Nobody can abuse, neglect, violate or infringe on the rights and liberties of people with impunity any longer. And if anybody does so, we will hold them accountable and responsible –no matter who they are.
1. Human rights stand for the inalienable entitlement of all individuals by the virtue of their being human. That is why human rights (HR) need to be promoted universally. Hence it is imperative that activists, the world over, get involved in the defense and promotion of all HR for all individuals on an equal footing.
2. Not all NGOs committed to work in the name of religion, especially in Africa, are specifically focusing on HR violations (i.e., representing the rights and interests of all people including animists, non-religious and freethinking people).
3. Religion is thus not always practiced in regard of the human rights, dignity and basic freedoms of everybody, i.e., these NGOs strengths are not always used to decisively and outspokenly relieve all human beings from conditions of exploitation or discrimination. Other religion, non-religious or atheist individuals are not infrequently excluded, discriminated against by omission and/or are thus deprived of their fundamental HR in subtle or overt ways; they are perceived and often treated with indignity. Non-believers may not be given the same protection than their religious counterparts. For centuries, freethinkers (and other mostly minority groups) in Africa have suffered from intolerance in silence –with nobody taking their side; they need to be given the opportunity to break this silence, to tear down the wall of theistic ideology, and to assert and demand their rights: a definite role here for HR activists.
4. Generally, Africa has lost a lot of its human potentials to religious orthodoxy of different denominations. The black continent has wasted much of its human capital in the service of rigid religious institutions, of imposed, alien and sacred misconceptions, and even of magical thinking and superstitions. African women have particularly been victimized and exploited by the upholders of supernatural values and myths (including religion). The time has come to denounce these HR violations when and where such denouncing is due, and to hold nations that commit them accountable and responsible. The time has come to confront African states with the HR abuses they perpetrate, contribute to or abet –in no unimportant part in the name of religion or superstition.
5. What is needed is to address those areas of HR where Africa has made very limited progress, in part due to such religious inflexibility. Among other, these include areas like the decriminalization of homosexuality, the elimination of all forms of discrimination against women and against non-religious (freethinking) people, the rights of religious dissenters or animists, the abolition of blasphemy laws and of the death penalty, and the separation of religion and state.
6. To start with, as HR activists (and not only in Africa), we need to document the encroachment of religion into the public and political space while highlighting potential HR abuses associated with it. We also need to ensure that governments act as secular entities, and that there is no bias for or against individuals with different religious or non-religious beliefs.
7. The situation in Africa is not just one where religion and politics are often mixed, but one in which the dominance and direction of politics, of education and of legislation is not infrequently dictated by self-proclaimed emissaries of God and/or their cohorts and surrogates. It is only when governments are religiously neutral in their actions that they can be impartial arbiters and guarantors of the human rights and liberties of all citizens. It is when governments are truly secular that they can be truly democratic.
8. Governments are thus to be led to a point where they put into practice what has been guaranteed and enshrined in the UN Covenants on Human and Peoples’ Rights –and that is: equal rights for all regardless of (in this case) religion and belief.
9. As HR activists, we are still in the closet on this, because there is nobody that takes-on-religion-when-in-the-wrong and thus defends the human rights and interests of people negatively affected by it. There is no group that makes representations on behalf of these individuals on a variety of issues concerning their rights (at least in Africa: we have to encourage activists there to get out of the closet).
10. Is it thus surprising that the human rights discourse is sometimes religion-skeptic?
Claudio Schuftan, Ho Chi Minh City
cschuftan@phmovement.org