hugo Chavez took office in 1999, such attacks were rare and none were reported during Chavez's first year in power. However, since 2003, 83 attacks have targeted activists in Venezuela and 10 activists have been killed. The growing number of such cases is placing the government of Chavez under increasing international scrutiny, as human rights groups take their complaints to the Inter-American Court of Human Rights and the United Nations.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2011/10/14/ap/latinamerica/main20120589.shtmlMonthly Archives: October 2011
Violence rising for Venezuelan activists
Humberto Prado, once an inmate in one of South America's most notorious prisons, has spent years campaigning for reforms in Venezuela's prisons. Since he denounced the government over a prison where inmates rioted in June, he claims he has received numerous death threats. Venezuelan activists say that these threats are common when the government has been criticized of human rights abuses. Before President Hugo Chavez took office in 1999, such attacks were rare and none were reported during Chavez's first year in power. However, since 2003, 83 attacks have targeted activists in Venezuela and 10 activists have been killed. The growing number of such cases is placing the government of Chavez under increasing international scrutiny, as human rights groups take their complaints to the Inter-American Court of Human Rights and the United Nations.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2011/10/14/ap/latinamerica/main20120589.shtmlWrongs in Latin America
Eduardo Galeano’s Memory of Fire is a poetic narration of the contours of American history in the nineteenth century. The entries are in chronological sequence and the focus is on Latin America, though sometimes the scene shifts to North America or another continent. This enables Galeano to evoke disparate aspects of Latin American history and politics, which are grounded in miniatures of time and place. He also employs a wide range of literary elements and infuses his work with elements of magical realism. He vindicates the oppressed like the indigenous leader General Francisco Morazán (158) and describes the experiences of Maya peoples. Thus, the reader becomes aware of the abuses faced by the peoples of Latin America by imperial Spain, international capitalism and the state itself. There is an overall tone of resentment, particularly toward the United States. Galeano, an exile from Uruguay, clearly writes as a partisan of the oppressed.
In A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies, Bartolomé de Las Casas argues that the actions of the Europeans throughout the new World were wicked and unjust. While Las Casas spent much of his life as a priest and colonist in Cuba, he became an outspoken defender of indigenous rights in Latin America, finding it a “criminal neglect of [his] duty to remain silent about the enormous loss of life” (6). He maintains that as the indigenous peoples never did the Europeans any harm, they had “every right to wage war on the Europeans, while the Europeans never had just cause for waging war on the local people” (23). It is most interesting that Las Casas, writing before Hobbes, Locke or Rousseau, claims that "nobody who is not subject of a civil power in the first place can be deemed in law to be in rebellion against that power" (53) - as this statement embodies an essence of contractarianism. Las Casas also maintains that the Spaniards’ unmediated laying of Christian practices, while meant to acquire 'grace' over non-Christian practices, were excessive and unjust. As a result, he claims that the indigenous peoples never “learn[ed] the truths of the Christian religion” (26). He was a fervent Christian but saw the Conquerors as perversions of the Christian faith overcome by greed: “the reason the Christians have murdered on such a vast scale and killed anyone and everyone in their way is purely and simply greed” (12). The descriptions of the atrocities committed were very disturbing. Las Casas work thus, seems to be an attempt to make sense of the Spaniards inhumane behavior during contact between European normative expectations and the practices of an indigenous culture.
Wrongs in Latin America
Eduardo Galeano’s Memory of Fire is a poetic narration of the contours of American history in the nineteenth century. The entries are in chronological sequence and the focus is on Latin America, though sometimes the scene shifts to North America or another continent. This enables Galeano to evoke disparate aspects of Latin American history and politics, which are grounded in miniatures of time and place. He also employs a wide range of literary elements and infuses his work with elements of magical realism. He vindicates the oppressed like the indigenous leader General Francisco Morazán (158) and describes the experiences of Maya peoples. Thus, the reader becomes aware of the abuses faced by the peoples of Latin America by imperial Spain, international capitalism and the state itself. There is an overall tone of resentment, particularly toward the United States. Galeano, an exile from Uruguay, clearly writes as a partisan of the oppressed.
