I’m going to state the obvious here – I’m not a philosopher or some great, celebrated intellect so I found the readings of this week to be a little difficult to fully engage with. Going back and re reading some of this week’s literature, I am amazed at the relevancy that these writings carry today. That being said, although a bit confused, I did try to make some connections.

I quite enjoyed the sass that goes along with Olympe De Gouges’ “The Declaration of the Rights of Women (1790)”. It surprised me that she argued for equal treatment of women when arrested in Articles 6-10. It’s interesting because it didn’t occur to me that if I were to be arrested,  I should receive equal treatment as a woman, I would just assume that I would receive equal treatment as a person under the eyes of the law. For having been written in the eighteenth century, her critique of relationships between men and women is oddly relevant today. There are still situations of women getting taken advantage of by men who play on their hearts. She requires a law that would protect widows and young women “deceived by the false promises of a man to whom they were attached”(180). She would like those men to be held accountable for their deceit. If I think about it, as a woman you have so much to offer (heart, mind, body etc.) but it is ours, not a man’s because he sees it is within his rights to have us. I believe there are still many women in the world who are treated like property by men and by other women of society (as De Gouge would say). So, not that I think of myself as property and I realize that this is probably an anti-feminist metaphor, but, if I was getting treated as such, I’m wouldn’t sell for cheap. Like I said women have a lot to offer, several, amenities if you will. How many men can afford $20 million homes (and there are many in this province)? Not that many.

In his essay “On the Inalienable Right to Life (The Leviathan, 1652)”, Thomas Hobbes says something interesting when discussing the fundamental law of nature, “it follows that in such a condition every man has a right to everything, even to one another’s body. And therefore, as long as this natural right of every man to everything endures, there can be no security to any man…” (104). Hobbes was talking in literal terms during a civil war here, but what he says about men during civil war seems to me to be like common practice in society today. This may not be the best example but it’s what I related this to: my friend’s 10-year-old nephew has an iPhone. My niece is 12 and has gone through 2 cell phones. It is now considered normal for children and pre-teens to have cell phones. Now I understand that society is changing, but should the day ever come when I would have children will they think it’s within their “rights” to have a cellphone (a real cellphone not a plastic sesame street phone)? I feel like there is a grand sense of entitlement that North Americans hold especially youth in that they should have access to everything and anything at all times. Don’t get me wrong, I like a fast internet connection as much as the next guy, but sometimes when I use my iPhone I cringe at myself. I think a phone is not a need but a thing that we want. I really believe that I wasn’t like that as a child. Maybe my mom would say something different about it but. Anyway, I think this sense of entitlement derives from in part the fact that people don’t like to as Hobbes would say, lay down their rights, “For as long as every man holds this right of doing anything he likes, so long are all men in the condition of war” (105).

I hope the point I’m trying to convey came across in there somewhere, if not, well I guess I’m a better philosopher than I give myself credit for.

Well, I guess this about wraps up the term. Does anyone else here thinks it went terrifyingly fast?

What did I take from it? I guess mainly that human rights are not something that are set in stone. I do still believe that they exist, or that they should exist, but I now see how difficult they are to define, or how easily manipulable of a concept they are. Human rights can be taken and redefined to suit pretty much any situation, as we have seen in the case of the military Junta in Argentina. They are also incredibly hard to protect, since they too often seem to come second to the economy or the interests of the wealthy. This does not stop me from thinking, however, that there is something there worth fighting for. People are twisted, often ignorant, and ocasionally evil, but always of value. Latin America has a long and twisted history when it comes to human rights abuses, and perhaps I'm an optimist, but I do believe that things can still change.

