And None Shall Make Them Afraid:

Militarism, Militarization and Human Rights

by Liberato C. Bautista Assistant General Secretary United Nations Ministry

 

General Board of Church and Society 1

 

The United Methodist Church

 

Why the concern on militarization and human rights?

 

The phenomena of militarism and militarization are very complex and disturbing. Militarism and militarization stare us in the face with their graphic reality all at once represented in the form of power and privilege, fear and sanction, and discipline and organization. We are either downright complicit to them, victims of them, or fence sitters allowing them to wreak havoc in human relationships and people's communities, or to dominate govern­ance in its many forms and representations. Human rights violations most often result from militarism and militarization.

 

Militarism and militarization must be a cause for concern. These twins of power and privilege, and their organization and mobilization, demand our concern precisely because their theory and practice strike deep into and assaults values we hold common for humanity - human rights and human dignity, justice and peace, democracy and just governance.

 

Because militarism and militarization assault values that we hold dear for the survival of humanity and people's dignity, they then become ethical and moral concerns. They become ethical concerns precisely because they demand responses that draw from deeply personal as well as communal and corporate considerations. These demands, and the responses evoked and mobilized, are moral matters because they involve human decision and action. Such decisions and actions either diminish or enhance a person's moral agency.

 

Militarism and militarization disempower the human moral agency. They also seek to use and disable the moral agency so that it surren­ders to their organizing power and principle. History offers examples of people whose demeanor exhibit militaristic behavior with the least of moral compunction and concern for moral decency and human dignity. Military dictators and tyrants, military informers and torturers, and even paramilitary who are mostly untrained and ill-paid, commit serious human rights violations.

 

Militarism and militarization, both as concept and practice, are inherently violative of human rights. They are an affront to human dignity. They are a curse to the oikoumene - the whole inhabited world. The oikoumene is supposed to be a world of shalom - of peace - where everyone is to live in dignity, in fullness, and in wholeness. In the words of the prophet Micah, this is to be a world where peoples "shall sit under their own vine and fig tree, and none shall make them afraid." (Micah 4:4).

 

 Struggle against militarization and human rights violations

 

Our struggles against militarism and militari­zation, and our fight against human rights violations, spring from both ethical and faith imperatives.

 

By ethical imperative I mean the concerns of society at large that point to our common humanity and common ecology, and how we might survive with decency and utmost tolerance, not only for our own kind (anthropological) but for the entire cosmos (cosmological and ecological).

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We share this ethi­cal imperative with all of humanity without regard for race, religion, creed, gender, ethnicity, or class. Listen to this ethical injunction:

 

"At the table of peace shall be bread and justice." The provision of food and the dispensation of justice comes ahead of national security!

 

By faith imperative I mean the things that make for belief, so that belief impels us to aspire and do the just and common good, and that we do the just and common good because our faith in a just and sovereign God demands us to do so. Listen to this biblical injunction: "do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with your God," (Micah 6:8). Military might frustrates justice, cancels love and venerates arrogance!

 

The popular African-American spiritual "Ain't gonna learn war no more" points to both ethical and faith injunctions in the struggle for human rights. Indeed, the God in whom we believe is a God who judges between peoples and arbitrates between nations so that peoples and nations shall "beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore; but they shall sit under their own vines and fig trees, and no one shall make them afraid" (Micah 4:3).

 

The resolution of conflicts and the establishment of a just and lasting peace can only be the result of a just and liberating practice of governance in all aspects of human life and social relations - local and global, personal and communal.

 

Just governance is anathema to militarism and militarization. Human rights violations proceed from the imposition and unleashing of acts that frustrate just and peaceable governance. Such acts are most often violent and conflictive. On a large scale they are waged as wars. To date, the single most devastating form of human rights violations because of their encompassing nature are the colonial wars. Colonial wars are wars of attrition - they not only decimated numbers of native peoples but also inhabited the minds and hearts of those that survived. Colonialism remains to be the worst human rights violation of all time.

 

 

What are human rights?

 

We are concerned against the violation of human rights precisely because we hold dear and sacred human rights and human dignity.

 

The term human rights is a very recent word coinage. Human rights can be partly said to have originated from the promulgation of such documents as the English Magna Carta (1215), the United States Declaration of Independence and Constitution (1776, 1787) and the French Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen in 1789. Others would trace the evolution of human rights thinking from age antiquity, as in Greek and Roman phi­losophies, including medieval thinking particularly in religion and theology. Still others look at the history of human rights by tracing its development in the great religions and cultures of the world and, therefore, span a wider geographical source than that of the Western hemi­sphere. The most significant source of our contemporary understanding of hu­man rights came from the United Nations through the Universal Declaration of Human Rights enacted in 1948.

