Khadija Bilal
Khadija Bilal is a writer, editor and columnist who has established herself as a revolutionary voice in the literary world.
The recent atrocities in the Middle East being performed by Israel, backed by many states and nonstate actors, make us question whether the entity of “human rights” still exists in the world or if it is just a mere myth? Why are all instances of ethnic cleansing, genocidal actions, use of chemical weapons, indiscriminate bombings, and targeted attacks on civilians and hospitals constantly overlooked? Doubtlessly, from the beginning of times, mankind has witnessed the horrors of human slaughter, devastations of war, brutality, subjugation, and oppression of innocent individuals, but why the presence of the United Nations in modern times clearly makes no difference, which was merely established in the name of the protection of human rights of all individuals, that too without any discrimination or biases. But what happens to these vague promises when it comes to the Muslim world?
Although evidence of various notions of human rights can be traced back to ancient civilisations, which highlight the early attempts of mankind to establish peace by bestowing individual rights, such as the Code of Hammurabi (1754 BCE), one of the oldest Babylonian codes of laws for justice rights of individuals, such as property rights and family law. Likewise, the Cyrus Cylinder (539 BCE), which is said to be the first charter of human rights from ancient Persia, outlines the policies of tolerance and respect for the rights of conquered people. The Medina Charter (622 CE), also known as the Constitution of Medina, regarded as one of the first written constitutions in history, was established to build a multi-religious Islamic state, promoting mutual respect and coexistence. But human history proves that the hopes to provide justice and legal rights to all individuals proved to be meaningless after all.
For which purpose, the UN Department of Public Information (DP) created a document called the “Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR),” the first official document to declare human rights as the basic need of an individual, came into existence.The document is said to be published as a response to the atrocities of World War II and the aftermath of the Holocaust, later adopted by the United Nations. The sole purpose of the UDHR was to prevent further war crimes and to spread awareness against the brutality of human slaughter, which has stained human history for centuries. But it seemed to be the most ironic situation that the same US that refused to let 900 Jews take refuge in the US in the times of the Holocaust, forcing them back to Europe where they actually met their end, proposed the “Declaration of Human Rights” to prevent any devastating event from happening ever again.
However, it was just the beginning of the hypocrisy of the UN; various instances and situations around the globe have proved how the UN and related organisations have used the notions of human rights to promote their own political agenda. Such international organisations promote and utilise the aspects of human rights but provide selective advocacy and biased opinions. For instance, the Rohingya Genocide, where millions of Muslims throughout the decade were regularly persecuted and killed by Buddhist nationalists and the military of Myanmar. The UN found evidence of wide-scale human rights violations, including extrajudicial killings, executions, gang rapes, arson of Rohingya villages, businesses, and schools, and infanticides, which led to the death of 43,000 Rohingya Muslims and 700,000-plus displacements. Nonetheless, the UN decided to stand with the government of Myanmar, turning a blind eye to the evidence, while other human rights organisations such as Amnesty International, powerful governments like that of the US, neighbouring countries like Bangladesh and Malaysia, and all other Muslim states remained silent.
Let’s shed light on another instance of oppression, subjugation, and dehumanisation of a population, which is happening as we speak: none other than the “Palestinian Genocide.” According to the “Al Jazeera Gaza Media Office,” 41,909 Palestinians have been killed in the last 365 days as of Oct 08, 2024, including 16,756 children and 11,346 women. At least 97,303 people are injured, whereas more than “10,000 individuals are believed to be buried under the rubble.”. Since Oct 07, 2024, about “75,000 tonnes of explosives have been dropped on Gaza.” But what role do these international human rights organisations play amidst such circumstances? Only a simple voting session is held; UN members demand humanitarian aid and a ceasefire; the majority votes in favour, and the rest simply do not care, but what happens next? Is any action taken against such war crimes or war criminals? In these conditions, international bodies only reinforce their own specific agendas instead of enforcing human rights standards, wholly benefiting individuals in power.
Different tactics are used by these international bodies, such as statistical data manipulation, censorship, utilisation of biased narratives, destruction of all war crime evidence, spreading false information or propaganda to confuse or mislead the public, doing selective reporting (focusing on certain incidents while ignoring others, which can create a biased portrayal of a situation), silencing and threat techniques, and addressing human rights concerns without committing to genuine change. These tactics depict how these international organisations utilise notions of human rights to manipulate the truth of human history only to benefit the power structures, a proof of how the rhetoric of human rights is often used as a form of propaganda. These persistent, biased, and hypocritical actions also lead us to the spirals of doubt and, in fact, lead us back to the release of the UDHR, which was later adopted by many countries, providing it the international recognition it needed for its own purposes. Did many countries approve it for economic support or aid from the US, or were they simply subjected to pressures from the power structures? As no notion as useless as UDHR can ever be adopted or celebrated by any nation, which is biased and racist to all other individuals and are forced to strive for their own rights.
Several other grappling events of ethnic cleansing and genocidal violence, such as the Tigray Genocide, Parachinar Genocide, Syrian Civil War, Uyghur genocide, Cuba Massacre, and many more instances of past and ongoing human slaughter and subjugation, have no different story to claim. According to World Bank Data, more than 526,000 people die each year due to war crimes and armed conflicts, which never really bothered these human rights organizations. The utilisation of human rights as a tool for propaganda highlights the plight of the eminent evil that forever ails the human condition. While human rights were initially established to end brutality and violence, their selective application and politicisation have allowed oppression to flourish even more. To reclaim the pure essence of human rights, we must stand against such international bodies that are part of these war crimes, and they must be held accountable for their biased actions. Only through these efforts may we hope to transform human rights from propaganda into a genuine force for justice and protection for all.