As the course when on, my vision of human rights went through a rather dramatic shift. I used to have a rather simplistic view of what rights were - that is to say, I really did believe that they were a natural things, a given, something that could always be argued for and that I could trust others to respect. I now see how naive that idea was. Human rights are an idea, and ideas can always be changed. If your government abuses your human rights, while actively denying it (as did Argentina), then what are the recourses? The international community? If they can even bring themselves to care, what can it do, when national sovereignty is involved? Very little. When you can't trust the authorities, the only possible change is from the bottom up. I do like the idea that revolution and human rights go hand in hand, though I have to admit that, if one looks at the track record of revolutions, this has not always been the case.

I have also learnt that internation organizations, such as the UN, do not hold the answers. Far from it. If anything, they perpetuate a very Westernized conception of human rights, one that supports a colonialist attitute. We can no longer justify imposing our beliefs on others (and someone should really tell that to the US and their involvment in Latin America). Each region should really be given some leeway to figure out what human rights mean in their own context...but this would invariably lead to abuse. So what's to be done? I don't anyone has that figured out.

Basically, what I have learnt is that human rights are complicated, a little insane, and that there is no straightforward answer or explanation to anything. The only thing I do know, however, is that we need to keep on moving foreward.

Finally, I love the intergration of the Occupy movement into class dialogue. I personally have a lot of faith in Occupy, in the sense that it represents people finally realizing that there are problems that are not getting solved and speaking out about them. The movement is still in it's infancy, but I will hoping that it will gather up steam and grow. What I see in it is the simple realization that all people have worth, and should be treated well, and have access to opportunities. What I see in it is the hope of a more open and intergrated world. But I guess I'll just have to wait and see what happens.

Well, I guess this about wraps up the term. Does anyone else here thinks it went terrifyingly fast?

What did I take from it? I guess mainly that human rights are not something that are set in stone. I do still believe that they exist, or that they should exist, but I now see how difficult they are to define, or how easily manipulable of a concept they are. Human rights can be taken and redefined to suit pretty much any situation, as we have seen in the case of the military Junta in Argentina. They are also incredibly hard to protect, since they too often seem to come second to the economy or the interests of the wealthy. This does not stop me from thinking, however, that there is something there worth fighting for. People are twisted, often ignorant, and ocasionally evil, but always of value. Latin America has a long and twisted history when it comes to human rights abuses, and perhaps I'm an optimist, but I do believe that things can still change.

As the course when on, my vision of human rights went through a rather dramatic shift. I used to have a rather simplistic view of what rights were - that is to say, I really did believe that they were a natural things, a given, something that could always be argued for and that I could trust others to respect. I now see how naive that idea was. Human rights are an idea, and ideas can always be changed. If your government abuses your human rights, while actively denying it (as did Argentina), then what are the recourses? The international community? If they can even bring themselves to care, what can it do, when national sovereignty is involved? Very little. When you can't trust the authorities, the only possible change is from the bottom up. I do like the idea that revolution and human rights go hand in hand, though I have to admit that, if one looks at the track record of revolutions, this has not always been the case.

I have also learnt that internation organizations, such as the UN, do not hold the answers. Far from it. If anything, they perpetuate a very Westernized conception of human rights, one that supports a colonialist attitute. We can no longer justify imposing our beliefs on others (and someone should really tell that to the US and their involvment in Latin America). Each region should really be given some leeway to figure out what human rights mean in their own context...but this would invariably lead to abuse. So what's to be done? I don't anyone has that figured out.

Basically, what I have learnt is that human rights are complicated, a little insane, and that there is no straightforward answer or explanation to anything. The only thing I do know, however, is that we need to keep on moving foreward.