In A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies, Bartolomé de Las Casas argues that the actions of the Europeans throughout the new World were wicked and unjust. While Las Casas spent much of his life as a priest and colonist in Cuba, he became an outspoken defender of indigenous rights in Latin America, finding it a “criminal neglect of [his] duty to remain silent about the enormous loss of life” (6). He maintains that as the indigenous peoples never did the Europeans any harm, they had “every right to wage war on the Europeans, while the Europeans never had just cause for waging war on the local people” (23). It is most interesting that Las Casas, writing before Hobbes, Locke or Rousseau, claims that "nobody who is not subject of a civil power in the first place can be deemed in law to be in rebellion against that power" (53) - as this statement embodies an essence of contractarianism. Las Casas also maintains that the Spaniards’ unmediated laying of Christian practices, while meant to acquire 'grace' over non-Christian practices, were excessive and unjust. As a result, he claims that the indigenous peoples never “learn[ed] the truths of the Christian religion” (26). He was a fervent Christian but saw the Conquerors as perversions of the Christian faith overcome by greed: “the reason the Christians have murdered on such a vast scale and killed anyone and everyone in their way is purely and simply greed” (12). The descriptions of the atrocities committed were very disturbing. Las Casas work thus, seems to be an attempt to make sense of the Spaniards inhumane behavior during contact between European normative expectations and the practices of an indigenous culture.
Viva la sistema de Castas…de nuevo
This is a personal post. The most striking element of Bartolomé DLC’s work is how much the perception of the indio has not changed even in modern day among some criollos and elitist Latinos since European contact almost 520 years ago. In a nation like Mexico, mestizo has been synonymous with Mexican in the dominant national imaginary since independence from Spain in 1810, and it creates a lot of social ailments that I have encountered personally.
I spent four months in Mexico in fall 2010, roughly two months in Chiapas, probably the most indigenous state in the nation, and two months in Tlaxcala and Mexico City, the more ‘middle Mexico’. I never experienced any kind of racial envy in Chiapas, I met and accompanied only fiercely proud and independent people. In Tlaxcala and Mexico City, it was a completely different story. Time and time again I experienced hair envy, for being blonde, and a friend of mine experienced eye envy from everybody because she was a white girl with big blue eyes. I remember one specific time when she was stopped in the street by some schoolgirls, uniforms and all, that said ‘I wish I had blue eyes. My eyes are ugly, they are the colour of the earth’. On another instance, I was on a street corner at night and a slightly drunk man came up to me and told me about his times working in the US and then persisted to ask me out for a drink so he could ‘show off my new friend, with his white skin’. Such Racial self-hatred I found, and It’s really difficult to understand why there is a pop culture in the Imagined Mexico where many people are so caught up in caste climbing, hair dye and all, while the heavily indigenous Chiapanecos never really looked twice. Maybe it is economic, since Chiapas is the poorest state in Mexico and as a result doesnt get as much pop culture infastructure. Something has been ingrained in the imagined Mexico that has led to a Neo-casta, bourgeoned from the colonial casta, where racial inferiority has been ingrained into the dominant culture and reproduces.
Based on an encounter I had in a bar in Coyoacán, which is my only personal experience with rich Mexicans, I have experienced a brief episode of racism that seems to spurt from classism, almost like an economic-apartheid without, laws, walls, or gates. A wealthy white Mexican couple approached me and asked, in broken English, about my travels in Mexico. Although they spoke very roughly, they insisted to continue in English, so they could practice “for business travels”. As soon as I said ‘Chiapas’, they looked disgusted, and said, “Why would you want to get there? There are so many dirty Indians that live down there”. This was the end of the conversation.
From what was a very transformative, mostly happy, and important trip for me, race was hands down the biggest cultural lesson I received relating to the profound inequalities and interconnections that exist between Mexico and the United States. Everything I had learnt about a colonial caste system from Latin American history 250 here at UBC or discussed in LAST 201 manifested in the modern period in Mexico. Just like the income disparity between Blacks, Latinos, and Whites in the US, the Indigenous are much poorer than the Mexican majority in terms of income and salaries. And when it goes beyond just economic, when pop culture, communications and media teach us to envy the aesthetics of another ethnicity, then the reality is quite clear: we are not past racism, we are perpetuating it.
