Hello Ade,

I am afraid that human rights are sometimes respected if it matches a bigger picture, some superior agenda. They are unfortunately often "put on the shelf" when power and money come into play.

Regards

Hi. You might have a better understanding and justification on reasons why international norms failed to implement universal human rights by reading about the powers of global governance. States have stronger power to deny and disapprove minority rights through their structural power. States gain structural power through historical background, relationship between sexes, national laws, culture, religious interpretation. These indicators of structural power are shaped & influenced heavily by the majority groups of a country. What is the truth and right determine by the majority perspective.

Hofstede, Hofstede and Minkov's (2010) power-distance and masculine-femininity dimensions (among others) may help to explain why there are inequalities in society (and why some are more unequal than others), and how they are reinforced in the family, schooling and other state and private institutes.

Also note that some argue that human rights are a western idea, and are very individualistic. There have been other treaties such as the UNDRIP that have addressed this, and it is written in terms of rights of the group.

Some of the wording of the UDHR would be considered discriminatory in many western countries, and maybe normal in others:

"Everyone who works has the right to just and favourable remuneration ensuring for himself and his family an existence worthy of human dignity, and supplemented, if necessary, by other means of social protection."

So the idea that the UDHR itself isn't perfect.

References:

Hofstede, G. H., Hofstede, G. J., & Minkov, M. (2010). Cultures and organizations: software of the mind ; intercultural cooperation and its importance for survival (Rev. and expanded 3. ed). New York: McGraw-Hill.

Can you explain a bit more what you mean by "privilege of a minority" since that is a flip of the typical usage of privilege, generally associated with majority status?

The Universal Declaration was the result of heroic efforts, spearheaded by Eleanor Roosevelt at the UN, but it passed a long time ago.  It was a strong first step, but more was needed.

During the 30 interviews I did with democratization NGOs in South Africa, I heard a great deal about socio-economic rights.  Not only are they essential to enhance equity, they can also provide a firm underpinning for the political rights first embedded in the Declaration.

The impression I have is that inorder to maintain the status quo completely erroneous readings about Human Rights were being built and there are institutions which are structured to defend them. I live in a country where people and institutions which cherish the universal rights are consistently hit. It is true that the arguments do not sustain themselves. They are speeches linked to opportunism and seem to aim exceptions. For example: An underage boy is arrested for extremely violent assaults or gang command, or because he killed. It is said, "is that the reason why there are human rights defenders? "Or, at the other extreme: police men are cruelly killed by criminals and again people who care for human rights are questioned: "Why aren´t the human rights people touched by the cruel death of this policeman? "In other words, the current thinking is that institutions and individuals who advocate and call for attention to human rights are treated badly and associated with advocates and supporters of "criminals". The actions in limited forums let this big question: universal Human Rights for whom? So maybe it is the case of promoting large enlightening campaigns so that people could have a better idea of what Human Rights entail.

There are many aspects to this - and the one that is in my opinion the least considered, though a crucially important one: the definition of HR is based in the justification of fundamentally unequal societies and a "Western" conceptualisation. This is not said to downplay the enormously positive meaning of these rights but we should not forget this as qualifying aspect. And as such it means that we have to move fundamentally beyond the current understanding to overcome the structural flaws. Part of it can well be seen in the recent debate on the new goals, not least employed by considerations of taking the rights of controlling production into account.

Universal human rights are basically a twitterized form of the Englightment's trio: equality, liberty and fraternity. They are OK as the basis of general guidance, but not enough to guarantee fair implementation - the latter is a matter of a due process, namely of the ongoing process of fair and acessible negotiation. Inequalities cannot be countered if media play the role of Plato's cave and smokescreen daring extravaganzas of powers that be. But smokescreens can be blown away and inequalities can and should be countered.

The concept of human rights is a Western invention, meant to be about the violation of certain basic rights of humans in the world, but this idea has been extended in recent decades to mean that Western nations have an obligation to accept hordes of "refugees" and immigrants. Human rights has been redefined to mean that Western nations have an obligation to accept immigrants even though immigration is destroying all Western nations, as people who are not liberal minded, and have no concept of individual rights, are being given citizenship. 

http://www.express.co.uk/comment/columnists/leo-mckinstry/617147/Mass-immigration-verge-destroying-Europe

Saint John demanding respect of arrogance?

Still, though I think this is complete unqualified, even you point out one of the structural dilemmata: the conceptualisation of human rights as individual rights and the inability of European thinking (the one you celebrate)  to develop a sound social and societal understanding ... - but howe could such thinking, being based in pursing private property rights as ultimate idea, do differently. The result: some "charity rights", not only denying the rights of others, but furthermore defining otherness as "wrong".

At least as Saint John you dig out own grave

perhaps of interest

https://www.timeshighereducation.com/features/black-and-ethnic-minorities-still-have-mountains-to-climb-in-higher-education

http://www.humanite.fr/infographie-portrait-social-de-la-france-et-de-leurope-en-crise-la-sante-588847?IdTis=XTC-FT08-A68XFR-DD-YFOL-FM8Y

It is not "only" about inequality but indeed about the structural flaws within the system where a very specific understanding of the rights in question systematically undermines the factual enhancement (not implementation) of these rights ...

I can't decipher what Hermann is saying, but I can guess it is just one more statement among a million others made every month in academia to the effect that Europeans are responsible for "structural inequalities" in the world. This is a rather poor argument which fails to grasp that Europeans are responsible for their own success, but Europe is now facing a major crisis as hordes of immigrants force their way into Europe enticed not only by the failures of their own cultures but also by an elite in Europe that believes in the insane idea that immigrants from Africa and Muslim countries are "enriching" Europe when the evidence is clear that it is leading to systematic rape epidemics and welfare exploitation, destruction of European identity, and lowering incomes for the native European working classes. 

"can't decipher" - bit you dare a reply, outing you also by showing that you aren't even able to correctly the name of the discussant you refer to ... - oh glorious culture  -- sorry to all, I hesitated a long time to send this comment on such nothingness of intellectual position ... - but this denial of rights, or even of understanding what HR are represent a frightening position ... - at least from my side RD is dead as far s comments are concerned - though I did not kill him ...

International human rights are, as things stand largely a myth or at best a wish list.  Inequality is not compatible with universal rights because inequality is determined by some having more rights than others.  

In the economic & political model that is almost entirely 'universal' in human society the facility to accumulate material wealth determines that some will have unlimited access to facilities and resources while others will be denied them.  The accumulation of the power that comes with wealth also concentrates rights in the hands of a few.

Hierarchical societies built on wealth cannot produce universal rights.  It is not possible to get rich without exploiting the environment and those who live in it and even the most enlightened capitalists do this.  

Thanks Barry. Which then means THIS enlightenment hampers not just HR as universal but makes it impossible to develop on this foundation UHR, right?

I tend to agree, and at the same time I am wondering: aren't HR in THIS tradition go a step further (stepping back behind their own claim) and actually justifying inequality as rightful? The previous racist remarks would be a confirmation of it, wouldn't they?

The das Handwörterbuch der Rechtswissenschaft, Supplement from 1937 (sic) speaks defines the "Rechtsstaat", using the words

"Rechtsstaat ist die organisierte Lebensform des Volkes zur Sicherung des Rechtes des Volkes auf Leben nach innen und außen.… Der nationalsozialistische Staat erhebt die Rechtsstaatsidee von einer formalen zu einer materiellen Idee.… Dieser materielle Rechtsstaat bedarf keiner formalen Freiheitsgarantie; denn er besitzt die viel stärkere materielle Freiheitsgarantie der Einheit der totalen Grundanschauung"

In my opinion  these extremes are externally appalling, but pointing at the same time at some structural flaw - and of course, the difficulty is to avoid throwing the baby out with the bathing water. Still, I always found the sequence of the trinity: Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité remarkable - something we see today again when we look at the EU: establishing Freedom of the market, establishing the equality of the unequals and appending solidarity. In terms of legal doctrine (Rechtsdogmatik) a major issue which I frequently discussed with H.F. Zacher whose work I would recommend 

Are you serious?  'Hordes of refugees and immigrants' ?  Do you include yourself and your fellow citizens in that description?  The bulk of the population of North America is made up of descendants from such people.  Indeed if we go further back in history the evidence suggests that we are all, in the West, descended from people who initially emigrated from Africa!  Human rights are supposed to be that - 'human' not 'Western'.  They are therefore supposed to be bestowed on all of us regardless of our origins.  I think the 'West' needs to be reminded also about its historical and contemporary relationship with the 'Rest' of the world.  That will help explain the antipathy, even hatred felt to things 'Western' in some many parts of the world.  It will also help to explain, most of the current conflicts in developing world countries.  Finally, it will help to explain why more and more people are turning to a distorted ideology/philosophy  (jihadism) in the (mistaken, in my view) hope that it will provide them with liberation from Western imperialism.  The West, after centuries of ripping off the Rest of the world needs to consider its responsibilities for the mess in which the world is now in.  Bombing civilian populations, propping up dictators and military juntas, who have been putty in our hands, is not going to build a sustainable environment.  We need to change our relationship with other human being across the world.

All debates such as these make bold declarations about human rights as if they were handed down by some higher being.  Before talking about the universality of human rights we need to look more closely at what this over generalised term means.

We divide rights into inalienable and qualified rights, so it is quite clear that there is no 'universal' principle.  We do not and cannot have unbridled rights because many of them are entirely incompatible with each other let alone cultural norms.

We cannot allow universally unbridled fee speech since when unbridled it is the basis of every kind of bullying, intimidation and inequitable dogmatism.

We cannot allow universal freedom because criminals use it to prey on the vulnerable.

We cannot allow universal privacy because privacy is used by the powerful to deceive and cheat as well as protect the rights of individuals.  

Rights to property ownership facilitate some owning vast wealth while other go without.  Private property ownership is entirely incompatible with universal rights or fairness.

Even the inalienable right to life is a myth.  Does a mass murderer with an automatic rifle have right to continue an existence that involves shooting 20 school children or his workmates or should a police man shoot him dead to stop it. 

Human rights like everything else in the human condition are variable, not universal.

I agree with Fellim above, 'human rights' usually means western rights, a system we have abused to justify every kind of hegemony, despotism and inequality that suits the powers that be in the western world.

In the last 15 years our desire to impose 'human rights' in the shape of western values has robbed millions of their most fundamental needs never mind their 'rights'.

Yes, Barry, "but" ... - the question I am asking is still is about the universalisation if rights - and this is what I meant saying that the establishment of THESE HR as universal and the claim of THIS enlightenment actually directed the entire process, is thus underlying what you mention. The other question is still that these human rights, with al these problems, secure at least in some instances at least some form of protection which is surely better than nothing  - even though exactly this protectionism is problematic in exactly these terms. catch 22?