Finally, I love the intergration of the Occupy movement into class dialogue. I personally have a lot of faith in Occupy, in the sense that it represents people finally realizing that there are problems that are not getting solved and speaking out about them. The movement is still in it's infancy, but I will hoping that it will gather up steam and grow. What I see in it is the simple realization that all people have worth, and should be treated well, and have access to opportunities. What I see in it is the hope of a more open and intergrated world. But I guess I'll just have to wait and see what happens.

http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/charlie-angus/attawapiskat-emergency_b_1104370.html?ref=fb&src=sp&comm_ref=false#undefined

This is not happening in Latin America, but I felt that it's important that everyone know about this and hopefully try to help. This is happening in Ontario, on Attawapiskat First Nation lands. It's been three weeks since they took the extraordinary step of declaring a state of emergency due to poor living conditions...and nothing has happened. No one has stepped in to help. The government hasn't even lifted a finger. The people in this community live in conditions one would never expect to find in a developped country such as Canada. Basic needs, such as healthcare, hygiene or decent living conditions are not met. The children of this community have not had a school to go to in 12 years. It's like they've completely fallen off the map.

To make matters worst, right in the Attawapiskat back yard, on their land, the De Beers mining company is making million off diamond extraction, not one cent of which is being seen by the Attawapiskat people.

The winter is coming, and it's going to be a cold one. The federal government has to step up it's game. In the meantime, send in letters to the Ontario government, see what you can do to help. It's things like these that make me ashamed to be a Canadian at times.

http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/charlie-angus/attawapiskat-emergency_b_1104370.html?ref=fb&src=sp&comm_ref=false#undefined

This is not happening in Latin America, but I felt that it's important that everyone know about this and hopefully try to help. This is happening in Ontario, on Attawapiskat First Nation lands. It's been three weeks since they took the extraordinary step of declaring a state of emergency due to poor living conditions...and nothing has happened. No one has stepped in to help. The government hasn't even lifted a finger. The people in this community live in conditions one would never expect to find in a developped country such as Canada. Basic needs, such as healthcare, hygiene or decent living conditions are not met. The children of this community have not had a school to go to in 12 years. It's like they've completely fallen off the map.

To make matters worst, right in the Attawapiskat back yard, on their land, the De Beers mining company is making million off diamond extraction, not one cent of which is being seen by the Attawapiskat people.

The winter is coming, and it's going to be a cold one. The federal government has to step up it's game. In the meantime, send in letters to the Ontario government, see what you can do to help. It's things like these that make me ashamed to be a Canadian at times.

Before taking this course, there was no question in my mind that the protection of human rights was the absolute single, solitary moral and legal obligation that binds us all in a global community. The fact that you cannot go a day without reading in a newspaper about human rights abuses, and how the international world is going to respond to them, is proof positive that, as least in the Western world, we have convinced ourselves that we are the guardians of human rights and have done, do and will do anything in our power to protect them when some developing country does not (as it could only be a less developed nation abusing their citizens right? *cough* Canada + aboriginal rights). Everyday I feel I hear the term, or shall we call it a buzz word, being thrown around, willy nilly; usually it is to justify the intervention of a first world nation in the affairs of a "third' world nation (I prefer developing, but third in this context provides the right amount of condescension). It's almost become a formulaic sentence...so and so is abusing its citizens civil and human rights and so we...(usually America will be the first in line)...are sending an armed intervention to protect the people of so and so because their government will not. This, or some form of this sentence seems to get repeated often, especially in modern events such as Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya to name a few. A special amendment actually exists in the Charter of the United Nations that justifies third party intervention in a country when human rights abuses are evident and accurately reported. There is no question therefore that human rights, at least in the the Western world, are something that we have convinced ourselves, as everyday people through school, the media, and governmental ramblings, that we believe requires the utmost protection and is the most despicable abuse a government can subject its people to. Until this course, I was a proud defender of human rights and the first to object against any action performed by our or any other government that could infringe on a solitary human right.