The Phenomenon of “False Positives” in Colombia.
“To ease the tension, Don Mario gave the colonel COP100 million and sent several men to Villavicencio and Granada (in Meta) to find young people to present as false positives. The paramilitaries scouted bars and night clubs and returned with five to seven drunk men, who were the next day murdered and presented as guerillas killed in combat by the army.”
Nope, it ain’t about faulty pregnancy tests. This article discusses one of the biggest stains on Colombia’s already shoddy human rights record. False Positives are Colombian citizens, mostly civilians, mostly young males from poor areas, who have been murdered both by the military and the paramilitary, then presented officially as guerrillero casualties, inflating the alleged accomplishments in the war against drugs (and now terror) that the Colombia government and its legal and illegal allies are knee-deep in.
This is the kind of stuff the just-approved free trade agreement with the U.S. is condoning in saying that Colombia has fixed its H.R. record enough to do business with. (not that business between the two has ever been slow.)
Peace.
Human Rights and Wrongs
I enjoyed reading Galeano’s Memory of Fire because it is unlike any historical narrative I have ever read. The way Galeano writes, by creating a vivid picture of each short account he is describing, makes these historic snippets that much more powerful and real. While each of the vignettes may not be one hundred percent historically accurate, by combining them all into one narrative the reader is able to see the big picture of what Galeano is trying portray—the incredibly violent and brutal history of Latin America.
Each story (for the most part—there were a couple of seemingly random inclusions of famous people) describes a scene in South American history, and most of these are riddled with violence, racism, exploitation, or some other form of human right abuse. The stories deal with a wide variety of atrocities, including extreme racism in Peru, the massacre of Granada, revenge of the Mayan army over the “whites”, exploitation of workers building railways, black slavery, Chinese slavery, corrupt dictators, coup d’états, and Native American exploitation. There is a recurrent theme, and mention, of a privileged few dominating the masses, usually in regards to the privatization of land that benefitted the small aristocratic class and caused hunger and starvation for the vast majority of the poor populations. Before reading these stories I had a very limited knowledge of Latin American history. Now however, I can say without a shred of doubt that the history of South America is probably one of the most brutal and violent in the world. I think its safe to say that human rights did not exist, for the majority of the population, except for those privileged few (white men? Isn’t it always the case) who managed to snag power for a brief moment in time.
The second reading, as I’m sure most will agree, was quite intense and extremely grotesque in some instances. Fifteen million Native Americans killed in 50 years---wow!! Not only is that horrifying but it is unimaginable, especially considering this happened in the mid 16th century, when methods for mass murder, such as bombs and heavy machinery, had not even been invented yet. The magnitude of this--I think its fair to say—genocide is despicable and almost too terrible to comprehend. The fact that the Spaniards were killing the indigenous people for no other reason but out of shear greed is even more sickening. What was most troubling to me was the innocence and naïveté of the Native Americans. Las Cajas gives example after example of the same cyclical Spanish massacre that seemed to occur in most of the “new world”. The Spaniards would arrive, and be treated with nothing but respect and welcoming from the Native Americans. The Spaniards would then proceed to start their mass killings, usually involving the assassination of one of the most important leaders or chiefs. Eventually the indigenous people would realize that the Spaniards were not to be trusted and would form a resistance movement. This however would prove to be to no avail because the advanced technology and weaponry of the Spanish left the Native Americans all but defenseless. And so entire populations—men, women, children, babies, the elderly—would be wiped out or sold into slavery. Just despicable.
After reading this week’s readings, I think labeling this week as “Wrongs in Latin America” is an adequate, if not too lenient, a title. I cannot recall one passage from either of these lengthy articles that would merit recognition as an adherence to a human right. The list of human “wrongs” however could fill many, many pages. The fact that human beings have been, are, and will be so cruel to one another is dishearteningly heartbreaking and eye opening at the same time. What is the point of crusading for human rights when people are so capable, and willing, to commit human wrongs?
The Phenomenon of “False Positives” in Colombia.
“To ease the tension, Don Mario gave the colonel COP100 million and sent several men to Villavicencio and Granada (in Meta) to find young people to present as false positives. The paramilitaries scouted bars and night clubs and returned with five to seven drunk men, who were the next day murdered and presented as guerillas killed in combat by the army.”
