Robert Buddan

January 15 was a national holiday in the United States to commemorate Martin Luther King's (MLK) birthday. Rev. King fought for racial rights, peace rights and social and economic rights. His agenda evolved from a struggle for racial equality to opposition to the war in Vietnam, and support for working-class people and the poor in general.

Dr. King's struggles would have remained relevant today. One of the great puzzles of American democracy has been its contradictory position on human rights. It believes in human rights but did not always believe that all people were equally human and deserving of equal rights; and did not believe that all rights were equal, anyway.

Somehow, the American con-stitution had tolerated slavery for 100 years, and when emancipation came it took the country's civil war, its bloodiest war, to bring it. Probably Abraham Lincoln best represents this puzzle and paradox. Lincoln is known for leading the civil war for capitalism against slavery. He is also remembered for a few gems: democracy means "government of the people, by the people, for the people"; "No man is good enough to govern another man without that other's consent"; and, "As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master. This expresses my idea of democracy."

This was the same Lincoln who, when trying to win votes from a white, slave-owning audience, made it clear to them that:

"I have no purpose to introduce political and social equality between the white and black races. There is a physical difference between the two, which in my judgment, will probably forever forbid their living together upon the foundation of perfect equality; and inasmuch as it becomes necessary that there must be a difference I am in favour of the race to which I belong having the superior position."

Lincoln won his election but so disappointed racists, who his speech had encouraged, that they assassinated him.

The Lincoln paradox captures the puzzle of American democracy - its ability to contain opposites without acknowledging the obvious contradictions but packaging them instead in a myth of equality. It is this that Martin Luther King and his generation faced. Americans even concocted a doctrine to somehow rationalise this contradiction, the doctrine of separate but equal - the doctrine of segregation. It boggles the mind why people should be treated to separate and unequal rights and opportunities if they were equal. It boggled Martin Luther King's mind too. As he explained it, "Segregation is the adultery of an illicit intercourse between injustice and immorality." Still, it was the way of what passed for American democracy.

PREJUDICE AND RIGHTS

The answer to the puzzle lies in the very way that human rights have come to be understood in the U.S. Humans have rights because they are human, but (and this is often left unstated) not all humans necessarily have equal rights because they are not all equal. The more modern version of this is that people are entitled to equal rights after all, but (again without saying it) not all rights are equal. People get away with these inconsistencies because of something else that is even more powerfully human - prejudice. Enough white Americans thought blacks were not equally human and this racial prejudice was what Martin Luther King's movement went up against.

The South African anti-apartheid campaigner, Steve Biko, put his finger on prejudice when he said, "Whites must be made to realise that they are only human, not superior. Same with blacks. They must be made to realise that they are also human, not inferior."

Eldridge Cleaver was an American black power radical whose movement preferred violence in opposition to King's non-violent movement. Cleaver's idea of freedom was based on sexual insurrection: "Every time I embrace a black woman I'm embracing slavery, and when I put my arms around a white woman, well, I'm hugging freedom. The white man forbade me to have the white woman on pain of death ... I will not be free until the day I can have a white woman in my bed."

The failure of the human rights doctrine is that it does not recognise all people or all rights as equal. Thus, great inequalities remain in the world. They are not just based on racial prejudices either. Prejudices allow economic, social and political structures to foment inequality. Take this glaring case. The United Nations says that women work two-thirds of the world's working hours, and produce half of the world's food, yet only earn ten per cent of the world's income, and own less than one per cent of the world's property. Furthermore, they hold only 14 per cent of the world's parliamentary seats and only eight per cent of the world's Cabinet positions.

the right to development

Today, Martin Luther King's agenda would have had to broaden further to embrace women's rights, the rights of children, the disabled, the elderly, the immigrant, racial minorities in general, the victims of war, and those unfairly persecuted or indiscriminately killed in fighting terrorism. In other words, he would have had to support the new agenda of the right to development.

In 1987, the United Nations presented the most recent universally accepted right, the right to development. It acknowledged, in effect, that human rights and glaring inequality existed side by side and the rights movement needed something new. People, it said, had a right not just to speech, voting, movement, conscience, and beliefs but also to social and economic development. They had a right to opportunities for work, health, education, a clean environment, and the means of a decent livelihood and human dignity.

Dr. King would, however, have had to confront the old puzzle anew - why was the United States the only country to have voted against this resolution? This right to development is the principle behind the U.N. Millennium Development Goals. These goals aim at reducing extreme world poverty by half in the first 15 years of this century. The right to development seeks to correct the deficiencies of the old human rights doctrine, and to say people are equal and rights must be equal, too, and those rights must include the right to development.

A wealth of statistics confirms great inequalities and one would have expected that rich countries would support the right to development. Much of the old prejudices of the past continue to make these inequalities happen. But the U.S. voted against the resolution and many developed countries abstained. There is still a long way to go to overcome the prejudices and self-interests that limit human rights.

The day after Martin Luther King Day, Barrack Obama set up a committee to explore running for president. Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee believes the United States needs the kind of philosophy that Martin Luther King preached - non-violence and negotiation. Maybe there is still hope that people like Obama and today's civil rights movement can make human rights work in the U.S., and help the U.S. to play a leading role in spreading human rights and human development around the world.

Robert Buddan lectures in the Department of Government, Mona, UWI. Email: Robert.Buddan@uwimona.edu.jm