Nearing the end of this course, I can't say I still have the same, narrow view of human rights. This first half of our course taught me, embarrassingly enough, that I had never considered the idea that any and all human rights discourse has been written by and from the perspective of a Western, "first world" nation. For example, in considering our current UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights--how many "third world" nations were included in the discussion while writing this lengthy document? Furthermore, the fact that some of the earlier rights documents were written by middle class, white males (and therefore only protected a very limited section of the population) has taught me that if anything, supposed "universal" declarations can actually be more exclusionary than inclusive. With this in mind, if we once again consider the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights, written from a first world perspective, and therefore only taking Western first world cultures and traditions into consideration, I believe even this recent document excludes many developing nations populations who have different cultures and ideals than us in the Western world. Therefore while I recognize that the UN Declaration was written with good intentions (I'm not that cynical), I believe a more inclusive document, with input from developing nations, needs to be written if we are to create a truly universal and inclusive international declaration of rights.

The second half of this course...oh boy...that's where my ideas about human rights and their power to protect really started to change. I've always been aware of the atrocities committed in South America, by the government against its own people, just maybe not to the full extent. What I was unaware of however, is the amount of complicity developed nations, especially America, had in either allowing or blatantly helping corrupt governments continue to abuse its citizens. This for me was most shocking because as supposed crusaders for human rights protection, the fact that developed nations have been, and still are (in my personal opinion) involved in military operations and political dealings that harm human beings is nauseatingly hypocritical and disillusioning. How can we go on and on about the necessity of protecting human rights, at home and abroad, when we don't practice what we preach, by any stretch of the imagination. More and more it seems that the protection of human rights is of secondary importance to achieving political and military wins; the term human right will get thrown in there only to capture greater attention or to provide shallow justification to a naivee population that believes, 'hey, if human rights are at stake, we have every right to intervene,' an assumption that lacks a thorough understanding of one's government's true motive and intention.

To me, what was particularly revolutionary? shall I say, from these readings was the idea, most clearly articulated in the last section of reading about Guatemala, that people who are enduring human rights abuses recognize that was is occurring to them is wrong, but have little to no faith that these wrongs will ever be righted. I think it was a priest who said something along the lines that the human rights commissioner might as well be a thousand miles away for all the good it would do for him and his people that were being killed by the military. This statement shows just how disillusioned people living under corrupt and abusive governments are towards the ability of human rights to protect them. And so they should be. We can talk until we're blue in the face about the universal rights people should have, but until an effective instrument for protecting those rights is imagined, human rights really are just another way of talking. They mean nothing when millions of people are suffering from indignities that limit their ability to survive as "free" human beings. They mean nothing to the families of Argentinian and Guatemalan desaparecidos who still have no answer to what happened to their loved ones. The very phrase "human right" means nothing to people who live under a known abusive government and yet receive no help from the international community. In fact, human rights protection has been constantly trumped by other, supposedly more pressing issues of political or economic importance. It is only because we, the people of the industrialized world, are able to live in relative prosperity, that we have the luxury to discuss the various human rights violations that have occurred and are occurring. And really, that's all we do; we talk about human rights and how important they are to protect; we shake our heads at the horrible atrocities occurring around the world and thank our lucky stars that we are fortunate enough to live in a country that, after experimenting with rights abuses, finally cleaned up its act. However, the actual amount of true, honest to goodness, altruistic protection of human rights missions we embark on, without any other motive, political or economic? Very, very few.

So, what is the answer then. Are human rights useful? Is there a point in continuing this protection rhetoric that we, quite obviously, have failed to uphold? My simple and short answer would be: Yes. Yes this is a use for human rights. Despite the fact that the world has a horrifying track record of human rights abuses, I think they serve a purpose. Human rights exist as a promise that one day, everyone will be equally free from abuse. They exist as a guideline for how human beings must be treated. If you compare it with the laws of a country, human rights should be  considered the law of the world; unquestioned and undisputed boundaries that exist to keep people safe, conflict free, and enable them to prosper and live the one life they have, for as long as possible. Yes it is incredibly disheartening how completely inadequate we have been thus far in protecting human rights, or rectifying situations that abuse them. Governments are especially defective in protecting human rights because they let other more petty yet more financially rewarding motivations obscure their vision of their obligation to protect. However, I think it is important to recognize that some groups of people, particularly non-governmental organizations, have tirelessly and discreetly (in the sense that they don't clamour for recognition of every good deed they do) worked to help people that are suffering. For me, I believe NGOs set a far better example of human rights protection than any government ever has; NGOs are the epitome of an altruistic group of people, who do try to help people as their primary motivation; political and economic incentives do not exist, as are the inherent characteristics of a non-governmental body. Therefore, maybe the future for human rights protection isn't necessarily through national governments as the first line of defence (although they could certainly clean up their act) but through NGOs and other, more apolitical and morally motivated bodies that still believe human rights are and should be a universally shared commonality between all of the world citizens. Call me an optimist, but I believe their is possibility for greater collaboration and improvement of global human rights; we just need to figure out the appropriate avenue to achieve them.