Feilim at least deserves credit for making intelligible statements, though they can easily be proven wrong with some critical reflection. He questions the term "hordes of immigrants" by stating that the population of North American consists of the same kind of immigrants/refugees one sees arriving in Europe today. Well, for starters, the nations of American and Canada were created by European pioneers, settlers and nation builders. For those who like to repeat that "we are all immigrants" without even checking the evidence, but simply because they are expected to say so, let me remind you that Canada, for example, was 96% ethnically European as late as 1971 when multiculturalism was first introduced. The nation of Canada, in other words, was created by European; all the institutions, educational system, legal system, religion, values, were European.  Therefore, it is a mistake to say that Canada was created by the same type of immigrants that are arriving today in North America and Europe. 

Feilim then makes the standard dogmatic statement that we are all descendants from Africa. I am not an expert on this issue, so perhaps he would he care to explain why would evolution ceased the moment Homo sapiens migrated out of Africa about 50,000 years ago? Darwinian theory says that different environments have different selective pressures and that populations that are separated for thousands of years will develop distinctive genetic features. See the easily understood book by New York Times science writer, Nicholas Wade, Before the Dawn: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Before_the_Dawn_%28book%29

Add to this the major cultural differences that evolved in different locations of the earth. How can one simply say that all humans are alike and that it would be great if all humans on  earth were mixed, becoming generic beings without any distinctive racial and cultural characteristics? This would be great for the corporations to have customers with generic cultural and racial traits across the earth shopping in the same generic companies, but it would be really bad for the precious diversity of the world. Mass immigration into Europe is destroying the ethnic and cultural identity of Europeans. The Japanese, Koreans, and every other non-European nation are correct to engage in globalization without destroying their identity by not allowing immigration and not believing in the the lie of multiculturalism. 

The last statement Feilim makes about Europeans deserving to be culturally invaded by hordes of immigrants because of their colonial practices makes no sense; for one, many non-Europeans empires were colonial, including the imperialistic Muslims who were involved in slavery until the European taught them that all humans have rights. For another, Europeans were the progenitors of human rights, the creators of the modern world, of all the technologies you see around, the ones who abolished slavery, so keep these facts in mind.

Peter

You are correct that having some recognition of human rights is an improvement on not recognising them at all.  What I am saying is not that we should not recognise human rights but that we need to qualify them.  

The concept of universal human rights is intimately related to universal love and peace and that is related to universal fulfilment, equality, opportunity and respect.

None of these desirable conditions exists in any 'universal' sense and it is an easily sustainable argument that they cannot exist in a world of 'national interests' and capitalism.  Those concepts are utterly incompatible with equality, opportunity and respect.  They are however, at this point in the 21st century a fact.  

If we can reach a state where there are no countries, no money and no individual accumulation of property we will be somewhere near a world of universal human rights.

Since 1945 tens of millions of people have been killed in wars, hundreds of millions enslaved by despots and dictators, billions left to starve and suffer hideous depredations.  The bold declarations on human rights arising out of the ashes of WW2 and the foundation of the UN did not help, indeed in many cases contributed to their suffering.

We cannot maintain the status quo and have universal human rights.  The system we live under, almost universally is built on some being far better off than others.  We cannot have human rights in a world where some countries accumulate and control all the wealth while others struggle to provide the most basic provision for their people.

The comments above about 'hordes of migrants' is the most glaring example.  Migrants are gravitating to the rich and stable countries because they will have more rights, more peace and more opportunities there.  Who can blame them?  The countries they are coming from are victims of western imperialism and even after 100 years the effects of that imperialism are causing the wars and sectarianism of today.  

If we want human rights we need to abolish nations not 'unite' them.  If we want to abolish poverty we need to abolish wealth, not redistribute it.  Only when all humans are really equal will there be any possibility of universal human rights.

Interesting lively debate which is reflective of the dichotomy in thinking on this subject, I suggest. To begin at the end,

@ Ricardo I beg to differ on the state interested and or populist approach to European immigration. Certainly caution and prudence is required when dealing with the large numbers of human beings affected by the Migration Crisis, the Refugee Crisis and the Reception Crisis. However, capitalistic exploitation by colonial powers and globalisation has contributed to unequal distribution of wealth within and between countries. To try and excuse this by alluding to violations by others does not provide a solution to the problem. Implementation of the UDHR 1948 has evolved through various treaties and conventions including ICERD 1966, the Vienna and Durban Declarations which all profess the universality of human rights in theory if not in practice. Moreover the reasons for the Abolition of the Transatlantic Slave Trade and Slavery in European colonies remains debateable, and Haiti was not liberated by iEurope.

@ Felim Thanks ...  I (also) think the 'West' needs to be reminded also about its historical and contemporary relationship with the 'Rest' of the world... as do those of us calling for  recognition of the International Decade for People of African  descent and.reparations for Afro descendants of enslaved peoples.

@ Peter ... as you correctly observe the universality of human rights norms is threatened, and no doubt has always been by state interests, realists etc ...

My question was however not focused specifically on western democracies, but concerned with how human rights can be protected for inclusive achievement of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Sustainable development is a rights based approach to development, and human rights are unequally realised globally.

http://www.equalrightstrust.org/ertdocumentbank/ERR%2013%20-%20interview.pdf

Peter

You are correct that having some recognition of human rights is an improvement on not recognising them at all.  What I am saying is not that we should not recognise human rights but that we need to qualify them.  

The concept of universal human rights is intimately related to universal love and peace and that is related to universal fulfilment, equality, opportunity and respect.

None of these desirable conditions exists in any 'universal' sense and it is an easily sustainable argument that they cannot exist in a world of 'national interests' and capitalism.  Those concepts are utterly incompatible with equality, opportunity and respect.  They are however, at this point in the 21st century a fact.  

If we can reach a state where there are no countries, no money and no individual accumulation of property we will be somewhere near a world of universal human rights.

Since 1945 tens of millions of people have been killed in wars, hundreds of millions enslaved by despots and dictators, billions left to starve and suffer hideous depredations.  The bold declarations on human rights arising out of the ashes of WW2 and the foundation of the UN did not abolish war, starvation, poverty and injustice, indeed in many cases they contributed to it. Berthold Brecht put it succinctly in the allegorical drama The resistible Rise of Arturo Ui when warning us not to rejoice too enthusiastically the destruction of Hitler and the Nazis.

"Do not rejoice in his defeat, you men. For though the world has stood up and  stopped the bastard, the bitch that bore him is in heat again"

 We cannot maintain the status quo and have universal human rights.  The system we live under, almost universally is built on some being far better off than others.  We cannot have human rights in a world where some countries accumulate and control all the wealth while others struggle to provide the most basic provision for their people.

The comments above about 'hordes of migrants' is the most glaring example.  Migrants are gravitating to the rich and stable countries because they will have more rights, more peace and more opportunities there.  Who can blame them?  The countries they are coming from are victims of western imperialism and even after 100 years the effects of that imperialism are causing the wars and sectarianism of today.  

If we want human rights we need to abolish nations not 'unite' them.  If we want to abolish poverty we need to abolish wealth, not redistribute it.  Only when all humans are really equal will there be any possibility of universal human rights.

@ Deborah  ... by the privilege of a minority I mean a situation as exists now where universal human rights are not realised by the majority of the world's population, hence the need to address inequality within and between countries, (SDG10). E.g. members of the African diaspora encounter disproportionate violations of human rights e.g. in access to education, employment and justice, which impedes their development individually and as a group.

http://www.un.org/en/events/africandescentdecade/index.shtml

Yes and no, Barry - and also yes and no, Ade;

I agree - for now - on the points you make when it comes to nation states, profit making etc. as being incompatible with truly universal and human rights - and in this way I suggest to emphasise more what you say: it is THIS system that causes UHR as structurally impossible and even “naturally breached”, i.e. it is in the nature of imperialism (the highest form of capitalism and thus intrinsically linked to nation states …). In this light the supposed “hordes” are actually just coming "to reclaim what had been taken from them” (see Andfre Gunder Frank’s work for instance, on the development of underdevelopment ...)

However and because I agree on this I would hesitate to sign that

"The concept of universal human rights is intimately related to universal love and peace”.

though I would say yes

"to universal fulfilment, equality, opportunity and respect”.

The point I suggest here is that the first you mention are ultimately “subjective”, somewhat voluntarist dimensions - and there is not only nobody who could legally insist on their implementation, moreover there is not even any way to define such “values”. They may be good as “normative support”, however APPENDING to necessary objective, structural factors (spending, not forgoing). Still not easy, but I guess useful if seen as instrument for searching there structural dimension - the stuff we try to do without the Social Quality stuff, reflected in many of my publications (please, excuse self-ad).

All this still leaves us with the problem: The UN-declaration is at least in some way a progress: a general recognition, though not "implemented” but instead structurally hampered … .

As you refer to Brecht, here another German: Kurt Bachmann, in the first FRG-Parliament, member of the communist party, stated something like “We now vote against the German basic law, though it will be one day us (the communists) who will have to defend them.” And this had been true, indeed.

Now with this there comes another point, and that is linked to what Ade addresses: Nolens volens we are living in a world that is characterised by nation states; and it is under these conditions that we have to defend the claims of (weak) nation states and their population against (strong) nation states. Though the difficulty then is/will be: we are dealing with states though we actually mean the people - although as well in the weak nation states not identical and often opposed to the nation state. - Feilim surely can comment on this from Ireland. And comments are surely also interesting from UK/Scotland; Spain/Catalonia/Basque … etc. pp.

So a serious issue remains - as question: Do we have to fight for national rights in order to overcome imperialist strives? Do we have to call for norms in order to claim the change of structures …?

It is somewhat funny (not to say shows part of the ridiculous aspects going hand in hand with ...): If you have ever been at one of the UN-HQs, the possibly more interesting part is the one you do not see: the battle that is concerned with he seating order and the order of the flags ...

So I should have said in the beginning:

I agree - for later - on the points ...

Barry Turner's argument that nations should be abolished is one that corporations seeking open markets, cheap migrant labour, and low environmental standards, would agree with. It is also an argument that naive leftists with ideas no more profound that Lennon's song "Imagine" still dream about. It is really a horrible idea, a nightmare, that would result in the utter destruction of European identity.

Turner talks a lot about human rights but shows zero sympathy for the human rights of European natives and working classes currently suffering under the massive migrant invasion. See links below.