Nope, it ain’t about faulty pregnancy tests. This article discusses one of the biggest stains on Colombia’s already shoddy human rights record. False Positives are Colombian citizens, mostly civilians, mostly young males from poor areas, who have been murdered both by the military and the paramilitary, then presented officially as guerrillero casualties, inflating the alleged accomplishments in the war against drugs (and now terror) that the Colombia government and its legal and illegal allies are knee-deep in.
This is the kind of stuff the just-approved free trade agreement with the U.S. is condoning in saying that Colombia has fixed its H.R. record enough to do business with. (not that business between the two has ever been slow.)
Peace.
Human Rights and Wrongs
I enjoyed reading Galeano’s Memory of Fire because it is unlike any historical narrative I have ever read. The way Galeano writes, by creating a vivid picture of each short account he is describing, makes these historic snippets that much more powerful and real. While each of the vignettes may not be one hundred percent historically accurate, by combining them all into one narrative the reader is able to see the big picture of what Galeano is trying portray—the incredibly violent and brutal history of Latin America.
Each story (for the most part—there were a couple of seemingly random inclusions of famous people) describes a scene in South American history, and most of these are riddled with violence, racism, exploitation, or some other form of human right abuse. The stories deal with a wide variety of atrocities, including extreme racism in Peru, the massacre of Granada, revenge of the Mayan army over the “whites”, exploitation of workers building railways, black slavery, Chinese slavery, corrupt dictators, coup d’états, and Native American exploitation. There is a recurrent theme, and mention, of a privileged few dominating the masses, usually in regards to the privatization of land that benefitted the small aristocratic class and caused hunger and starvation for the vast majority of the poor populations. Before reading these stories I had a very limited knowledge of Latin American history. Now however, I can say without a shred of doubt that the history of South America is probably one of the most brutal and violent in the world. I think its safe to say that human rights did not exist, for the majority of the population, except for those privileged few (white men? Isn’t it always the case) who managed to snag power for a brief moment in time.
The second reading, as I’m sure most will agree, was quite intense and extremely grotesque in some instances. Fifteen million Native Americans killed in 50 years---wow!! Not only is that horrifying but it is unimaginable, especially considering this happened in the mid 16th century, when methods for mass murder, such as bombs and heavy machinery, had not even been invented yet. The magnitude of this--I think its fair to say—genocide is despicable and almost too terrible to comprehend. The fact that the Spaniards were killing the indigenous people for no other reason but out of shear greed is even more sickening. What was most troubling to me was the innocence and naïveté of the Native Americans. Las Cajas gives example after example of the same cyclical Spanish massacre that seemed to occur in most of the “new world”. The Spaniards would arrive, and be treated with nothing but respect and welcoming from the Native Americans. The Spaniards would then proceed to start their mass killings, usually involving the assassination of one of the most important leaders or chiefs. Eventually the indigenous people would realize that the Spaniards were not to be trusted and would form a resistance movement. This however would prove to be to no avail because the advanced technology and weaponry of the Spanish left the Native Americans all but defenseless. And so entire populations—men, women, children, babies, the elderly—would be wiped out or sold into slavery. Just despicable.
After reading this week’s readings, I think labeling this week as “Wrongs in Latin America” is an adequate, if not too lenient, a title. I cannot recall one passage from either of these lengthy articles that would merit recognition as an adherence to a human right. The list of human “wrongs” however could fill many, many pages. The fact that human beings have been, are, and will be so cruel to one another is dishearteningly heartbreaking and eye opening at the same time. What is the point of crusading for human rights when people are so capable, and willing, to commit human wrongs?
RE: Galeano: MEMORIES OF FIRE II: FACES AND MASKS
“The History of the West is becoming a theatrical spectacle as it unfolds” Galeano, 213.
Regarding this week’s readings, I must say that Eduardo Galeano’s excerpts stand perhaps as my favorite texts read so far in my academic career. I Had previously read him in LAST 100, in an excerpt again, this time from his Venas Abiertas de Latino America, regarding the Potosi mines. While that was also a great read, this compilation really packs a punch in many aspects, in a very poetic, digestible manner.
