Human Rights Imperialism

Why are the imperialists shedding hypocritical crocodile tears about violations of human rights at the FIFA Tournament 2022 in Qatar?

In order to answer this question, we must explain what human rights are and what function they serve within the global capitalist system.

What are Human Rights?

The concept of human rights presupposes the concept of humanity. As a famous French philosopher, Michel Foucault said the concept of humanity first appeared in the sixteenth century. A human being is a man or woman who claims to be self-created and self-willed. He/she does not recognize any authority except that of his/her own desire. A human being cannot be a Muslim for a Muslim subordinates his/her will to the will of Allah. A Muslim is not self-willed, he/she is not autonomous. A muslim is Abd Allah – a slave of Allah.

Even a Christian cannot be a human being – for the Loard’s prayer in the Bible says “Thy will be done Thy kingdom come on earth as it in heaven” – and by “Thy” of course Syedina Esa (on whom be peace) meant God. So the concept of humanity is an expression of a revolt against God and abdiyat. Human rights are a rejection of huquq-al-ibad, the rights given to His slaves by Allah.

Who gives human rights to man/woman? The English philosopher John Locke answers this question in a roundabout way. He begins by saying that a man and a woman is the sole owner of his or her body. A man or woman has the right to do what he/she likes to do with his/her body – the body is his/her capital.

Locke says that self-creation is expressed essentially when man/woman seeks to “grow” his/her body. He/she can do this only by mixing his/her labor with nature. Man/woman become human by creating “value” – through production. This is in essence Locke’s “labor theory of value”.

Rational men and women are those who seek to become human, by producing value. Human rights are those rights which are required to turn man and woman into human beings – a form of being, solely dedicated to the production of value/capital.

Locke says that it is “representative government” i.e. a capitalist state – which must bestow human rights on human being. A non-capitalist state – monarchy, an Imarat, a Khilafat – cannot do this because it is not a representative of humanity, it is not dedicated to the production of value/capital. So humanity must struggle and politically organize to establish a capitalist state which can legislate human rights.

There are three fundamental human rights: the right to life, the right to expression, the right to own/manage property.

Each of these rights is seen as means for the expansion of the area of self-creation – through the accumulation of capital. The expansion of the area of self-creation – capital accumulation – is the sole rational purpose of human thought and activity. So if life, expression and property is used for any other purpose, except that of capital accumulation, it cannot be the subject of human rights since human rights are solely a means for persuading/forcing men and women to become human.

Human Rights Imperialism

Even in the twenty-first century the majority of men and women are not human beings – this is especially so in Muslim countries where most men and women do not dedicate their lives to capital accumulation.

Imperialism is a project for inducing/forcing men and women to become human beings. The project also began with the appearance of humanity in the sixteenth century with the conquest of the continent of America where over three centuries about eighty million Red Indians were methodically slaughtered, so that a representative republic of human beings could be established.

In the seventeenth century Locke justified this slaughter since the eighty million Red Indians were men and women who refused to become human. Slaughtering them was as necessary as slaughtering wild animals – remember George Washington called Red Indians “wolves” – for consolidating capitalist property and accumulation of capital. Slaughtering 80 million Red Indians was human rights in practice.

Human rights slaughtering has expanded vastly since then. America has slaughtered countless millions for the promotion of human rights – in the Philippines, Vietnam, Cambodia, Nicaragua, Haiti, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Afghanistan etc. France continues its human rights slaughter in Mali, Burkina Faso, Somalia and Chad. China practices human rights slaughter in Eastern Turkistan (Xinjiang).

In 2004, the United Nations General Assembly adopted the “Rights to Protect” declaration. This recognizes the right of imperialist countries to initiate and continue slaughter in any country where the imperialists believe that the government is not effectively performing its function of converting men and women into human beings. Evoking this resolution (R2P) the United States is threatening to launch massive drone attacks on the Islamic Imarat of Afghanistan.

But slaughter is not the only expression of human rights. Human rights advocacy is also a “soft power” weapon in the arsenal of the imperialists. Christian missionaries played a crucial role in humanizing colonial societies throughout the eighteenth, nineteenth and most of the twentieth centuries. Today the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, Aurat Foundation and other USAID and imperialist funded NGOs are “softening” up Pakistani society and state by imperialist and human rights advocacy. They seek to destroy the Islamic ethos of Pakistani individuality, society and state. These quislings and fifth columnists are imperialist missionaries following in the footsteps of the Christian missionaries of the past.

We Muslims must take a firm stand against the spread of human rights doctrines, ideologies and practices. We are resolved to continue the fight against human rights imperialism.