(Originally published on Kiltr 28 days ago)
Chances are Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein is not an overly familiar name in most Scots households; as we brace ourselves for the triggering of Article 50, if Ian Duncan Smith has his way, sometime before Christmas, but more likely as indicated in the blandest interview ever given by a PM (and yes, I'm including all the Spitting Image 'grey' John Major ones!), early in 2017, with some version of the Snooper's Charter en route and a Great British Bill of Rights sold to a UK public desperately trying to overcome buyer's remorse with those 'tough times ahead', it might just be one to become au fait with. Zeid assumed his post as High Commissioner for Human Rights on 1st September 2014 and became the first Asian, Muslim and Arab to do so.
Chances are Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein is not an overly familiar name in most Scots households; as we brace ourselves for the triggering of Article 50, if Ian Duncan Smith has his way, sometime before Christmas, but more likely as indicated in the blandest interview ever given by a PM (and yes, I'm including all the Spitting Image 'grey' John Major ones!), early in 2017, with some version of the Snooper's Charter en route and a Great British Bill of Rights sold to a UK public desperately trying to overcome buyer's remorse with those 'tough times ahead', it might just be one to become au fait with. Zeid assumed his post as High Commissioner for Human Rights on 1st September 2014 and became the first Asian, Muslim and Arab to do so.
Zeid's formidable CV demonstrates a long familiarity with international criminal justice, international law, UN peacekeeping, post conflict peace building, international development and counter nuclear terrorism. He played a central role in the establishment of the International Criminal Court and is a champion of Human Rights Courts around the world. He is not just a diplomat or a desk jockey, seeing active service in the Jordanian desert police from the late eighties to the mid nineties and served in the UN peacekeeping forces in the Balkans shortly thereafter.
Yesterday Mr Zeid wrote an open letter to the demagogues and populists on the rise across Europe, in the UK and in the US, addressing many of them by name, including Nigel Farage, Geert Wilders and Donald Trump. In his letter, prompted by the release of Wilders' '11 Point Manifesto' and supporting speech in Cleveland, he sets himself up as a 'nightmare' for the political fantasists of the right, a Muslim angry at their half truths and lies. As the global voice of human rights, elected by all governments to be the critic of all governments, he sees his role ultimately as the defender of the human rights of each individual, everywhere, of:
'...the rights of migrants, asylum seekers and immigrants; the rights of the LGBTi community; the rights of women and children in all countries; minorities; indigenous persons; people with disabilities and any and all who are discriminated against, disadvantaged, persecuted or tortured, whether by governments, political movements or by terrorists.'
To my mind, Zeid nails it when he pulls no punches and says that what Wilders has in common with Trump, Le Pen and Farage, he also has in common with Da'esh. They flow from the same source of deceit and bigotry, seek in 'varying degrees to recover a past, halcyon and so pure in form...united by ethnicity or religion...A past that most certainly, in reality, did not exist anywhere, ever.'. He elucidates and explains that he:
'does not equate the actions of the nationalist demagogues with those of Da'esh, which are monstrous and sickening;...But in its mode of communication, it's use of half truths and over simplifications, the propaganda of Da'esh uses tactics similar to those of the populists. And both sides of this equation benefit from each other - indeed would not expand in influence without each other's actions'
Most importantly Mr Zeid gives a call to action. Having mentioned Farage, he is including the UK in his assessments. Wilders admits to being emboldened, heartened by the Brexit vote and the inflammatory language used by Farage and some of the Brexiteers, not a few of who now serve in PM May's cabinet as the gatekeepers patrolling the outward looking aspects of fortress UK, which pushed it over the line. He asks good people to remember the safeguards of human rights laws in the face of bigotry's insidious march.
Inevitably the few headlines which appeared around the letter in the UK media were of the 'UN Commissioner Compares Farage to ISIS' variety and sent populist cheerleaders a-frothing all over the Twittersphere. If your reasoning is not theirs but you supported their cause, you are enabling their bigotry and it comes from the same place as that of Da'esh, repeating the same reasoning is an exercise in denial. Time for all good people who found that cause supported their views to consider acting on that buyer's remorse and for us all to find a way of doing as Zeid has urged:
'We must pull back from this trajectory. My friends, are we doing enough to counter this cross border bonding of demagogues? A decade ago, Geert Wilders' speech would have created a world wide furore. Now? Now they are met with little more than a shrug, and, outside the Netherlands, his words and pernicious plans were barely noticed. Are we going to continue to stand by and watch this banalisation of bigotry, until it reaches its logical conclusion?
Ultimately, it is the law that will safeguard our societies - human rights law, binding law which is the distillation of human experience, of generations of human suffering, the screams of the victims of past crimes of hate. We must guard this law passionately and be guided by it.
Do not, my friends, be led by the deceiver. It is only by pursuing the entire truth, and acting wisely that humanity can ever survive. So draw the line and speak. Speak out and up, speak the truth and do so compassionately, speak for your children, for those you care about, for the rights of all, and be sure to say clearly, stop!'
Human rights are not only at a remove, to be defended for victims of extradition or torture in distant lands, they are being violated every day, yes here on our streets too, by systemic failure and by individual and concerted bigotry. Sometimes I can barely face the disgusting, almost daily hate crimes perpetrated against vulnerable people with disabilities, and the ignorance which cannot see them for what they are, defined in international human rights law, or the suffering they cause. I see 'casual' hate crimes almost accepted as the norm in the lives of people with dsabilites I work with and I fear for what comes next, without the safeguards of EU law and the European Court of Human Rights, so I speak out as often as I am able.
I speak out, not just where it occurs, where it has been allowed to fester and bloom in bland, hideous ignorance, but also where it is enabled by pernicious whatabootery too; I speak out even if the necessary belligerence and antagonism it stirs in me, for even if I begin with reasoned argument the stance is of its nature oppositional, impacts my seizure threshold, somewhere along the way making me pay physically, neurologically, in getting rights right, I realise, maybe I need to take that hit for those who can't, for those who can't even raise their voice loud enough to just say 'Stop!'; some days I can't either, but when I can, your damn right I will and make no apology for it!
(I've quoted extensively from Mr Zeid's letter but it can be read in full here:
#democratichub
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