Is a commitment to human rights sufficient for an emancipatory praxis?

by Owona Madlingozi

Seyla Benhabib (Hoover, 2013: 3) “defends human rights as universal moral norms…which…define the equal concern and recognition due to every individual in that process of communicative reasoning”. This essay aims to analyse human rights, the purpose they serve and how they have been used in modern society. It aims to look at practical situations and see how effectively human rights have been used in society and to what extent they have complemented emancipation. It serves to show that human rights are not sufficient for an emancipatory theoretical praxis. In describing emancipation, we find that it needs to be a part of popular politics, an essentially human based experience. A commitment to human rights cannot be sufficient if it does not ensure that those very rights can completely be realised. Without the commitment to actual individual realisation, human rights can never be sufficient for an emancipatory praxis.

Sharra on Englund, 'Prisoners of Freedom: Human Rights and the African Poor'

Harri Englund. Prisoners of Freedom: Human Rights and the African Poor. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2006. xi + 247 pp. $21.95 (paper), 

Reviewed by Steve Sharra (Michigan State University)
Published on H-SAfrica (June, 2007)

A Guest Who Brings Sharp Tweezers: Rights, Freedoms and Disempowerment in the New Malawi

For most Malawians, the biggest news story of 2006 was the adoption of the thirteen-month-old baby boy David Banda by the mega pop star Madonna. The adoption caused a storm both in Malawi and outside, but for very different reasons. Most of the views expressed in the mainstream media and on blogs in the West focused on whether Madonna was adopting David for reasons to do with enhancing her own media image; yet in Malawi, the debate was on why human rights non-governmental organizations (NGOs) were opposing the adoption. As far as comments expressed in the Malawian media and on the street went, human rights NGOs opposing the adoption were doing so for reasons that had little to do with baby David's welfare, and everything to do with the NGOs' own image. Many Malawians saw the NGOs' actions as defending themselves from accusations that all they cared for was for their pockets and prestige, as evidenced by the conspicuous, sudden wealth acquired by NGO activists, from expensive SUVs to mansions in Malawi's big cities.

Beyond Malawi’s academic freedom debate

by Steve Sharra, Pambazuka

The month of October marks eight months since lecturers at Chancellor College, University of Malawi, stopped teaching, demanding guarantees of academic freedom. Despite verbal assurances from President Bingu wa Mutharika for a win-win solution to the problems that have brought Chancellor College to a halt, it remains closed.

Prisoners of Freedom Human Rights and the African Poor

In this vivid ethnography, Harri Englund investigates how ideas of freedom impede struggles against poverty and injustice in emerging democracies. Reaching beyond a narrow focus on the national elite, Prisoners of Freedom shows how foreign aid and human rights activism hamper the pursuit of democratic citizenship in Africa. The book explores how activists’ aspirations of self-improvement, pursued under harsh economic conditions, find in the human rights discourse a new means to distinguish oneself from the poor masses.

Among expatriates, the emphasis on abstract human rights avoids confrontations with the political and business elites. Drawing on long-term research among the Malawian poor, Englund brings to life the personal circumstances of Malawian human rights activists, their expatriate benefactors, and the urban and rural poor as he develops a fresh perspective on freedom—one that recognizes the significance of debt, obligation, and civil virtues.