 

Here, let us look at the use of the term human rights. The French Declaration used droits de I'homme which literally means "rights of man," with "droits" to mean both law and rights. "Hommes" in the French grammar refers to both man and woman even as it does have heavy bent on the masculine given the actual historical practice in the French Revolution. There is thus reservation on the use of the term among the gender-sensitized. The Cana­dian-French term droits de la personne is much more preferred as it now means "rights of the person." The Spanish term derechos humanos is more direct and inclusive in that

 

 

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reference is to human beings rather than on "men." In its English usage, as traced in the development of Anglo-Saxon law, human rights is more of a legal term. But to refer to it with this legal connotation, the word "law" is appended, and thus the term "human rights law." The German term, Menschenrect, connotes legal rights as well.

 

In my original language, Filipino, the term human rights has at least four expressions: kara-patang pangtao, pantaong karapatan, makataong karapatan, and karapatang tao. I personally use the term "karapatang tao." The prefix "pan" and "pang" in Filipino denote a giver, almost always the state. I do not use the term that uses these prefixes; they go against my understanding of human rights being intrinsic with our humanity. Neither person nor government, even in benevolence and magnanimity, can claim to be the giver of human rights. I use karapatang tao because it denotes not who gives human rights but what rights inhere in human beings simply because they are humans.

 

There are important terms pertinent to a dis­cussion of human rights that need to be looked into so as to sift their differences and convergences. One of these is the relation of "human rights and human duties." Stanley Benn, in A Theory of Freedom (1988), says that "A person's duties are reasons for him (sic) to act or to forbear, whether he wants to or not. A person's rights, on the other hand, are reasons for someone else to act or forbear."

 

Another distinction has to be made of "right and interest." A right is an entitlement which enables the holder to make certain claims on others who are morally obliged to respect him or her. A claim based on a right, according to Steve Chan, is weightier than a claim based on a mundane interest. Rights represent a society's sense of the most fundamental precepts of human dignity and decency.

 

Personal liberties and property rights, or the so-called civil and political rights, as in free­dom of speech, of the press, of religion, and of assembly, including the safeguards of due process of law, are referred to as negative rights because they are supposed to prevent a government from abusing its people. The social and economic rights are called positive rights because these rights require a govern­ment to provide various services to its citi­zens. The distinction then has to do with nega­tive rights prohibiting a government from do­ing evil things to its people and positive rights enjoining a government to do good things for its people.

 

Civil liberties refer to people's immunity from arbitrary governmental power. They include such things as the freedom of expression and movement, the protection of due process of law, and personal security from torture, arbitrary imprisonment and summary execution. Political rights are defined primarily in terms of electoral democracy, especially in the citi­zen's right to select their representatives and of political parties to vie for power in free elec­tions.

 

The 1990 Human Development Report of the United Nations Development Program empha­sized the importance of human freedom in any aspect of human development. Human development is incomplete without human freedom, the report says. Throughout history, people have been willing to sacrifice their lives to gain national and personal liberty. Any index of human development should therefore give adequate weight to a society's human freedom in pursuit of material and social goals, the report asserts. The pursuit of hu­man freedom is tied to the pursuit of human rights; they go together.

 

 

 

Some biblical and theological grounding

 

The public policy of The United Methodist Church, whose ministry I represent at the United Nations, provides what I believe to be a solid theological grounding on human rights which we can use in our theological reflec­tions. Here, I quote extensibly from that public policy:

 

"The Psalmist exclaims: "What are human beings that you are mindful of them, mortals

 

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that you care for them? Yet you have made them a little lower than God" (or divine beings, or angels), and crowned them with glory and honor." (Psalm 8:4-5). Every human being bears the likeness of our just, gracious, and loving God: "God created human beings, in the image of God they were created; male and female were created." (Genesis 1:27, adapted)

 

"Human dignity is the foundation of all human rights. It is inherent and inborn. Human dignity is the image of God in each human being. Human dignity is the sum total of all human rights. We protect human dignity with human rights.

 

"Human rights are the building blocks of human dignity. They are indivisible and interdependent. It is God's gift of love for everyone. Human rights, being the expression of the wholeness and fullness of human dignity, are indivisible and interdependent.

 

"Human rights - expressed in affirmations and declarations, treaties and conventions, laws and statutes - are products of struggles to af­firm and fulfill the wholeness and fullness of life. As peoples and governments increase the catalogue of rights that are recognized and protected, protections not only increase, but so do our approximation of and striving for human dignity. To be engaged in the human rights struggle is to accept God's gift of love in Jesus Christ who has come to affirm all God's people as they are-as individuals and people in community together.