To begin, I will relate how the reading made me think about human rights. Two vignettes in particular come to mind, the siege on the Cahapultepec castle (160) and the description of child soldiers in the wars against Paraguay (202). Both of these instances deal with what today be interpreted as a human rights violation: the idea of underage fighters. Galeano’s text conveys the atrociousness of such a condition without any recourse to the rights discourse. I thought that, not only are rights a sociological construction, but also many of the concepts they defend, such as “childhood”, are also recent constructs of our society. This lead me to ponder wether many of our discourses for justice, change, or whatever is sought, are built on the quicksands of concepts that mean one thing today, and something else in ten years.
I thought that Galeano’s choice of events to relate was subversive in several ways: I found that it challenged the institution of History by uncovering peoples within it that have been largely obscured. Among these stood out for me the story of the Saint Patrick’s Irish Battalion (161), and the roles of Chinese folk both in the ‘development’ of Cuba (184) and Peru (218). It also challenged His-story by narrating events of the historical ‘other’, even those that would be deemed superstitious (to spare words) by the positivist, such as the cross at Chan Santa Cruz (171, 183), and the disappearance of the buffalos “Into the Beyond” (211). He records them with the same veracity and tone as any other factual historical event he describes.
I found this quote quite appropriate for the course: “Our Rights are born of victory” (223). Perhaps the chance to create, enshrine or declare rights are the spoils of the victor and nothing more? Some of the men who got to write their own sure thought so.
Of interest to me was the way in which he narrates the history of the entire “Americas” together, showing that the ties between “North” and “Latin” America are many, that their histories have been shaped by each other, and that in reality, the differences are quite ambiguous, even when it comes to the shifting physical/geographical border. Some of the instances that highlighted this interrelation where the migrations to California (166), and the life-story of Geronimo, defined by his defiance of both the American and Mexican governments (182). When the U.S. treatment of the Kiowas (211) is compounded alongside the atrocities perpetrated all the way down to Tierra del Fuego in a single text, one is left with a feeling that all these actions were not the acts of random, different enterprises acting on whims, but that they were all part of a single system of conquest through which all these lands where taken over with, if by different actors at certain given points.
A third point of interest to me was the way in which the european economy shaped the events of the nascent nations of Latin America, although I will elaborate on this if discussed in class, as this post is getting long. To see what I mean, refer to the blockade of Buenos Aires (169), the demographics of Argentina (207, 229), the nitrates war (197, etc) the effects of the UK’s need for cattle on the geography of the continent (215), among other examples.
To close, I would like to say that all this read a bit like a pulp or noir novel novel written by Garcia Marquez. I refer to the feeling of surreal that the real history of Latin America leaves one with. De Las Casas captures this perfectly in his synopsis:
“Everything that has happened since the marvelous discovery of the Americas...has been so extraordinary that the whole story remains quite incredible to anyone who has not experienced it first hand.” (3)
Peace.
RE: Galeano: MEMORIES OF FIRE II: FACES AND MASKS
“The History of the West is becoming a theatrical spectacle as it unfolds” Galeano, 213.
Regarding this week’s readings, I must say that Eduardo Galeano’s excerpts stand perhaps as my favorite texts read so far in my academic career. I Had previously read him in LAST 100, in an excerpt again, this time from his Venas Abiertas de Latino America, regarding the Potosi mines. While that was also a great read, this compilation really packs a punch in many aspects, in a very poetic, digestible manner.
To begin, I will relate how the reading made me think about human rights. Two vignettes in particular come to mind, the siege on the Cahapultepec castle (160) and the description of child soldiers in the wars against Paraguay (202). Both of these instances deal with what today be interpreted as a human rights violation: the idea of underage fighters. Galeano’s text conveys the atrociousness of such a condition without any recourse to the rights discourse. I thought that, not only are rights a sociological construction, but also many of the concepts they defend, such as “childhood”, are also recent constructs of our society. This lead me to ponder wether many of our discourses for justice, change, or whatever is sought, are built on the quicksands of concepts that mean one thing today, and something else in ten years.