Africa is poor not because of European colonialism but internal political flaws, corruption, politicians with dozens of wives, backward culture, bad education, lack of work ethic, otherwise how do we explain modernization of many former colonies in Asia. Blaming European people, the vast majority of whom never participated in colonialism, is absurd. How is Sweden responsible for migrant crisis,  or Norway, or Switzerland, or most of the countries in Europe? Why should these countries be invaded by hordes of migrants and their women raped?

Here are few links on the real consequences of the migrant invasion, which has to be seen in the context of systematic promotion of diversity throughout Europe and endless waves of migrants from Africa

http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/6527/migrants-rape-germany

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3240010/Number-refugees-arriving-Europe-soars-85-year-just-one-five-war-torn-Syria.html

http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/5195/sweden-rape

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cCOLcMqdpls

Documentary: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ky3ZresFd2k

@ Ricardo I dare suggest it is naïve or even ignorant to excuse capitalistic over exploitation of Africa's  factors of production, as being caused by "internal political flaws (...) lack of work ethic". Colonialism and neocolonialism have played a major role in the "psychosocial" and economic impoverishment of former European colonies.  Moreover, no other continent experienced the genocide and mass enslavement of its peoples in theTransatlantic Slave Trade which Africa did prior to colonial rule. With this in mind, I do not think the rhetoric used in your assertion that "hordes of migrants" are invading Europe, etc,  is a response to my question.  

Inequality has historic roots in scientific racism which was used to justify slavery and racial discrimination in the 17th and 18th century, and still no doubt is today.

See The Origins of Scientific RacismJohn P. Jackson, Jr. and Nadine M. Weidman

The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education

No. 50 (Winter, 2005/2006), pp. 66-79

http://www.jstor.org/stable/25073379

NO!

It is an inconvenient historical truth is that ALL (and I mean literally 100%) of customary international law has been crystallized by the so-called developed world (western Europe, and North America plus Japan, Australasia and Israel). The remainder of the world--90% of the planet's population--have been proven to be collectively impotent in generating any customary legal principle that does not receive the support and recognition of the neo-colonialist elite.

So, in short: international human rights law, at least in its non-treaty form--is nothing more than the continuation of neo-imperialism by other means.

... except for the influence of  ICERD 1966, the  Durban Declaration and its Plan of Action, international jurisprudence including the SERAC case etc etc... which have had input of varying degrees from regional human rights bodies, governments and states outside of Europe and North America. I don't think your assertion is justified.... but then that was not my question.

Ricardo

It is precisely because you see humans in terms of Europeans and others that that you misunderstand my comments.  I am neither a corporatist nor a naive lefty and as for ignoring the human rights of the working class in Europe, I am far more affected by their human rights and what you perceive to be a migrant invasion than you are likely to be.

While I agree that the current influx of migrants is appalling ill conceived and preposterously mismanaged it is not the fault of the migrants themselves.  They are just people with children and aspirations of a better life, just like the 'swarm' of migrants that invaded America over a hundred years ago.

Did the Italians, Irish, Germans, Poles, Russians, Greeks, Chinese, Japanese, plus tens of millions of people forced to 'migrate' there as slaves, and so many more immigrants 'ruin' the United States.  Is it not the E Pluribus Unum philosophy that actually made the United States.

Sweden is not responsible for the Migrant Crisis, Sweden is a nation state not a sentient being.  The Migrant Crisis is multi-factorial but a large amount of the responsibility is that of the 'developed world' 

Africa is not poor because of its own inherent corruption but because it is in large part corrupted by the 'developed world' which, with the aid of corrupt westerners working in tandem with corrupt politicians in the African states keep the vast majority of the population poor and down trodden to suit the greed of a tiny fraction.  

No one blames the European people for colonialism, fortunately most of those who were involved in this are dead and gone but Europeans & the Chinese for that matter still treat African countries as 'colonies' to be exploited, not as partner states with equal rights and respect.

European identity cannot be 'destroyed'.   Which European Identity are you talking about?  Should we be saddened by the fact that the 'European Identity' that brought about two catastrophic world wars has fortunately died out?  Is the European Identity of chauvinism, despotism and internecine fighting lasting over a thousand years something to be missed?  Would it perhaps be better if we had retained the European Identity of Kaisers, Czars and tinpot princelings lording it over disenfranchised populations?

If protecting European Identity (I myself am very proud to be European) requires watching while millions are bombed, starved and persecuted then it is not worth protecting.  If protecting European Identity means protecting capitalism and hegemony it is a failure as a culture.  We may be a long way from universal human rights but pulling up the drawbridge and hiding behind fences will not bring human rights to anyone, especially those hidden behind the fence. 

In reply to Ade Olaiya, who would have us believe that slavery was introduced to Africa by Europeans, let it be known that Africans were long enslaving each other when the Europeans began to export slaves to the New World; the Europeans were merely making use of a long standing slave market in Africa. Europeans were no longer enslaving each other in the Middle Ages, but they did participate in the slave trade that existed in Africa, but then they abolished slavery altogether. Moreover, be aware that Muslims carried a slave trade that lasted the longest time in Africa, http://originalpeople.org/the-arab-muslim-slave-trade-of-africans-the-untold-story/

Yes, it was the Europeans who abolished the enslavement of humans, and that without this abolition non-Europeans would have continued practising slavery. 

If Turner is serious about what he says, then he should take this video seriously and stop blaming his own people for problems caused by corporate elites rather than ordinary people in Europe: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=44vzMNG2fZc

Ricardo

Criticism and blame are two different concepts.  I do not blame 'my own people'  I am a member of the species Homo Sapien Sapien, they are my people.  the species is not responsible for the aberrant behaviour of its individual members. 

I am fully aware that Africans enslaved Africans, that Arabs did so that Europeans enslaved Africans and lots of others for that matter and that yes, The British ended slavery.

We British have achieved great things in history but we also did some pretty lousy things.  Our Empire was not benign, no empire is.  We have caused untold misery and suffering to many including our 'own people' to use Señor Duchesne's quaint classification.  

I do not 'blame' the current generations of the British for the manifest excesses of our forebears but I do criticise with perfect justification the serious wrong that has been done in my country's name.  I am able to see the wrongs that my country does today and in a pluralistic democracy have every right to denounce them.  If that is some sort of betrayal of heritage then that heritage is worthless.

Reactionary chauvinism, which extend to blaming Africans for their own enslavement is utterly disingenuous and offers no possibility of redemption or universal human rights.  

By the way, could I ask that Señor Duchesne's comments are not subjected to down votes.  Scientists and scholars do not down vote people, they argue with them.  Down voting is underhand and deceitful.  It is much better that those are told directly that they are talking nonsense.  

I always get down-votes for the simple reason that my views go against the academic grain and most are unable to handle them intellectually. Problem with academics is that they are out of touch with much recent research; and their answers are becoming glaringly wrong and boring.

Turner writes: "I am a member of the species Homo Sapien Sapien, they are my people."

Well, this is what academics always say, but it is a false argument for it ignores the   dramatic evolutionary divergences that occurred after Homo Sapiens Sapiens migrated out of Africa. I have already cited this book, Before the Dawn, by Nicholas Wade, which has a Wiki entry. Here is a passage from this entry:

"After humans migrated out of their ancestral environment of eastern Africa, they were exposed to new climates and challenges. Thus, Wade argues, human evolution did not end with behavioural modernity, but continued to be shaped by the different environments and lifestyles of each continent. While many adaptations happened in parallel across human populations, Wade believes that genetic isolation – either because of geography or hostile tribalism – also facilitated a degree of independent evolution, leading to genetic and cultural differentiation from the ancestral population and giving rise to different human races and languages."

Now, if we are diverse racially, and if you believe in diversity, why would you support the lie that immigration and race mixing, which is being promoted all across the West, is a good idea since it will dissolve the real racial diversity of the world? 

The hidden meaning behind Turner's claim that he is loyal to Homo Sapiens Sapiens is that he has not particular loyalty to the English people, and the land of his birthplace, England, and does not care that England's identity is being destroyed by hordes of immigrants. So he plays up his loyalty to an abstraction for the sake of hiding is lack of loyalty to his people. 

Notice how he automatically identifies any form of European identity with chauvinism and wars; if so, why not call the ethnic nationalism of the Japanese today, the Chinese, the Koreans, across the non-European world, *where immigration is not allowed*, and the governments have openly stated that they wish to retain their ethnic identity, chauvinistic? The fact is that immigration is what creates tensions and the liberal democracies of the West were born in racially homogeneous states such as England, Sweden, Nordic countries,  whereas national chauvinism was born in the former Austro-Hungarian empire, where there were a lot of races coexisting together.

See my article on the flaws of Canadian immigration,  which grants collective rights to non-Europeans, as well  as individual rights, while denying the founding Eurocandians any collective rights. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/280924210_Will_Kymlicka_and_the_disappearing_Dominion?ev=prf_pub 

The ultimate denial of human rights is the denial of collective ethnic rights to Europeans,which is the fundamental cultural right, as it relates to cultural survival and the preservation of difference in the world.  But the left and the corporate right have come together in their effort to destroy European identity. The right wants global consumers and impersonal and generic companies, the left hates  European identity, is disloyal to its own heritage and ancestors and follows a cultural Marxist view.

Article Will Kymlicka and the disappearing Dominion

Ricardo

I have studied European history for decades (especially German history) that is why I talk of chavinism.  Are you really suggesting that chauvinism does not present front and centre in European history?

Suggesting that I am disloyal to 'the English people' is preposterous! What English people might that be?  I am British in any case, England ceased to be a political entity a very long time ago.

I am suggesting that Europeans invented liberal democratic government without promoting diversity and right at the same time that they were creating nationally united nation-states. The notion that liberalism and human rights requires Europeans to open their borders to mass immigration is wrong and should be identified as a culturally Marxist idea. Google the term "cultural Marxist" if you want to know that it means to be cultural Marxist.

Any individual who says that Europeans must accept diversity and mass immigration is disloyal to their own people, the native working classes that are suffering the brunt of the immigrant invasion, the white girls getting raped across Europe.

Assuming we want to talk about human rights, why don't the "humanitarian academics here, and I am speaking to the Europeans, have a kind word to say about the British white girls being systematically raped by Muslims? See Below.

I say I am speaking to Europeans, since I take it as a given that non-Europeans, even those who are citizens of Europe, the majority of them, are interested in promoting their own ethnic interests, and they exploit European notions of human rights to advance their very particular ethnocentric interests against Europeans.  

http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/5386/british-girls-raped-oxford

http://lawandfreedomfoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/Easy-Meat-Multiculturalism-Islam-and-Child-Sex-Slavery-05-03-2014.pdf

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5kED4R01WgA

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=2a8_1419184684 

Ricardo

Your oversimplification of a complex set of issues resembles Marxism far more than you would imagine.  The failure of the Communist Manifesto is that Marx and Engels had little real understanding of the beliefs and customs of the proletariat.  You similarly have no such understanding, apparently preferring an extreme right wing reactionary interpretation of events to real ones.

