Can violence be a means of defending Human Rights?

Group 4: Can violence be a means of defending Human Rights?

In recent years we’ve seen several examples of leaders trying to excuse the use of violence by saying it’s necessary to defend human rights. That was the case with the NATO interventions in Kosovo, the US attack on Iraq and the Egyptian emergency laws. But is violence, which in essense is opposed to human rights, a legitimate means to protect the very same rights?

It has always been debatable whether the use of violence is appropriate in the fight for human rights; some people say that if you run out of peaceful approaches, force is the shortest way of achieving enforcement of human rights. Yet the contradictory nature of this argument makes it less convincing. It is against the human nature to be forced to think in a certain way. Furthermore, violence brings violence. An eye for an eye and soon the whole world will be blind. This illustrates the unfruitful reality of using violence as a means for securing human rights. But how then, can human rights be spread and enforced?

Essentially, the question needs to be divided between how to spread human rights and how to make sure these are enforced. The former should be through convincing arguments and good examples. We need to explain why human rights benefit us all. The latter must happen through cultural and political pressure. In the case of Mohandas Gandhi we’ve experienced an example of how it’s possible through non-violent resistance to be successful in securing the enforcement of human rights.

This illustrates the need of a division between violence and power. While violence, due to its contradictory nature and the consequences thereof, is an undesired means of securing human rights, power can be used to achieve this goal. Power can be understood both in terms of knowledge and intellectual capabilities as well as political power. These instruments can and should be used to secure human rights as they both lie within the human rights themselves. Human rights is a universal package. Just choosing to enforce the rights that suit you is not a viable option. Other people will most likely have other priorities and in the end this approach means that none of the rights will be enforced.

So to answer the original question, whether violence is a legitimate means to protect human rights, the answer is: Probably not. Using power, both knowledge-based and political, is much more fruitful if your objective is to secure a continued enforcement of human rights.

Group Three 1st Post : “ Are there limits to freedom of expression? “

This article has as a starting point several discussions about freedom of expression. In article 19 in the UN Universal declaration of human rights which state that “Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.”

It is great to create a platform for dialogue trying to bridge cultural gabs and to have one overall strategy for making the whole process work out by not only concentrating on the specific issues that people usually fights about but rather to cultivate our shared points of views from a wider perspective. We have had a lot of interesting discussions about the topic, and it is clear to us that we simply look at freedom of expression from different perspectives but debate is part of the dialogue and we don’t have always to agree to get along.

We will try the difficult, but interesting task, of presenting each other’s viewpoints. The Egyptian side will make the arguments of the Danes clear while the Danish side will present the viewpoints of the Egyptians. By this we hope to demonstrate that by understanding each other’s viewpoints we have come a long way. We do not have to change opinions, but by knowing how each other think and accepting the differences we have already gained a lot.

In our group we all agreed that freedom of expression is very important. But at the same time we realized that we have different opinions of and if there are limits of freedom of expression.

Most Egyptians believe that there are some limits to freedom of expression. These are very considered to be very important. You have the right to criticize political system or figures, society – even your family. But you cannot criticize without being backed by good arguments nor only for the sake of criticizing. Also, it is not okay to insult no matter what. You should not be allowed to say whatever you want when it hurts others feelings. The Egyptian side differs between well-argued criticism and insult. The first is considered okay whereas the second is not.

Whereas the Egyptian side would like some formalized limitations to freedom of expression so that it is not acceptable to hurt others feelings the Danish viewpoint differs a bit. In Denmark most people believe in the infinite freedom of speech/expression without any limitation. Anyone can say whatever s/he wants to say whenever s/he wants. The freedom of expression only has a limit if one urge to harm others physically. Most Danes differ between hurting feeling and hurting physically. Hurting feelings should not be made illegal from the Danish point of view. That does not mean that the Danes in our group believe that you should say whatever you want just because you have the right to do it. You should consider how your expressions affect other people. But at the bottom-line, you have the right to say whatever you want.

For some other cultures some Danes did some practices that promoted religious hatred. But most Danes consider religion to be a personal issue and for other it’s just a nonissue. They have their own values but at the same time they are not pushing their religious or even nonreligious views on other things in life.

Finally , it seems that the difference between the Egyptian and Danish points of view is whether there should be a formalized limits to freedom of expression or not , and “If we cannot end now our differences, at least we can help make the world safe for diversity“ . If people become more tolerant trying to know the others , understanding their differences and not necessarily accepting it , that would be a far better indicator than pre-judging conceiving ideas about them and for our group Based on the respect we agreed to give to one another its much better to see the world through out the lens of the other side cultural perspective reaching out better results and this is just the beginning .