Before taking this course, there was no question in my mind that the protection of human rights was the absolute single, solitary moral and legal obligation that binds us all in a global community. The fact that you cannot go a day without reading in a newspaper about human rights abuses, and how the international world is going to respond to them, is proof positive that, as least in the Western world, we have convinced ourselves that we are the guardians of human rights and have done, do and will do anything in our power to protect them when some developing country does not (as it could only be a less developed nation abusing their citizens right? *cough* Canada + aboriginal rights). Everyday I feel I hear the term, or shall we call it a buzz word, being thrown around, willy nilly; usually it is to justify the intervention of a first world nation in the affairs of a "third' world nation (I prefer developing, but third in this context provides the right amount of condescension). It's almost become a formulaic sentence...so and so is abusing its citizens civil and human rights and so we...(usually America will be the first in line)...are sending an armed intervention to protect the people of so and so because their government will not. This, or some form of this sentence seems to get repeated often, especially in modern events such as Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya to name a few. A special amendment actually exists in the Charter of the United Nations that justifies third party intervention in a country when human rights abuses are evident and accurately reported. There is no question therefore that human rights, at least in the the Western world, are something that we have convinced ourselves, as everyday people through school, the media, and governmental ramblings, that we believe requires the utmost protection and is the most despicable abuse a government can subject its people to. Until this course, I was a proud defender of human rights and the first to object against any action performed by our or any other government that could infringe on a solitary human right.

Nearing the end of this course, I can't say I still have the same, narrow view of human rights. This first half of our course taught me, embarrassingly enough, that I had never considered the idea that any and all human rights discourse has been written by and from the perspective of a Western, "first world" nation. For example, in considering our current UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights--how many "third world" nations were included in the discussion while writing this lengthy document? Furthermore, the fact that some of the earlier rights documents were written by middle class, white males (and therefore only protected a very limited section of the population) has taught me that if anything, supposed "universal" declarations can actually be more exclusionary than inclusive. With this in mind, if we once again consider the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights, written from a first world perspective, and therefore only taking Western first world cultures and traditions into consideration, I believe even this recent document excludes many developing nations populations who have different cultures and ideals than us in the Western world. Therefore while I recognize that the UN Declaration was written with good intentions (I'm not that cynical), I believe a more inclusive document, with input from developing nations, needs to be written if we are to create a truly universal and inclusive international declaration of rights.

The second half of this course...oh boy...that's where my ideas about human rights and their power to protect really started to change. I've always been aware of the atrocities committed in South America, by the government against its own people, just maybe not to the full extent. What I was unaware of however, is the amount of complicity developed nations, especially America, had in either allowing or blatantly helping corrupt governments continue to abuse its citizens. This for me was most shocking because as supposed crusaders for human rights protection, the fact that developed nations have been, and still are (in my personal opinion) involved in military operations and political dealings that harm human beings is nauseatingly hypocritical and disillusioning. How can we go on and on about the necessity of protecting human rights, at home and abroad, when we don't practice what we preach, by any stretch of the imagination. More and more it seems that the protection of human rights is of secondary importance to achieving political and military wins; the term human right will get thrown in there only to capture greater attention or to provide shallow justification to a naivee population that believes, 'hey, if human rights are at stake, we have every right to intervene,' an assumption that lacks a thorough understanding of one's government's true motive and intention.