It is only because I am a 'humanitarian academic' that I respect your right of free expression to spout racist diatribes at a whole cultural groupings based on the fact that a tiny minority of them are criminals.  I work with many Muslims who I am reasonable certain are no more inclined to rape white girls than anyone ethically European or Christian..

In reality of course your torrents of racially motivated hate speech add nothing of value to the debate and inflame public disorder, just like the propaganda you readily advise us all to watch.  

Contrary to your faux outrage about us 'weak kneed liberals' not sticking up for our cultures and protecting 'our womenfolk'  Most humanitarian academics, as you so derisorily call anyone who disagrees with you are equally appalled by the hideous abuse perpetrated by some 'migrants'.  Oddly enough I am also disgusted by the similar antics of those who like to call themselves 'indigenous' but I don't assume that because some English people are violent sex offenders that it is a trait of their nationality or religion. 

Your vicarious 'loyalty' to an idealised European culture is quite quaint but is like most right wing paranoia unreflective of real European society.

I am now out of this discussion.

Boy, I sure wish that we could have enlightening and uplifting debates like this on Researchgate every week!

With academic discourse like this, who needs crypto-Fascists?

 Not sure if human rights should be protected as if they were family jewels displayed only on some occasions. I see them as a step forward compared to the three universal principles of the French revolution, which in turn were a secularized version of the Ten Commandments. The ideological smokescreens are slowly disappearing under the reality check of mass migrations south to north, but Malta meeting is a band aid where surgeries are needed.

The real funny Thing is, that first everybody can see the inequalities in the world, second the changing climate, third devastating wars and fourth the well known tendency of humans to escape dangerous situations by flight.

And still the film "The Mahdi" ("Der Marsch" by William Nicholson, 1990) and others didn´t give enough warning to Change some things in the politics earlier.

In Germany we asked foreigners to come to work here as Gastarbeiter since the 50ies. It was stated Long ago the not workers but human beings have been coming. Still the German policy is not anticipating any Problem regarding Immigration but only reacting when they ultimately are forced to react.  

This is not exactly the answer to your question (so i will make sth similar a new question of mine) but may be gives some Impression and help.

Barry Turner, it has now been revealed, is not interested in objectively based assessments of the issue of rapes by immigrants in Europe; he thinks that an article which merely points to the fact that Muslims commit a *disproportionate* number of the rapes amounts to a racially motivated statement. First, Muslims do not constitute a race, therefore it cannot be a racially motivated statement. Second, there can be no social scientific statement unless we are willing to make statistical statements to the effect, in this instance, that Muslims and immigrants generally from Africa, have been committing most of the rapes. This is not to say, as Barry in his confused mind thinks, that most Muslims commit rapes. It is simply to say what this article has observed: http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/5195/sweden-rape

But since Barry has no answers to what I have said, he resorts to name-calling and efforts to manipulate the arguments with venom about  racism and the like. 

I have noticed that most academics today are unable to handle a debate, as is clear from Eric Wilson's statement about criyto-Fascists, which is intended to close-off debate, which should be a cardinal principle of academia and an open society. Note how Barry's argument consists in no more than the taking of offence or the playing of the victim, as a ploy to dominate a debate which he cannot handle statistically or intellectually. This attitude has made debate next to impossible in academia. 

This way of debating results in the closing down of the sort of questioning or critical thinking we are supposed to be engaged in an open society. Notice how Eric Wilson has nothing to say other than some truncated statement that is devoid of meaning and is intended to label those he disagree with. 

So, I go back to my initial point: how can we talk about human rights while ignoring the way *mass* immigration is destroying the cultures of Europe and the West, the way people like Barry are silent about the rape epidemics in his own country against girls just because he does not want to challenge his vision of diversity and his hatred for European nations. He says I quote sources that cannot be trusted, but here is one from a leading British philosopher, Roger Scruton: "Why Did British Police Ignore Pakistani Gangs Abusing 1,400 Rotherham Children? Political Correctness"

http://www.forbes.com/sites/rogerscruton/2014/08/30/why-did-british-police-ignore-pakistani-gangs-raping-rotherham-children-political-correctness/

Even the BBC, after years of ignoring what the "extreme right" was saying about systematic raping, could not longer ignore this fact: 

As is cited here: "Several staff described their nervousness about identifying the ethnic origins of perpetrators for fear of being thought as racist".

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-south-yorkshire-28939089

Well, I am not afraid of identifying the perpetrators, as I believe in human rights, liberal values, unlike my critics. 

I find some of the sources quoted questionable for the purposes of academic research. Moreover, the rhetoric of structural discrimination and systemic racism is both inappropriate and offensive in this discourse.

Ricardo is again distorting issues to suit his own Weltanschauung.

Let me make it clear.  

I am proud of the positive elements of my English/French/German heritage.

I can be proud of it and still criticise the excesses of my ancestors and the policies and actions of my contemporaries.  Ricardo seems not to have the intellectual capacity to appreciate that it is quite possible to self criticise without being 'unpatriotic' or being some kind of Crypto-Marxist.  One our greatest Englishmen (although not one of its best known liberals) Oliver Cromwell coined the expression "warts and all".

Cromwell was simultaneously a founder of parliamentary democracy as well as a military dictator.  Paradoxes are possible in history.

I do denounce the criminal activities of minority groups but I do not judge entire cultures by the activities of a minority of them.  When I was in legal practice I noticed a significant number of extortion gangs preying on migrant communities in the part of the UK in which I live.  On the court listings there were frequently groups of Lithuanian and Polish names on trial for protection rackets, human trafficking, violence and extortion.  These peoples, from European cultures were engaged in serious criminal activity, usually directed at their own nationalities working as migrant labour in the UK.

By Ricardo's reasoning, for want of a better word, this must mean that all Lithuanians and Poles are by nature violent and dishonest criminals.  After all he condemns all Muslims as rapists and destroyers of European culture because a minority commit these crimes.

Be very clear those responsible for the multiple rapes in Rotherham and elsewhere should be given the severest punishments, who ever they are.  The rapists themselves and those whose criminal negligence allowed this to be perpetrated for so long.  

I am far from silent about rape or the negative aspects of migration.  Ricardo is being deliberately disingenuous here and it is he that is shutting down the debate by allowing bigotry to direct it.

Finally I do not ignore the dangers of uncontrolled immigration and have indeed written to that effect on RG.  The current migration crisis in the EU and in North America is indeed out of control and divisive and dangerous, for indigenous populations and migrants alike.  The reckless policy of Angela Merkel has caused a panic among those trying to escape war and abject misery to rush to the EU while they still can.  This is having devastating effects on the smaller and poorer countries of the EU who do not have the money, infrastructure or traditions to accommodate this phenomenon.   The richer countries of the EU and the United States should have intervened earlier to make safe havens for these people nearer to home.  It would have been better for them, better for the people in the EU and cheaper.  

It is however objectionable in the extreme to denigrate these poor people as 'hordes', 'swarms' or 'invasions'.  It is utterly disgraceful to suggest that their motive for trying to escape unspeakable evils and inequality is as if was some cunning plot to destroy European culture.    

It is a useful question. By construction Human Rights exist outside state jurisdiction, and beyond the political contention in a modern nation state. That is not to say the declaration is the full story. But it is a marker, and where egregious departures occur, they indicate some failure of governance, at some level: be it one of regular justice - the laws of the land are violated; the laws themselves are unjust; the laws are inadequate in the path of events; there is contention as to authority; or finally the system of international justice is challenged.

It might simplify your question by noting that the position of minorities within a country, region or globally is a separate category to the basic human right of an individual outside a social or economic context. The first is historical the second moral.

Written at the time that UDHR was being drafted, Bertrand Russell's 1948-49 Reith lectures 'Authority and the Individual'  amplifies this idea: "..however society may be organised, there is inevitably a large area of conflict between the general interest and the interest of this or that section..." p69-  and "ever since mankind invented slavery, the powerful have believed that their happiness could be achieved by means that involved inflicting misery on others..". p121. Only by searching for "[a wider] understanding [of human needs than is assumed by most politicians and economists].. can we find our way to a realization of those hopes which, though as yet they are largely frustrated by our folly, our skill has placed within our reach." Worth another look?

The biggest problem with human rights is that they are not compatible with humanity or for that matter each other.  Every human right is contradicted by another one, or at least interpretation of one.  I teach human rights in a number of areas of law and ethics and it is a remarkable challenge.

Human rights include the right to free expression, without which all other human rights are meaningless.  Without freedom of expression we would never know about what was happening in all other areas of human rights.

Privacy and the right to a family life are also human rights but we cannot reconcile these easily with freedom of expression and without that there are no human rights.

The right to life is sacrosanct and if we wish to apply that we must protect the lives of murdering despots, psychopaths  and pseudo religious crackpots who threaten the lives of others.  

The right to a reputation is a human right but can we seriously suggest that in a free world under the rule of law that reputations cannot be justifiably attacked.

The hypocrisy of the free world is both astonishing and risible, we have the crass nerve to talk about human rights while paying grovelling lip service to some of its worst violators.  We talk of human rights while promoting national interests, we condemn some human rights abusers while fêting others, who just so happen to sit neatly with our own agendas.

We can never achieve human rights, even in our 'developed countries',  attempting or feigning the practice of them while we disgracefully cuddle up to the most vile abusers of them  in at the name of alliances or the hideous world of realpolitik. 

Dear Ricardo,

I certainly didn't mean to shut down the discussion. I am actually rather enjoying it, especially as it is one that I am quite unused to (where I teach we have a preponderance of courses on international human rights that are all taken as reflecting a self-evidently true universalism). But I do question the TONE of much of this debate and its over-easy descent into the ad hominem.

Also--I believe that there is a fundamental dichotomy between human rights and immigration. In my opinion, the two are too easily conflated and what would have constituted an interesting discussion here is whether we could discuss issues like immigration without making reference to human rights (and, conversely, discuss issues like the structural inequalities of global governance and the misuse of international law as a cover for neo-col;onialist humanitarian intervention without bringing in pejorative moral judgments about the alleged inferiority of non-European cultures).

I have written extensively on the international duty of rescue of refugees on the High Seas--something that I believe in passionately--without ever once mentioning the topic of human rights. I believe that a full and robust defense of rescue operations can be mounted solely on the issue of safety at sea and best  practices within the shipping industry.