I thought that Galeano’s choice of events to relate was subversive in several ways: I found that it challenged the institution of History by uncovering peoples within it that have been largely obscured. Among these stood out for me the story of the Saint Patrick’s Irish Battalion (161), and the roles of Chinese folk both in the ‘development’ of Cuba (184) and Peru (218). It also challenged His-story by narrating events of the historical ‘other’, even those that would be deemed superstitious (to spare words) by the positivist, such as the cross at Chan Santa Cruz (171, 183), and the disappearance of the buffalos “Into the Beyond” (211). He records them with the same veracity and tone as any other factual historical event he describes.
I found this quote quite appropriate for the course: “Our Rights are born of victory” (223). Perhaps the chance to create, enshrine or declare rights are the spoils of the victor and nothing more? Some of the men who got to write their own sure thought so.
Of interest to me was the way in which he narrates the history of the entire “Americas” together, showing that the ties between “North” and “Latin” America are many, that their histories have been shaped by each other, and that in reality, the differences are quite ambiguous, even when it comes to the shifting physical/geographical border. Some of the instances that highlighted this interrelation where the migrations to California (166), and the life-story of Geronimo, defined by his defiance of both the American and Mexican governments (182). When the U.S. treatment of the Kiowas (211) is compounded alongside the atrocities perpetrated all the way down to Tierra del Fuego in a single text, one is left with a feeling that all these actions were not the acts of random, different enterprises acting on whims, but that they were all part of a single system of conquest through which all these lands where taken over with, if by different actors at certain given points.
A third point of interest to me was the way in which the european economy shaped the events of the nascent nations of Latin America, although I will elaborate on this if discussed in class, as this post is getting long. To see what I mean, refer to the blockade of Buenos Aires (169), the demographics of Argentina (207, 229), the nitrates war (197, etc) the effects of the UK’s need for cattle on the geography of the continent (215), among other examples.
To close, I would like to say that all this read a bit like a pulp or noir novel novel written by Garcia Marquez. I refer to the feeling of surreal that the real history of Latin America leaves one with. De Las Casas captures this perfectly in his synopsis:
“Everything that has happened since the marvelous discovery of the Americas...has been so extraordinary that the whole story remains quite incredible to anyone who has not experienced it first hand.” (3)
Peace.
The Ends of Rights
Several of the readings for this week had cohesive general views. Most agree that the concept of human rights is flawed or defective. However, many of them have different reasonings.
Delueze, in his article ‘Against Human Rights’, basically believes that human rights are pure abstractions invented by intellectuals. He argues that there are not overarching human rights, only situations. Each situation should be judged based upon the concept of ‘jurisprudence’, or the invention of rights and the invention of law. There are no human rights, there is only life, which goes case by case. He states that law isn’t created through the statement of human rights, but for each situation that society comes across. Does Deleuze then believe that if human rights were legitimate, there would be no need for specific laws, only a constitution outlining human rights? If everyone adhered to this constitution, would there be no crime? But since Deleuze does not subscribe to ‘human rights’, how does he justify the importance that society places on constitutions?
Zizek, on the other hand, sees human rights only as a tool of justification for imperialists. Using the Balkans as an example, he demonstrates that what the West observes and deplores there is only a result of their own interference. He then discusses the matter of women’s rights when it comes to fundamentalist Islam. The West looks upon the matter with an attitude supporting a woman’s right to free sexuality, freedom to display or expose herself and provoke or disturb men. However, Israelis addressing the issue bring up the defence of women’s dignity, against their being reduced to objects of male exploitation. The West believes that what the Israeli fundamentalists believe is wrong – but who gives them that right to arbitrate between right and wrong? How can what is right in one culture be wrong in another, or vice versa? The West prides itself in being liberal and open to the ‘other’, but Zizek counteracts this, saying that the ‘other’ is only welcomed as long as it is not too ‘other’, not intrusive, and therefore not really that different at all.
The ultimate question is this: how does one find the balance of respecting all human rights? How does a society at the same time support freedom of choice and yet avoid harming anyone else in the process?
The Origins of Rights
In his ‘Rights of Man’ published in 1791, Thomas Paine goes back to the beginning of human rights – the first humans. He argues that only that first generation of men had the right to establish rules (a.k.a. what human rights should even look like). And today we are still humans, as they were, therefore shouldn’t our human rights remain the same? Additionally, he made the point that in the Bible, which at this point in history was the authority on the beginning of time, while creating humans, God does not put distinction on men rather than women, indeed, he does not put any other distinction on men and women besides their sex. In heaven, the only judgements are based upon ‘good’ and ‘bad’, not sex.
