Today marks the 60th Anniversary of the UN’s Declaration of Human Rights, the day after the 60th anniversary of the UN’s pact to end genocide. To commemorate the Human Rights pact, bloggers throughout the world are discussing their first human rights memory of import. And because so much of our work at the agency involves social causes, the Buzz Bin will participate (image: Fires over the Hills by Timm Williams).
My first memory of human rights was not a good one, a prolonged period of time in which my Jewish family was harassed and attacked by anti-semites for a period of years. I do not like talking about that time, so instead I’ve decided to blog about the thing that had the most impact on me from a human rights perspective this year. By far, reading Amy Chua’s World On Fire had the most weight.
World on Fire: How Exporting Free Market Democracy Breeds Ethnic Hatred and Global Instability is Yale professor Amy Chua’s unrelenting examination of how sudden free trade and democracy together can actually destabilize countries and cause ethnic hatred and genocide. Region by region, continent by continent, from Burma and Russia to Africa and Latin America, Chua demonstrates her case. The book clearly shows how Western, and in particular U.S. free market democracy, has created some of the worst human rights violations of our time, including the genocide in Rwanda.
And the secret recipe is simple. Inevitably, when you have a free market, one minority group rises to the top and succeeds financially – this is true of the Chinese in Burma and the Philippines, the Jews in Russia, the Tutsis in Rwanda, etc. etc. Next, enter the democratization aspect. Now you have a poor, down-trodden and uneducated majority that’s angry about being robbed of the promises of free markets. Stating it in oversimplistic terms, when a minority rises to power, the majority brings political pressure to bear, leading to everything from ethnic hate crimes and oppression to manipulation of political power by the minorities or even genocide.
World on Fire provides sobering humanitarian reasons to end Friedman-like declarations for simply flattening and democratizing the world (the American version of Empire).
Instead, I advocate for preparing countries to handle free markets and democracy. We should focus on creating education, building country-wide infrastructure, raising health standards, and ensuring people can eat everyday. By doing so we can help the world embrace the great human rights principles that allow for true democracy and freedom.
Working on the Save Darfur campaign has provided me great relief, in part because I understand some of the underlying causes. While this is in essence fire-fighting, at least we can stop the flames. Then we can put in some fire codes with better global policies that involve a more sober view of human nature when faced with poverty and hunger.
I encourage you to read World on Fire. And I encourage you to do your part not just today, but everyday, a little something to help human rights efforts throughout the world. Finally, if you want to help the Livingston Communications team in our efforts to end Darfur, sign the petition either on Facebook or on the Add Your Voice site.
Not only is your commentary on human rights gutless, it is absolute nonsense. Instead of addressing your own personal encounter with a human rights event (and perhaps helping someone else), you choose to reiterate the work of Chua who (if your summary of her work is correct) is biased beyond the point of being able to offer an objective view of the causes of human rights horrors.
It is not the influence of the free market and democracy that causes one human (or a group of like-minded humans) to CHOOSE to violate the human rights of another. It is the need of the violators to deny others the inherent right to choose how they will survive in this world. While not perfect, the free market and democracy offer people the opportunity to live a life of their choosing–for better or worst. For some folks (like the majority you mention), this is threatening because others may acquire more of the things they value. As a result, these folks (not the free market or democracry) seek to harm or kill the achievers.
If we follow your logic, we must take away the medicine that is curing patient-A because patient-B has decided that the health of the patient-A is to hard to swallow.
It is strange: the free market and democracry seems to be working for you and Ms. Chua, but you want to deny others the opportunities you have. Now who’s the human rights violator?
Krystal: Fair warning: One more personal attack, and you will be banned from the blog.
As to your defense, the empirical evidence proves your sudden unleashing of not perfect free market and democracy breeds hate and genocide. Congratulations.
If you read the book you would also realize that Western free markets and democracy evolved over centuries not days. The resulting impact on culture and society and their ability to handle these freedoms resulted in great humanitarian progress. Conversely, trying to catapult cultures beyond the evolutionary democratic, free market process has created great failures.
My suggestion simply acknowledges that the infrastructure, the education needs to be in place for democratic free markets to work. That’s all. Without infrastructure, without cornerstones, how can we expect what we already know to be great to work for others who have not had the benefit of going through centuries of trial and error?
Geoff,
Addressing the infrastructural gap first to fertilize success of free markets & democracy is logically sound. Yet the thrust of this comment moves outside that debate.
What stood out in your post was the closing call to action to serve. Despite being a fantastically imperfect citizen myself (…following remarks are not meant to be soapbox-esque), it is clear citizen action is what will propel us toward greater humanity i.e. Darfur’s peace or more locally, the 70 year old homeless man down my block having sustainable food and shelter. I give him food regularly but I’m not sure how to get him where he needs to go….ah, another conversation for another time.
I’m not sure how to absolve this world of poverty, violence, or oppression but it does seem that although it carries intellectual merit, the debates in the end only go so far. It’s actionable steps beyond the talk that matter. So again your simple call to action – at whatever level from our global citizenry – remains the most relevant step to fix things. And in observing Lcomm’s work this year, it’s encouraging to see how such practice has manifested in your business.
Knowing the road to social justice is long, let’s turn to this guy:
“You must not lose faith in humanity. Humanity is an ocean; if a few drops of the ocean are dirty, the ocean does not become so.” M. Gandhi