The original question of this thread concerned global inequality and international law--my belief is that IL does next to nothing to alleviate global inequality as its fundamental assumptions and institutional linkages constitute a direct continuation of the ultimate historical grounds for such inequality--western colonialism.

I am glad that Barry Turner is at least acknowledging that there is a problem in Europe with immigration, rather than accusing Europeans of being imperialists and deserving to be colonized by hordes of immigrants and their nations destroyed. He clearly stated before that he wanted European nations to be abolished and that it does not matter if millions of immigrants crossed into Europe since national borders were artificial and racist, but now he is realizing that he should show some concern for the raping of white girls. 

However, he still wants to have it both ways, and can't handle taking on the disproportionate Muslim raping of white girls for fear that Muslims will give him a spanking if he does not show that he is a typical leftist white male afraid to be called a racist. He wilfully misinterprets what I said, stating that I condemned "all Muslims as rapists" when I specifically stated that the issue is the disproportionate statistical reality that Muslims do rape more women than white males in Europe.  He thinks Muslims will respect him if he is more worried about hurting their feelings than defending innocent young white girls.

Believe me, they don't respect you, they respect men like me. 

Here is another source regarding Norway: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a56EqUPwyFQ 

Ricardo

I did not say European nations should be abolished I said that there would be no universal human rights while nations states and capitalism existed.  That is true, national interests and financial interests are the antithesis of universal human rights, you cannot have both. As for suggesting that I believe Europe deserves to be colonised by hordes of immigrants, that is a ridiculous suggestion. Just because hordes of European immigrants destroyed the indigenous cultures of North and South America doesn't mean we need to repeat such a hideous crime against humanity.

I am slightly offended by your suggestion that I condone the rape of women by anyone and I most certainly do not care about hurting people's feelings whether they are Muslims, Christians, Buddhists or any other religion where their behaviour is aberrant.  I  however understand that your views are shaped by abject paranoia and that it has a deleterious effect on rationality.  

Would you like to look at the disproportionate number of sexual assaults perpetrated by members of the Catholic and Anglican clergy.  You might find these 'statistics' a little disturbing.  Should we judge Christianity by the behaviour of these hideous perverts?

I am not a lefty as you rather anachronistically put it.  Believing in fair treatment of all is not a monopoly of the left.  As for respect, I do not seek it from any adherent to religion or political creed whatever that religion or politics might be.  

This thread is about human rights and there is one thing I have learned about human rights.  If they are denied to one they are denied to all.  I am afraid it is not possible to promote human rights in a world where they are rationed out only to white Europeans.  

Barry, 

You distinctly said that nations should be abolished in the context of a discussion about mass migration to Europe, which is a way of saying that it does not matter if European nations get flooded by non-Europeans since national borders are unfair and discriminatory. You also said that your loyalty is to humanity and not to Europeans or British people, which is a way of saying that if Europe/England gets flooded, as it is happening for some decades now, by masses of Africans and Asians, it does not matter since they are all humans, and it makes no difference if the British are replaced by a "humanity" of Africans and Muslims. 

The problem is that you don't follow the logic of your own thinking but prefer to cover it  up with a mush of disconnected emotions about how good and humane you are but in the end the message is clear: you don't care but welcome the replacement of British people by Africans and Asians. This is a standard leftist idea, as well as one supported by the corporate right in their search for cheap labor and rootless consumers. 

It is nonsense to say that defending the national heritage of Europeans is to ration-out human rights, since I believe in the rights of all peoples to national self-determination, which is a collective right, and I also believe in the individual rights of Europeans, and of non-Europeans in their own homelands. I don't believe in allowing millions upon millions of Asians and Africans into Europe, colonizing and destroying the culture of these lands, and then demonizing the Europeans who react against it because they are loyal to their ancestors, care about the raping of white girls.

So, just because some Catholics and Anglicans were involved in rapes, we should not connect immigration to dramatic rise in rapes in Sweden and Norway? In any case, these Catholic rapes were not systematic across the nations but incidents committed by homosexuals who molested boys. 

Fortunately whilst the debate here has been descending into the discriminatory rhetoric of anti immigrant populism, the EU and AU have made some progress towards trying to solve the current crises. No doubt this will attract a barrage of criticism from all sides; but its time to start working on the solution. We all have our opinions of what the problem is .... 

 "these Catholic rapes were not systematic across the nations but incidents committed by homosexuals who molested boys". 

Ridiculous!

First of all the sexual abuse was not all homosexual, it included large numbers of male perverts assaulting girls too and even Nuns assaulting children.

Second it was systematic, The American Catholic Church hid this for decades as did the Irish Catholic Church, The Polish Catholic Church and many others. Pedophile priests were moved from parish to parish spreading untold misery to thousands of male and female children.  Irish priests went to America, American priests to the third world, all to continue child rape and assualt.  Since you like watch youtube videos why don't you take a look at some of these stories.

Priests and Systematic Child Abuse

Although nationwide inquiries have only been conducted in the United States and Ireland, cases of clerical sexual abuse of minors have been reported and prosecuted in Australia, New Zealand, Canada and other countries. In 1994, allegations of sexual abuse on 47 young seminarians surfaced in Argentina. In 1995, Cardinal Hans Hermann Groër resigned from his post as Archbishop of Vienna, Austria over allegations of sexual abuse, although he remained a Cardinal. Since 1995, over one hundred priests from various parts of Australia were convicted of sexual abuse.

In Ireland, the Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse issued a report which covered six decades (from the 1950s) and noted "endemic" sexual abuse in Catholic boys' institutions, with church leaders aware of what was going on and government inspectors failing to "stop beatings, rapes and humiliation."  The commission's report on church abuse ran to five volumes.

" Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere",

 Dr Martin Luther King, Nobel Peace Laureate and Civil Rights Leader.

https://www.africa.upenn.edu/Articles_Gen/Letter_Birmingham.html

"In any case, these Catholic rapes were not systematic"

Sorry Ricardo, the Pope disagrees!

One in 50 priests is a paedophile: Pope Francis says child abuse is 'leprosy' infecting the Catholic Church 

Pope Francis quoted as saying figure included bishops and cardinals. He condemned child sex abuse as 'leprosy in the church',

He also said that many more in the Church are guilty of covering it up, adding: ‘This state of affairs is intolerable.’ 

The Pope said this because, for one, Christians are willing to self-examine their flaws, and, for another, the mainstream media reports on Catholic rape while ignoring the equally, if not, more extensive rape crisis within Judaism, http://www.vice.com/read/the-child-rape-assembly-line-0000141-v20n11

And within Islam. So, the question then is, would not the media and the academic world have reacted with outrage and hysteria if the tables were turned around and we had a situation in which gang after gang of white males were grooming under-age black and Muslim girls for rape and drugs across England?

It is not possible to conceive a scenario in which academic men would find excuses and rationalizations if the tables were turned around, and it is not possible either to conceive Muslim men blaming their culture and putting themselves down and finding excuses if white men were doing this to their women; they would have stood in defence of their women. But white men have become so pathetic, including feminists who have been very silent, that they excuse the perpetrators of these rapes, find rationalizations, and ways to put their culture down. That's how pathological Europeans have become.  

"Christians are willing to self-examine their flaws"

 Sorry yet again you are wrong!  The Pope does not agree with you on that either.  He has spoken out most vigorously on the culture of secrecy that allows Catholic priests to  sexually molest children (boys and girls) 

Child abuse going back decades is still being uncovered in Ireland and it is only now that people are rejecting the dead hand of the Catholic church that has enslaved them in ignorance and abuse for centuries.  The once all powerful Catholic church is now a cross between a pariah and a laughing stock in the Irish Republic.

I guess they must all be turning into European culture hating Muslim Marxists!

 Here is a bit of advice from the Lord Jesus Christ incidentally about sitting in judgement on others. (he was not of course a Christian)

 “Thou hypocrite, cast out first the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye”.

                                                                    Matthew 7:5

 “Let him who is without sin cast the first stone”

                                                            John 8:7

Is the UK policing Minister a Cultural Marxist, A European culture hating lefty? Perhaps David Cameron should be told!

 Muslim religious leaders condemn child sex grooming

         28 June 2013
 From the section 
England

 The sexual grooming of children has been condemned by Muslim leaders across the UK in a sermon read to thousands of worshippers.

 Organisers Together Against Grooming (TAG) said imams at hundreds of mosques had pledged to read the sermon to congregations during Friday prayers.

 The sermon highlighted how the Koran emphasised that Muslims must protect children and the vulnerable.

The policing minister Damian Green said it was a "very important" move.

 "It reminds people that the vast majority, the overwhelming majority, of British Muslims, condemn child sexual abuse as strongly as any other group in modern Britain," he said.

 Sheikh Ibrahim Mogra, an imam at Abu Bakr Mosque in Leicester, said: "People were troubled by us reading the sermon and one man asked me how he could stop it being read.

 "He said 'it was not our fault this had happened, our religion does not teach us to do these things and we are condemning it'.

"But as I said to him our only option is to speak out about it."

 Mr Mogra added the sermon's message was very clear "this is an evil against humanity" and he was "absolutely delighted with the response".

Barry, I understand that you are used to the ideas you hear on TV and the mainstream media generally, and what all academics are expected to learn, and so when you encounter the views I am expressing you feel off balance, and can only repeat what everyone has already heard many times over about Catholics. This may explain why you fall into all sorts of incoherent statements such as denying that Christians/Catholics are more self-critical by citing the foremost authority of Catholicism, the Pope's own critical examination of rapes! 

It is also particularly symptomatic of your hatred for Europeans that you need to bring up decades-old instances of Catholic abuse to cover up systematic raping campaigns by Muslims *today*. May I ask, what is your true ethnicity? Are you really British? 

Why should anyone be surprised that Muslims eventually felt compelled to condemn systematic raping of girls after decades of denial and silence? Well, check this out, the rapes keep increasing the more of them arrive: 

http://www.breitbart.com/london/2015/10/06/europes-rape-epidemic-western-women-will-be-sacrificed-at-the-alter-of-mass-migration/

http://www.wnd.com/2015/09/muslim-raping-of-women-epidemic-in-refugee-camps/

http://www.frontpagemag.com/point/260254/syrian-muslim-refugees-bring-culture-rape-and-daniel-greenfield

On August 3, a “North African” raped a seven-year-old girl in a park in Chemnitz.

On August 1, a male “southerner” attempted to rape a 27-year-old woman in downtown Stuttgart.

On August 8, a male “southerner” attempted to rape a 20-year-old woman in Siegen.