He also comments on the distinction between natural rights, those that all humans are born with, and civil rights, which are privileges bestowed upon humans by themselves. They appertain to man in his right of being a member of society. Every civil right grows out of a natural right, which cannot be imperfect. A man can judge himself based upon his natural rights, but when a man accepts civil rights as as his human rights, this gives the right to others to judge his actions.
In Paine’s eyes, constitutions are not the act of a government, but what the government should be based upon. Constitutions are not an idea but a fact, and therefore antecedent to government, which is only a creature of constitution, and possible only because of man himself, who sees the rationale behind governments. Governments are only supported when they are understood.
Paine’s main point is this: rights are natural to man, therefore constitutions do not give rights to people, but only state rights that already exist. Prior to this, it was common thought that governments were necessary in order to protect man from his own naturally corrupt state. According to Paine, are criminal not only defying civil rights, and those of the government, but man’s natural rights as well? Is there ever any crime that does not defy natural rights but does civil rights, or vice versa?
Wrongs in Latin America
It was fascinating to read two writings this week that were more specific and anecdotal than the previous readings on theory. I found Galeano’s work to be a fascinating way to review historical selections from Latin and North America. However, I found that Bartolome’s work was more directly recognizable as is related to Human Rights.
As I first started reading Bartolome’s work I kept a futile hope that I would not read anything worse about Human Rights abuses as I had in the first few pages. However, as I continued reading, the brutality and evil of the acts against the native people of the Caribbean and Central America shocked me more with every sentence. Although I had learned previously about how the Spanish conquistadores decimated the Amerindians, the “outrageous acts of violence and bloody tyranny” still surprised and mortified me. From killing women and children to demanding slaves from the native noble, all of these insidious acts seemed to be done with the “moral excuse” of spreading Christianity. Therefore, I found it ironic that the Spanish conquerors used Christianity as a reason to attack in the same way human rights as an ideology can be used to invade present-day countries.
Similarly, I admired Bartolome’s reflection and declaration that the only rights these crusaders earned were to eternal damnation and that the methods the conquistadores used to conquer the Americas in fact invalidated claims of Spanish crown to the new world. Bartolome argues and points out that the new world conquerors were blind to the first principles of law and government. He says that anybody who is not a subject of a civil power in the first place cannot be deemed in law to be in rebellion with said power. Overall, although I was shocked by Bartolome’s descriptions, he includes solid reason and arguments against the common, absurd rationalities of the conquerors.
Wrongs in Latin America
It was fascinating to read two writings this week that were more specific and anecdotal than the previous readings on theory. I found Galeano’s work to be a fascinating way to review historical selections from Latin and North America. However, I found that Bartolome’s work was more directly recognizable as is related to Human Rights.
As I first started reading Bartolome’s work I kept a futile hope that I would not read anything worse about Human Rights abuses as I had in the first few pages. However, as I continued reading, the brutality and evil of the acts against the native people of the Caribbean and Central America shocked me more with every sentence. Although I had learned previously about how the Spanish conquistadores decimated the Amerindians, the “outrageous acts of violence and bloody tyranny” still surprised and mortified me. From killing women and children to demanding slaves from the native noble, all of these insidious acts seemed to be done with the “moral excuse” of spreading Christianity. Therefore, I found it ironic that the Spanish conquerors used Christianity as a reason to attack in the same way human rights as an ideology can be used to invade present-day countries.
Similarly, I admired Bartolome’s reflection and declaration that the only rights these crusaders earned were to eternal damnation and that the methods the conquistadores used to conquer the Americas in fact invalidated claims of Spanish crown to the new world. Bartolome argues and points out that the new world conquerors were blind to the first principles of law and government. He says that anybody who is not a subject of a civil power in the first place cannot be deemed in law to be in rebellion with said power. Overall, although I was shocked by Bartolome’s descriptions, he includes solid reason and arguments against the common, absurd rationalities of the conquerors.