To me, what was particularly revolutionary? shall I say, from these readings was the idea, most clearly articulated in the last section of reading about Guatemala, that people who are enduring human rights abuses recognize that was is occurring to them is wrong, but have little to no faith that these wrongs will ever be righted. I think it was a priest who said something along the lines that the human rights commissioner might as well be a thousand miles away for all the good it would do for him and his people that were being killed by the military. This statement shows just how disillusioned people living under corrupt and abusive governments are towards the ability of human rights to protect them. And so they should be. We can talk until we're blue in the face about the universal rights people should have, but until an effective instrument for protecting those rights is imagined, human rights really are just another way of talking. They mean nothing when millions of people are suffering from indignities that limit their ability to survive as "free" human beings. They mean nothing to the families of Argentinian and Guatemalan desaparecidos who still have no answer to what happened to their loved ones. The very phrase "human right" means nothing to people who live under a known abusive government and yet receive no help from the international community. In fact, human rights protection has been constantly trumped by other, supposedly more pressing issues of political or economic importance. It is only because we, the people of the industrialized world, are able to live in relative prosperity, that we have the luxury to discuss the various human rights violations that have occurred and are occurring. And really, that's all we do; we talk about human rights and how important they are to protect; we shake our heads at the horrible atrocities occurring around the world and thank our lucky stars that we are fortunate enough to live in a country that, after experimenting with rights abuses, finally cleaned up its act. However, the actual amount of true, honest to goodness, altruistic protection of human rights missions we embark on, without any other motive, political or economic? Very, very few.

So, what is the answer then. Are human rights useful? Is there a point in continuing this protection rhetoric that we, quite obviously, have failed to uphold? My simple and short answer would be: Yes. Yes this is a use for human rights. Despite the fact that the world has a horrifying track record of human rights abuses, I think they serve a purpose. Human rights exist as a promise that one day, everyone will be equally free from abuse. They exist as a guideline for how human beings must be treated. If you compare it with the laws of a country, human rights should be  considered the law of the world; unquestioned and undisputed boundaries that exist to keep people safe, conflict free, and enable them to prosper and live the one life they have, for as long as possible. Yes it is incredibly disheartening how completely inadequate we have been thus far in protecting human rights, or rectifying situations that abuse them. Governments are especially defective in protecting human rights because they let other more petty yet more financially rewarding motivations obscure their vision of their obligation to protect. However, I think it is important to recognize that some groups of people, particularly non-governmental organizations, have tirelessly and discreetly (in the sense that they don't clamour for recognition of every good deed they do) worked to help people that are suffering. For me, I believe NGOs set a far better example of human rights protection than any government ever has; NGOs are the epitome of an altruistic group of people, who do try to help people as their primary motivation; political and economic incentives do not exist, as are the inherent characteristics of a non-governmental body. Therefore, maybe the future for human rights protection isn't necessarily through national governments as the first line of defence (although they could certainly clean up their act) but through NGOs and other, more apolitical and morally motivated bodies that still believe human rights are and should be a universally shared commonality between all of the world citizens. Call me an optimist, but I believe their is possibility for greater collaboration and improvement of global human rights; we just need to figure out the appropriate avenue to achieve them.

http://www.ghrc-usa.org/Programs/HumanRightsDefenders.htm

How does a country rise above human rights violations when its own government does nothing to protect it? Could we see a Latin Spring in the next few years? Such a mass uprising may be the only way some people, like Guatemalans, free themselves the near century-old shackles. To think all they have gone through, in more recent decades especially, it makes one wonder what more motivation do a people need to rise up to rule. Nothing gets the world's attention like revolution these days. 

