by Dr. David McGrogan, Daily Sceptic:
Stop me if I’m wrong, but we all get the feeling, I think, that we are hurtling down a highway at a rapidly accelerating speed. But where does that highway lead? What is it that we are hurtling towards?
For clues, it is helpful to keep an eye on what is being discussed at the United Nations, whose officials are not accountable to electorates, and who therefore do not have to even pay lip service to the exigencies of domestic politics. Their interest is purely in the internal politics of the organisation which they work for: pleasing not electorates, but the ‘selectorates’ on whom they rely to keep themselves gainfully employed (and, crucially, funded). Their statements are therefore highly indicative with respect to the ideology which imbues what we might call the global governance set.
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And it is important to make clear that it is an ideology; these people are true believers. They are not conspirators – they are (though they would obviously not describe themselves with this word) disciples. They present their ideology as perfectly sensible and reasonable, and indeed to them it undoubtedly seems that way. In their heads it is not an ideology at all, but merely the product of a decent education, good heart and pure mind. But when examined in detail, it is revealed in all of its strange extremism. It is an ideology that it is appropriate to label a variant of liberalism, in that it presents the central task of government as being indeed to ‘liberate’. But this is a form of liberation that paradoxically involves the total control of state over society: the micromanagement of each and every interaction performed by each and every individual with anybody and everybody else.
The good news is that this nightmarish vision can never achieve full implementation. The bad news is that we are on a trajectory towards it all the same – and a huge amount of damage will be done before the madness clears. We are not, in other words, heading towards a collision with a wall, but we are going to have to keep our fingers crossed that the vehicle on which we are riding maintains its physical integrity for long enough to get back to a cruising speed and change course.
Let me, then, take you through the recent ‘vision statement’ of Volker Türk, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, offered at the culmination of the UN human rights apparatus’s year-long celebration of the 75th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). Türk is a consummate insider – if he ever had a job outside of the UN I can find no information about it anywhere (though I suppose it’s conceivable he once had a paper round) – and is great mates with the UN Secretary-General himself, Antonio Guterres. You couldn’t, in other words, find a better exemplar of what I earlier called the global governance set. And in this statement, delivered precisely to his ‘selectorate’ of diplomats, UN rentiers and sinecurists, and NGOs (no ordinary person will come within a 10 foot pole’s length of reading it) he is providing the perfect insight into the ideology to which I am referring.
Written in that peculiar species of awkward, bland global English which is the new lingua franca within the circles in question, ‘Human Rights: A Path for Solutions‘ purports to “renew our commitment to human rights”. This is on the one hand an almost millenarian message. The UDHR, we are told, ushered in “a new era of progress towards human dignity and agency for all”. It confirmed to us that it is “through respect for human rights [that?] we craft a better future for ‘our human family’”. And what we need is to re-discover that message of hope, to “embrace and trust the full power of human rights as the path to the world we want: more peaceful, equal and sustainable”. This is because we face a “precarious moment”:
When the Declaration will reach its centenary, our world will be in so many ways unrecognisable. Reshaped by megatrends, more unknown unknowns and intensifying complexity. Two paths open up. One of enlightened cooperation and solidarity, stable and seeking balance with our natural world. The other, unmistakably dystopian.
I hope you will agree with me that Turk is no great prose stylist. It may seem unfair to pick on him for this, given that English is not his first language, but it illustrates the importance of the point I earlier made – this is not a document which is intended to be read by the hoi polloi, so there was little point in finessing it or even having it properly proofread. But the message is in any case I suppose clear enough: we have two options. We can be enlightened – that is, we can “embrace and trust the full power of human rights”. Or we can face ruin.
What, then, as Immanuel Kant might ask, is enlightenment? Well, it means “affirm[ing] human rights as protection” but also understanding them as a “propulsive force”, which will unlock “fresh ideas and tools”:
For governments, human rights offer a comprehensive, long-term, problem-solving formula – a blueprint for effective governance. Transcending ideologies and divisions, they open up space for productive cooperation. For individuals, rights are a moral and legal anchor for their aspirations to a life in dignity and justice, a profound acknowledgement of their equality and a source of hope. For youth, in particular, they offer reassurance that the social contract can be reimagined for their futures.
Sounds wonderful, doesn’t it? Human rights, it seems, can indeed solve all of our problems, as the title of the statement suggests:
Human rights must be at the centre of rebalancing our economies so they start working for all people and for the planet. Human rights can also free us from the impasse on addressing the triple planetary crisis [this is the latest buzz-phrase to express concern about the environment] and equip us to manage successfully the technology revolution. We must, at long last, act on their blueprint for ending cycles of bloodshed.
Rebalancing economies so they work for all people and “the planet”. Ending crises and helping manage the technological revolution. Ending bloodshed. What more could one wish for? Human rights can do it all – if only we would believe.
This is, as you will appreciate, almost a spiritual message, though in actual spiritual terms it is a house of cards, having no philosophical foundation or theological glue beyond an insistence that it would be terribly nice if everybody was nice to each other and the environment, and had nice things. Where, then, is the beef? How will this utopia, in the eyes of Türk, find its realisation?