On August 10, five men of “Turkish origin” attempted to rape a girl in Mönchengladbach.

On August 10, a male “southerner” raped a 15-year-old girl in Rinteln.

On August 12, a male “southerner” exposed himself to a 31-year-old woman in Kassel. Police say a similar incident occurred in the same area on August 11.

On August 12, a male “southerner” attempted to rape a 17-year-old woman in Hannover.

On August 13, police arrested two Iraqi “asylum seekers,” aged 23 and 19, for raping an 18-year-old German woman behind a schoolyard in Hamm, a city in North Rhine-Westphalia.

On August 16, a male “southerner” raped a woman in Hanau.

On August 17, three male “southerners” attempted to rape a 42-year-old woman in Ansbach.

On August 23, a “dark skinned” man attempted to rape a 35-year-old woman in Dortmund.

The number of reported sex attacks by migrant invaders is substantially higher than the preceding months:

On July 26, a 14-year-old boy was sexually assaulted inside the bathroom of a regional train in Heilbronn, a city in southwestern Germany. Police are looking for a “dark skinned” man between the ages of 30 and 40 who has an “Arab appearance.”

On July 26, a 21-year-old Tunisian “asylum seeker” raped a 20-year-old woman in the Dornwaldsiedlung district of Karlsruhe. Police kept the crime secret until August 14, when a local paper went public with the story.

In June, a 20-year-old Somali “asylum seeker” raped an 88-year-old woman in her house in Porta Westfalica, Herford. News of the attack only emerged in November when the Somali came to trial—and when he alleged that the sexual intercourse had been “consensual.” 

On June 5, a 30-year-old Somali “asylum seeker” called “Ali S” was sentenced to four years and nine months in prison for attempting to rape a 20-year-old woman in Munich. 

On May 22, a 30-year-old Moroccan invader was sentenced to four years and nine months in prison for attempting to rape a 55-year-old woman in Dresden.

On May 20, a 25-year-old Senegalese invader “asylum seeker” was arrested after he attempted to rape a 21-year-old German woman at the Stachus, a large square in central Munich.

On April 16, a 21-year-old “asylum seeker” from Iraq was sentenced to three years and ten months in prison for raping a 17-year-old girl at festival in the Bavarian town of Straubing in August 2014.

On April 7, a 29-year-old “asylum seeker” was arrested for the attempted rape of a 14-year-old girl in the town of Alzenau.

On February 11, a 28-year-old “asylum seeker” from Eritrea was sentenced to four years in prison for raping a 25-year-old German woman in Stralsund, along the Baltic Sea, in October 2014.

On February 1, a 27-year-old “asylum seeker” from Somalia was arrested after attempting to rape women in the Bavarian town of Reisbach.

On January 16, a 24-year-old Moroccan invader raped a 29-year-old woman in Dresden.

On June 9, two Somali “asylum seekers,” aged 20 and 18, were sentenced to seven-and-a-half years in prison for raping a 21-year-old German woman in Bad Kreuznach, a town in Rhineland-Palatinate, on December 13, 2014.

http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/6527/migrants-rape-germany

Ricardo

I am tired of this obsession you have and I am especially tired of being called a hater of European culture by someone who does not even live in Europe.

As well as being what you disdainfully dismiss as an academic I am working closely with many European colleagues from all countries of the EU on a major judicial project for Europe. I have lived and worked in two EU countries and a further EEA country.  I speak German and passable French.

The very last thing I need to do is justify myself to a hostile foreigner whose attitude to the plight of human beings is the very antithesis of what it means to be European today.

I am certainly not getting further involved in a tit for tat argument about criminality among asylum seekers.  I wonder if you would be impressed by anyone portraying Canadians by reference to the criminal classes that live there.

I see no point in any further debate here. 

Thanks, Barry - I gave up earlier for the same reasons - it is just hatred speech, little reasoning if any

Peter

It would be good if we could get back to a proper discussion on human rights as in the spirit of the questioner's first question.

It is true that the concept of universal human rights has never materialised since the brave declarations following the end of WW2.   There is still a long way to go and it seems that there is no culture among humanity that properly respects the concept of human rights for all.  

We still live in patriarchal societies even in the 'developed' world.  Women's rights are a relative newcomer to the idea with men still dominating politics, the professions and business.  While that continues contributing to an inherent inequality there can be no 'universal' human rights.

Humans are very much 'work in progress' I am frequently outraged and simultaneously saddened by the corruption and rank hypocrisy we see in the societies of the 'developed' world'.  Corruption is the biggest threat of all to human rights.  Vast numbers of people on the planet have their lives blighted by corruption in all its many forms.

However just because we haven't made it yet its no excuse for giving up.  Human rights are on the agenda everywhere now and if we keep working at it we will one day get there.

Indeed, Barry - not least as I think Ade really addressed with the original question an important point. I agree with what you said right before - and I agree also with what you said earlier, by establishing the intrinsic link between capitalism, nation state and non- or incomplete HR. Now the  for me difficult question is: exactly this: non or incomplete. One point in this context is exactly about for instance "integrating" women in the "incomplete modernity" - if we want to use the term at all. Isn't there a structural fracture in this kind of modernisation, fundamentally based in and leading to hyper-individualistion and competition? And the problem then remains: is it just a matter of humans being "work in progress"? Who works is on important question. And the other is: do we have to go the kind of detour: integrating women in a system that is not just (capitalist employment) int that is still more just than the non-access ... . Cum grano salis the same can be said for other areas ...

Dear Barry,

I quite agree. I would very much like to return to the original question, the politically incorrect detour not-withstanding.

A question that I would like to ask, though, is this: isn't it possible to both discuss and objectively critique systemic global inequalities without necessarily casting the discussion in terms of human rights? The past twelve years of disastrous interventions--from Afghanistan to Iraq to Libya to Syria--have, I am afraid, made me totally jaded concerning both universalism and globalist models of emancipation.

Is it not possible to devise new ways, and new vocabularies, of badly needed, but new forms of developmentalism and post-dependency theories, without importing all of the historically suspect baggage of euro-centric 'human rights'?

Eric

Peter 

I think the problem lies in a huge and fundamental concept like human rights being introduced fully formed or whether it is a necessarily evolving entity.

The obstacle to human rights are human cultures, which are obviously rooted in the past.  We cannot really expect to plant human rights into a culture and watch it bloom immediately.  In Europe for instance it is still commonly seen as the role of men to be breadwinner and women to be the homemaker, even though this anachronistic culture has been eroding over the last six or seven decades.

We are unlikely to see human rights flourish while individual interests are still so much at the heart of our cultures.  It is well understood that to grant human rights to all the individual has to give up some of their autonomy.  This is of course at the root of all reactionary thinking, where that is seen literally as 'surrender of rights' when of course they really mean 'privilege'.

Our current model for rights is flawed and in fact flawed by its age.  We still operate on the framework constructed at the end of WW2, a very different time to today.  We need a revision of many of the fundamental rights described in The UN Declaration which itself is now a fragment from history.

Human rights will have to evolve naturally and it is going to take a long time.  It is self evident that if societies need to 'promote' human rights there must be cultural obstacles to them still in place.  Nationalism, capitalism, patriarchal culture and the hideous mindset of racism are still very firmly entrenched in our societies.  Every one of these is supremacist and incompatible with universal rights.  

Eric the problem with the term 'rights' is that it implies a legally enforceable framework within which the aspirations of all people will be protected.  While there aspirations are laudable any form of universal acceptance of such 'rights' or the enforcement of them is impossible while there is an inequitable distribution of power and wealth.

Globalism is a fashionable buzz word rather than a reality.  The nation states are intact, even within close treaties such a those governing the EU.  With that in mind there is no possibility of having universal rights or the other myth of the age international law.

In any case every model includes a system whereby rights are the gift of the regime in power.  Criminal law for instance can severely restrict what some might call 'rights'.

It is bold idea but it is not yet the time for universal human rights. 

Human rights should include free education and healthcare. They should include all the rights outlined in the UN Declaration on Human Rihts. There can never be human rights for all until the polarization caused by the dynamics of the capitalist system is eliminated.

People who use the down vote do not believe in the most fundamental of human rights.  Freedom of expression does not thrive is an environment where anonymous denunciations are made.  

It is difficult to believe that those who skulk around in the shadows casting aspersions from behind a mask have any regard for rights of any kind.

Merci Tamar. @ Barry some of us prefer to live in hope rather than die of despair. I think after the horrors of the TransAtlantic Slave Trade, Colonialism and NeoColonialism I have the right to support assertions I agree with, and show my disagreement where I do not agree. It's my thread after all , capiche ?

Ade

I am very hopeful and not at all despairing.  All along I have said that we are 'work in progress' and that in the future we will achieve a better world.  But it ain't tomorrow!

I am delighted when people disagree with my views, many of the threads I write on involve the hottest of disagreements expressed eruditely by those participating.  The right to express opinions includes fervently disagreeing with the opinions of others.

I am however dismayed that RG still allow down voting of the opinions of others and actually use down votes in the rating system.  Anonymous denunciations are the hallmark of despotism and suppression of free expression. Open debate is the scientific and scholarly approach and you will never get a world of egalitarianism and human rights while people snitch on one another. 

Audi Alteram Partem is one of the pillars of natural justice and fairness, I prefer to express my disagreement via argument rather than by secretly denouncing the arguments of others.  

just a bit puzzled - may be part of this or another question. Do you say that "our RG scores" depend on our answers/comments being uprooted/down-voted? If this is so ... well, I would surely downvote RG ... - the answer would be in the given context: human rights are not for vote by voting for agreeing on the helpfulness or lack of it etc. - I would have seen +/- votes simply as something like expressing agreement/disagreement - ... having said this: isn't all this ranking in any case anti-HR by definition?

Peter

Up votes and down votes do affect the RG score, not that the score matters.

All rankings are anti-HR by definition.  Universal Human Rights and hierarchical societies  are mutually exclusive.  By definition we reward the highest ranking in greater degree than those in the lower ranks.   

Awarding scores is fine for sport where competition is the whole purpose of the exercise but subjecting the views of others to an arbitrary and subjective scoring system is frankly absurd.  Down voting is the antithesis of scholarly debate and is akin to snitching to the head teacher at its least malevolent and to shouting down opposition at its most.  

I do have an idea though to introduce some egalitarianism.  Every time you are down voted down vote everyone else, that is after all what happens in denunciation societies.