I just thought that this article was an interesting precedent.  Throughout my LAST major we have discussed the rights of workers in Canada, and the jobs they perform while here.  Ontario has a huge quantity of these temporary workers.  The film, El Contrato documents a group of workers on an Ontario tomato farm and the life they live while here in Canada.  It speaks to the isolation they feel from their own country and government, and the very little bargaining power they have in assuring their rights.  I was impressed to hear CBC discussing this new case on the radio.  Three workers were dismissed and sent back to Mexico without explanation.  I'm curious. Were they labor organizing? Demanding better anything? What happened...??? I'll be interested to see what transpires.

Here's the link to the CBC article:

Migrant workers say they were fired by Ontario farm without explanation

 
 http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/story/2011/11/24/mexico-farm-lawsuit-government.html

I just thought that this article was an interesting precedent.  Throughout my LAST major we have discussed the rights of workers in Canada, and the jobs they perform while here.  Ontario has a huge quantity of these temporary workers.  The film, El Contrato documents a group of workers on an Ontario tomato farm and the life they live while here in Canada.  It speaks to the isolation they feel from their own country and government, and the very little bargaining power they have in assuring their rights.  I was impressed to hear CBC discussing this new case on the radio.  Three workers were dismissed and sent back to Mexico without explanation.  I'm curious. Were they labor organizing? Demanding better anything? What happened...??? I'll be interested to see what transpires.

Here's the link to the CBC article:

Migrant workers say they were fired by Ontario farm without explanation

 
 http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/story/2011/11/24/mexico-farm-lawsuit-government.html

I think what I learned the most from this course is that human rights are really just rhetoric. That is not to say that they are not important or meaningful but I think that human rights mean different things to different people and are used for different purposes depending on the context. Human rights discourse seems to be taken up by competing groups as a way of asserting power within society. In Argentina, those who were opposed to the military government asserted that the government was violating their citizens human rights as thousands were disappeared. The government and those in support of the military regime then countered the cries of the “subversives” with a different human rights discourse saying that Argentina is human and they are right. In this instance human rights discourse was demonstrated to have a certain power but the actual meaning behind the discourse was different for both parties.

In Zizek’s argument against human rights he also argues how human rights are really just a malleable rhetoric used by western liberal democracies as a justification for invasion in foreign countries. Modern human rights discourse that is touted internationally through the UN really just reflect western capitalist values and uphold the power of western liberal democracies rather than challenging their hegemonic power.  This really has been demonstrated lately in the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan as Western democracies have invaded the countries under the auspice of human rights (namely the rights of women and the right to democratic elections etc) but through the act of invasion other human rights have been trampled tremendously as countless amounts of civilians have fallen victim to these wars. The price that the civilians have had to pay for these foreign imposed rights has been way too steep, especially considering they never asked for the foreign invasion. A similar argument could be made for the dirty war in Guatemala when America helped direct the genocide of hundreds of thousands of indigenous people supposedly to suppress the threat of communism (but really just to secure America’s property rights) in the region. Had the human rights of all really been a priority instead of American capitalist interests, the genocide may not have happened. Despite the rhetoric of human rights, capital always comes before the needs of the people, it seems.

The Venezuelan government has been asserting that human rights and the socialist revolution go hand in hand.  Many programs have been created that have really benefited the majority of the population in Venezuela, such as healthcare, co-ops, and education reforms. Again, human rights discourses differ in venezuela as well, as the neo-liberal elite (backed by the American government) have also been asserting their desire for human rights, namely freedom of press and property rights. In this case. which I will be discussing in my paper, the elite and the populace have competing human rights discourses.

Human rights in Latin America are extremely contentious and I think it is pretty hard to understand the full scope of the issues through a singles semester course. What we were able to discuss, though, gave me lots of insight into the region and on the idea of human rights in general. Being in such proximity to the Occupy Vancouver site also was exceptionally interesting and I really enjoyed how we could just go up to the site, make observations and discuss the situation within the context of our class. Most classes seem a bit out of touch with reality so this was really refreshing.