Vini Vidi Vici .... 

https://www.bihr.org.uk

Dear Barry,

Thank you for your answer. My question, though, was rather more simple: is it possible to discuss both the causes and (hopefully) the remedies to systemic and structural inequalities between the Developed and Developing World without having o use the discourse of human rights law? I am suspicious of human rights language, both on philosophical  grounds (essentialism; universalism) and historical grounds (colonialism, imperialism, racism and interventionism).

If we will not do move away from the language of human rights, then why can't we? Is it because of ideological bias (including the indoctrination and the intellectual conformity of the academy) or because rights discourse possess a latent normative and normalizing power that render all other alternatives irrelevant or inadequate in comparison?

Eric

We could indeed discuss the causes of structural inequalities but I fear it would be a very long discussion and that it would generate more heat than light.

Similarly the remedies, linked as you so quite rightly suggest to causes could be discussed for a overlong time while remaining out of reach.

Human rights must simply evolve.  Many of us have managed to evolve away from racism, imperialism and other discriminatory supremacist based concepts but we are long way from this being universal.  Even the developed world has a long way to go, demonstrated graphically by its desire to impose western values on other cultures that plainly do not want them.  We of course do this by coercion up to and including military force, not exactly the best example of human rights.

Human rights discourse arose from the ashes of WW2 and the language is anachronistic and rather more ideological than practical.  It is indeed a product of indoctrination and conformity,  The human rights 'declared in 1948 were the wishes (demands) of the victors over the vanquished.  They displaced earlier concepts of the rights of nations, which included of course the right to wage war and build empire.  Lets not forget that in spite of bold declarations of equality and universality of human rights all of the signatories to the UN Treaty continued to abuse human rights unashamedly.

The current role of the UN in upholding human rights is analogous to the corrupt policeman upholding the law.    

I just noticed your question. I assume you are aware that Saudi Arabia Heads the UN Human Rights Council now? From the time I was a child in the 1960's I have observed that most of the higher institutions of mankind are not what they may appear to be on the surface. With the influence of the corrupted and morally bankrupt United States, human rights are definitely in decline across an ever growing strata of society in all UN member states. I hope you do not depend on the American mass media for your information. I suggest progressive, independent news sites such as these: http://sungraffix.net/SG-NewsAndOpinion.html#NewsSiteLinks and this site may be of some help as well, in case you haven't heard of it: https://www.hrw.org/ (Human Rights Watch)

Great question! Sorry that I found it only now...

In my opinion, human rights always were and probably always will be a privilege of a minority in the Global North (and some parts of the Global South). Human rights are universal as a principle but class, gender, ethnicity, region (and so on) related in practice. For instance: the victims of military dictatorships in Latin America are now considered as human rights cases - but most of them are part of a relatively comfortable middle class with access to the language of human rights, lawyers, courts and so on. Squatters, land occupiers, poor people who were "in the way" at a certain time do not have this access - they are not even the victims, they are invisible. Benjamin and his thesis on history comes to mind...

Just back from the celebration of the 50th Anniversary of the adoption of the International Convention for the Elimation of Racist Discrimination, held at the Palais des Nations. Despite the somber mood of the occasion I am heartened that HOPE has not yet died ... and that there are still countries and members of civil society (albeit a few) who recognise that state obligations under the instrument need to be realised to avert chaos and possibly worst in the World as we know it today.

Is the concept of universal human rights a reality or is it merely a mission statement?

https://www.researchgate.net/post/Is_a_world_without_borders_a_naive_optimism_in_a_world_with_so_much_inequality_and_injustice

MISSION STATEMENT

Which leads inexorably towards...MISSION CREEP

Given vast inequalities of wealth within nations, human rights are only for those who have resources to access them, or who have the support of human rights organizations such as Amnesty International or Human Rights watch.  The poor, for example in the U.S., are harassed by police, refugees are deported without a hearing (e.g. Central American child refugees), the homeless are left to die on the streets.  This situation can hardly be called one under which claims can be made for human rights.

Given the enormous control the left has over Western culture and media, human rights are only for those who have elites with resources behind them to talk about designated groups while ignoring the human rights of others. The forgotten groups include European women who are being raped in large numbers by immigrants and Muslims across Europe, the native European workers and American workers who suffer from mass immigrant cheap labour, the many who are threatened and ostracized whenever they question the lie that diversity enriches us all.  

Hopefully implementation of the SDG Agenda or 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development by public bodies will lead to positive change. Academics and other stakeholders have a vital role to play in ensuring that it does, there's your opportunity to correct those wrongs you perceive in accessibility to universal human rights !

Bon Chance !

https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/post2015

This is indeed the hope. To Ricardo: As Bob Dylan says - 'I just want to be your friend'

It is not the much battered left that threatens world disintegration; nor the new hordes at the gates of Europe, nor the breakdown of Christian values, that has caused the current crisi of confidence.. 

Human rights or 'development' or indeed 'sustainable development'  is an attempt to come to some common agreement on how a world without borders might operate. Yes, there are many angles  that apply, and some grief. Identifying with the human grief we now witness can lead to constructive engagement with the situation provided we retain some moral perspective..

Some of you may remember when the media reported that child abuse had increased in the United States. It turned out it hadn't, it was, instead, being reported much more often. The same is true of violations of human rights. Doesn't mean we should be less active and vigilant against it.   

As a feminist, I disagree with Julie, the violation of human rights of European women has reached epidemic proportions with migrant invasion: 

http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/7557/germany-rape-migrants-crisis

http://www.news.com.au/finance/economy/world-economy/cologne-is-every-day-europes-rape-epidemic/news-story/e2e618e17ad4400b5ed65045e65e141d

Everywhere in Europe: http://www.spectator.co.uk/2016/01/its-not-only-germany-that-covers-up-mass-sex-attacks-by-migrant-men-swedens-record-is-shameful/

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3391075/Why-Germany-t-face-truth-migrant-sex-attacks-SUE-REID-finds-nation-denial-wave-horrific-attacks-reported-Europe.html

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3485473/The-small-Swedish-town-terrorized-string-sex-attacks-eight-assaults-past-three-weeks-leaves-women-terrified-walk-dark.html

Even Norway: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a56EqUPwyFQ

Yes, but I was talking about the global picture and in other areas violations have gone down.  You are certainly right about Europe.

Exactly. Disease epidemics used to invoke panic in populations before systematic study, monitoring, treatment and dedication to vector control. 'Epidemics of human rights violations' an everyday observation in wars and their aftermath through history up to the present; and as Ade has signaled in his original question, in situations where power in a society (local or global) is sequestered by some at the expense of others and without authority.of some norm or process in law. No organised religion or propagated dogma is free of this tendency. The antidote is to hold those in positions of influence to account; against universal norms that supply a foundation for political settlements made every day by delegated authority, not to see them compromised through induced populist panic..   . .

@Professor Duchesne I question the validity of the populist media as an academic source, but the allegations being made are serious enough to warrant concern.

First, none of the sources I sent are "populist", though the Daily Mail is a popular source, and, yes, it is not an academic source, but they are simply stating facts that have been corroborated by the other media sources I sent, such as Gatestone Institute. 

The reality is that academia is wilfully ignoring, suppressing, covering up the regularized raping of white women by migrants and Muslims because such a reality undermines further their decades-old argument that "diversity enriches Europeans". 

The leftist media has reported on these rapes, as they are so frequent and systematic they could no longer ignored them, so here is BBC: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-35231046

The government in Germany itself officially tried to cover up rape of its own women citizens, this is how pathetic the establishment is: http://www.breitbart.com/london/2016/04/06/cologne-police-reveal-cover-new-years-eve-rape-attacks-ordered-government/

BBC too has a vested interest in not reporting on these rapes, so it has not told its readers that migrants rapes were not a one day affair in Cologne, but an ongoing, relentless affair: http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/7557/germany-rape-migrants-crisis

http://www.breitbart.com/london/2014/08/27/muslim-gang-rapists-are-springing-up-everywhere-why-can-t-we-be-honest-about-it/

So, now, vote me down academics!

Hopefully the authorities will deal with those allegations being made in this thread appropriately, after all human rights are supposed to be  universal. Fini.

While the rape and molestation of women by migrants is appalling and the undoubted attempts to cover it up are a disgraceful abrogation of human rights by any authority or government that is culpable there needs to be some perspective here.

Is Ricardo Duchesne suggesting that all migrants are responsible for sex crimes or that rape and migration are synonymous?  

Very many of the migrants are children and women, should they be branded as sex criminals because of the activities of some of the single men who have carried out these attacks?

Academia is not 'ignoring' 'suppressing' or 'covering up' these attacks and many academics are involved in investigating and researching this disturbing behaviour with a view to dealing with it.  

Absolutely we should be informed by our media about these crimes and there is evidence that this is inadequate.  German police officers have reported being advised to play down the attacks, it is clear that concerns arising out of political correctness are masking the extent and severity of the problem and that must be addressed.

That does not however justify an attack on all migrants, immigrants and refugees as if they are all collectively responsible for the acts of criminals within their midst, quite frankly it makes the problem worse as experience has demonstrated time and time again.

It is absolutely correct that governments, law enforcement and the media have failed shamefully in dealing with the problem of sex offenders within the migrant groups but politically motivated rants against 'leftists' and 'academics' provides no solution to this.  Demonising perfectly innocent people because a few fellow nationals are criminals provides no solution to the problem.

The far right have never provided any kind of Utopia when they have had the chance, far from it.  It is Neocon rightists that started the wars, destabilisation of governments and exploitation of people in the developing world that caused the mass migration in the first place.  Mr Duchesne is right in some respects, we need to be told the full story.  How about he leads by example? 

Turner is voicing the standard reply promoters of mass immigration, EU bureaucrats, academics, and media types offer in the face of the ever increasing inconvenient facts demonstrating the utter failure of their extremist program to diversity all European nations, and only European nations.  

It is typical for anti--European diversity promoters to reply this way: "Is Ricardo Duchesne suggesting that all migrants are responsible for sex crimes or that rape and migration are synonymous? "

No, there is nothing in what I said that implies this; that is so deceptive. What we feminists concerned with the raping of women mean is very simple:  migrants are raping girls all over Europe, and we mean to say that these rapes would not have happened if the migrants had not be deceptively portrayed by the media as women and children, when in fact most of them were males, are males, 70+ percent.

He says "many academics are involved in investigating and researching this disturbing behaviour with a view to dealing with it"

Again, typical bureaucratic answer to appease those who are seeing through the lies of pro-immigrationists; "don't worry, we will deal with it, teach the migrant some courses about sexual norms in Europe."

The truth is that academics are hiding this reality.

Millions and millions more migrants are coming to Europe in the coming years, and the rot of diversity will be exposed, as nothing more than massive welfare costs for Europeans who paid the taxes, high unemployment among immigrants who never integrate, as we still see with the Turks in Germany, generations after they landed in this country.

Situation in Sweden (how can anyone call this "enrichment"):

48 percent of immigrants of working age don't work.

Immigrants have not integrated; even after 15 years of residence 40 percent remain out of work.

58 percent of welfare payments are grabbed by immigrants.

48 percent of children with low test scores are immigrants.

Immigrants are not filling the skills-jobs economists claimed they would, which is why on average they earn 40 percent less than Swedes.

Government spends about 4 billion a year settling new refugees. 

In 1990, Sweden had three "exclusion areas" (ghettoes inhabited primarily by non-Swedes); by 2004, it had 136, and 186 by 2006.

The native Swedish population is being replaced by Muslims and Africans. Thus: the immigrant population in Sweden has been increasing steadily from 14.5% in 2000, to 19.1% in 2010 to 21.5% in 2014.

Swedes are now the minority in Malmö, the third largest city; and what is more is that the percentage of the foreign population in the younger age range, 0 to 44 years, has been steadily rising, from 47.0% in 2002 to 57.5% in 2013.

Gang rule, rampant vandalism has been increasing steadily. Car fires incidents were estimated at 219 in 1996, 964 in 2006, and 1,372 in 2013.

In 2012, 70% of teachers reported witnessing some form of school arson.

Sweden, the most feminist country in the world, now has the second highest number of rapes in the world, after Lesotho in southern Africa, six times higher than the United States.

According to an independent study of government data, Sweden's 16.5% foreign born population uses 66.4% of the nation's government financial assistance.

He asks, what will I do about it: expose the lies and bring the truth.

I guess Señor Duchesne must be right here because all people who shout the loudest always are.  

People who use inflamatory language such as "the rot of diversity" are an interesting bunch.  Hitler liked to talk of minority groups as infestations and refer to them as being some form of decay and rot.

As it happens I am opposed to mass migration but because I do not use the ridiculous & hysterical language of the demagogue I must be a wooly liberal media academic.

My opposition to mass migration is based on the massive social disruption that is caused by it, not only to what Señor Duchesne would refer to as the racially pure but to the migrants themselves.  I am also very concerned about the mass migration of skilled, professional and educated people that countries like Syria are going to need to rebuild when war, initiated by western regime change loonies and capitalist profiteers is over.

It is correct that significant numbers of migrants are young men and that many of them are economic migrants not refugees.  It is correct that gangs of these men have attacked women and I for one have never suggested otherwise.  It is also true, not that you would notice from the wise words of Ricardo that the majority by far are neither rapists nor arsonists.   Any more than the majority of people in the west are war mongering capitalists that caused the destabilisation in the migrants home countries in the first place. 

Old Ricardo here uses an impressive array of statistics to support his obsessional rants about 'Muslims and Africans' that conclude that immigrants are uneducated, ignorant rapists and arsonists.  Like all carefully selected statistics they do nothing to keep us informed and as for 'exposing the lies and bringing the truth'.  Well Really!

@ Barry Merci, let us hope the impact  of policies arising from the Valleta Summit held between leaders of the AU and EU to address African immigration to Europe has the desired effect in reducing " mass migration". Paz !

http://ufmsecretariat.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/VALLETTA_ACTION_PLAN.pdf

@ Barry Merci, let us hope the impact  of policies arising from the Action Plan of  Valleta Summit held between leaders of the AU and EU to address African immigration to Europe has the desired effect in reducing " mass migration". Paz !

http://ufmsecretariat.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/VALLETTA_ACTION_PLAN.pdf

Since we have recently been talking about 'statistics' as an issues related to human rights I thought I had better chip in a few positive ones.  

Migration is a fact of human existence not some new phenomenon. For every nightmare statistic put about by Xenophobes there are others that cancel out their effects.  

The bottom line is that not only is migration desirable it is essential for human development.  Not one of the cultures observed today is entirely 'uncontaminated' by the influence of others.  Were we not to migrate and assimilate we would have become extinct as a species hundreds of millennia ago.  

Of course migration has caused severe social and political upheaval.  The migration of western imperialists in the 18th and 19th centuries caused the deaths of hundreds of millions of aboriginal people and some of the migration of the present day is a direct consequence of that.  By far the largest groups of immigrants in the UK are from the former colonies of the British Empire.  It is no mean irony that the anti-immigrant lobby are often those with the fondest memories of that disgraceful episode in our history.

Anyway, here are the facts:

“Mass’ human migration commenced around 200,000 years ago

Humans ‘migrated into the Western hemisphere (Americas) approximately 16,000 years ago

Between 1525 and 1866 12.5 million Africans were forcibly ‘migrated’ to the Americas by European imperialists

By 1820 2.6 million Europeans had emigrated to the Americas.

In the 1840's 1.5 million Irish emigrated to the US

In 1851 50,000 Chinese migrated to California

The motto of the United States is E Pluribus Unum, a direct statement of the desirability of multi-culturalism

30 million people were displaced (migrated) in the aftermath of WW2

34.3 million people in the EU live in a country other than the one they were born in

13.6 million of them from other EU countries

20.7 Million from outside the EU

Only 3.3% of the world’s population are migrants.

90% of migrants are ‘economic migrants’ 38% of the scientists working in the US are such migrants, 33% of scientists in the UK are economic migrants

 26% of medical practitioners in the UK are ‘economic migrants’

11% of all NHS employees are ‘economic migrants”

‘Economic migrants’ many of them Europeans themselves have contributed to only a 2% increase in crime in EU countries. 

36% of all migrants have moved to other developing countries rather than to the US, Europe or Australia.

Over the next century vast numbers of people will have to migrate as the impact of climate change, water availability, land usage, global economics and political upheaval start to bite harder.

Hurrah for migration!  Long may it continue and may we soon learn how to live with it.  We won't live long without it

Dear Barry,

Agree with your core premises, but I do have to register a dissent  concerning one of your statements: the meaning of E pluribus Unum.

In truth, it had nothing to do with immigration or multi-culturalism. Rather, it was an attempt to formalize a central principle of American Federalism. Although this is largely forgotten today, the United States (or THESE United States as it was officially referred to until 1865) was, like the EU today, a de-centralized confederacy of 13 sovereign countries. The meaning of the phrase 'through many, unity' literally means 'an-approximately-unified-super-State-consisting-of-a-number-of-wholly-sovereign-individuals.'

Eric

Eric

The concept of 'one out of many' may indeed be an attempt to formalise American Federalism as visualised by Yankee Republicans but it undoubtedly also refers to the necessary multiculturalism of the new nation, well before it became a sovereign state.  

Immigration had already forged the character of the Americas well before the Revolution and certainly well before Mr Lincoln forced federalism on the, until 1860 nominally independent states.

By the middle of the 18th century North America, constituted as it then was as seperate colonies of the British, French and Spanish Empires was multi-cultural.  A multiculturalism lost as a result in large part of the outcome of the Seven Years War.

However by 1776, when the motto was adopted many of the new states of the US were multicultural indeed.  The place names reflect that even to the present day with British, French, Spanish and American native names on maps from New England to the West Coast.

There is some suggestion that the phrase, traceable to the Roman Empire adopts some of the principles therein.  That the empire incorporated many states and cultures but that all within were 'Roman'.  

Vini Vidi Vici ... 

Philadelphia, PA

Dear Turner & readers,

Thanks for the invitation to comment on the meaning of "E pluribus unum."

It is something I've returned to repeatedly, and it is usually rendered into English as, "Out of many, one." 

American federalism is certainly the original inspiration of the national motto. But federalism is a changing balance. The states declared themselves independent in 1776, and the federal constitution was adopted by the states in 1789. Thereafter, it was never a confederation of "independent states." But on the other hand, it was not a full fusion of the states, either. Its a mixed system of unitary federal government, adopted by "We the people," in which the federal government acts on and draws on the support of the people directly.  Yet the intention is clearly to divide powers of government between the states and the federal government. The balance has certainly changed over time, and it was intented to do so. During the constitutional convention of 1787, the proposal was made to allow Congress a veto power over state legislation, but this proposal was rejected. Partly in consequence, the courts took up the function of mediating between state and federal law.

See my review of LaCroix, Ideological Origins of American Federalism:

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/256411824_Review_of_Alison_LaCroix_Ideological_Origins_of_American_Federalism

In an extended sense, the motto has application to the unification of the various peoples who came to make up, or contributed to, the American population. My sense of this is that its a matter of mutual assimilation, since the country and the states have no official ethnic identity. It is best to think of "E pluribus unum" as a continuing process, calling on "constitutional patriotism."  We don't want to finish it; and if we did it would render the national motto obsolete. We need given levels of unity at given times, perhaps to solve outstanding problems; but otherwise, we are content to leave people to be different.

As you'd expect, its a much debated topic.

H.G. Callaway

Article Review of Alison LaCroix, Ideological Origins of American Federalism

Dear Barry,

Thank you for your e-mail. At risk of instigating a two front war, I am going to launch into a neurotic argument over minor differences which is, in part, germane to the main topic of this thread.

Quite agree with both your historical assessment of immigration (if perhaps not quite yet multi-culturalism in the sense that we mean it today) re. both Rome and the American frontiers. However, I would argue that prior to the 20th century, principles, either judicial or onto-political, that assume the voice of pluralism are more truthfully understood in terms of constitutionality rather than ethnicity. That is, prior to the more or less overnight invention of Human Rights in 1946 at Chatham House, the question of plurality and pluralism--if it ever arose at all--was always understood in terms of the devolution or centralization of political power and State sovereignty. 

I think that what Human Rights doctrine has done post-Nuremburg, largely in an attempt to establish an historical pedigree for itself, is to root out pluralistic principles of Federalist theory and then effectively 'reverse engineer' them to make it appear that the original authors had ethnic pluralism in mind and/or that these strictly constitutional notions could be extracted wholesale from their historical context and be applied to the current reality of the deliberate control and management of a new form of social engineering: the multi-cultural society.

But again, I want to re-affirm my agreement with you concerning both the 'deep' history f immigration as well as the net benefits to be derived from 'cultural mixing'.

For the US in particular (and I'm glad that you brought up the Chinese; too often in the US race relations are couched solely in terms of the African experience as we all witnessed at the excruciating Oscar ceremonies earlier this year).

On this topic I can strongly recommend two books by Alexander Saxton, 'The Rise and Fall of the White Republic'' and 'The Indispensable Enemy (on the Chinese in 19th century California). Also the very hard to get 'Gone to Croatan'.

Eric

Dear H. G. Callaway,

Thank you for your post. I will read the article that you provided with great interest.

Eric