 

"But human rights do not affect humanity alone. The integrity of God's creation is possible only with the affirmation of both the dignity of all persons and the integrity of the whole ecological order. Human rights cannot be enjoyed in an environment of pillage and decay.

 

"Human dignity is the common bond that af­firms the individuality of each human being while celebrating the plurality and variety of communities to which each belongs, including the diverse economic, political, religious, ideological, race, class, gender and ethnic identities each represents."

 

Human rights violations, in our theological understanding, are therefore a direct challenge to the sovereignty of God in people's lives and their communities, and a wanton disregard for values that affirm our common humanity.

 

What are militarism and militarization?

 

A paper written and delivered before the Pugwash Symposium on Militarism and National Security in Oslo in 1977 by Marek Thee, then the editor of Bulletin of Peace Proposals of the International Peace Research Institute in Oslo, Norway, remains very relevant for our purposes:

 

"Militarism includes such symptoms as a rush to armaments, the growing role of the military (understood as the military establishment) in national and international affairs, the use of force as an instrument of prevalence and political power, and the increasing influence of the military in civilian affairs.

 

"Militarization, on the other hand, is understood as the extension of military influence to civilian spheres, including economy and socio­political life.

 

Marek Thee maintained in his paper that "any discussion of militarism and militarization must take as its point of departure the primary role of the military in society. By definition, military organizations are called to apply organized violence in defense of the state, mainly in foreign affairs. The state, it is generally recognized, has the right and duty to employ violence in support of constitutional law or to shield itself against external danger. Internally, this task is usually left to the police, while external protection is the domain of the military."

 

Marek Thee asserted that, "in a very general sense, militarism and militarization start with the abuse by the military of its legitimate function and its encroachment on political affairs, internally and externally."

 

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 What is significant for our understanding of militarism and militarization, according to Thee, is the belief in organized violence as an indispensable instrument to uphold the state and to regulate human relations. This, maintained Thee, is the conviction that human be­ings and society can be manipulated by the application of force, and that violence is the ultimate expedient for the control and solution of conflicts.

 

This latter notion presents us with the neces­sary but difficult debate about the many forms of violence, including state and structural violence, and the violence unleashed not only by the military but violence emanating from wars of national liberation. The accession to the increasing catalogue of international laws regulating both humanitarian activities and human rights enforcement by both state and non-state actor is very promising.

 

 

Militarization and Human Rights Violations in the Asia Pacific Region

 

In this paper, I will not discuss in detail the situation of militarization and human rights violations in the Asia Pacific region. The country reports are sufficient enough to describe the situation and why action against militari­zation and human rights violations is important and urgent. It is abundantly clear that military doctrines, especially of national security, grip most of the national politics of Asian countries. Human rights violations are ram­pant in the region.

 

What I believe must be done, and must be spearheaded by the intelligentsia, youth and students like you, is counter militarization and human lights violations in both their dis­course and praxes. A discourse, perhaps a paradigm, must be evolved to help us muster not only the philosophical underpinnings that yoke militarism and militarization to destructive social practices, but also to muster the courage to struggle against them so that we can evolve and live out a social practice that fosters human rights and human dignity, justice and peace, democracy and just govern­ance.

 

As students, educating and organizing among students and the masses, and as educators of a liberating and empowering pedagogy, we must muster the sophistication needed to counter the sophistication of the forces of militarism. Our theoretical work must be solid even as militaristic theory is pervasive. Our praxes must be grounded in theory, and must themselves produce theory, so that we can strengthen the well and wealth from which we draw experience and future action.

 

The forces of militarism are not only wily. They are downright destructive. We cannot afford to succumb to their destruction. Our communities demand life-giving mechanisms to counter the death-dealing instruments of militarism and militarization. The human rights struggle is our historical contribution to the ongoing project to evolve a just, participatory, peace­able and humane society.

 

 

Militarization and human rights in an era of globalization

 

The human rights struggle becomes even more imperative in an era of economic, politi­cal and cultural globalization. Human rights is value that we must counterpose and globalize. To struggle for human rights and against militarization is to counter the oppressive and exploitation dynamics of the kind of globaliza­tion that is fomented on us by private financial elites and international multilateral institutions, primarily the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.

 

To counter globalization, we must deny the forces of domination and oppression the prerogative to dictate on the economic, political and cultural policies of our communities and national governments.

 

With our biblical understanding of human rights above, we will then note that globalization

 

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runs counter to our longing for fullness of life. The scandal in our Christian faith is to be located in the massive poverty and hunger of the majority of peoples in the region. God's will for abundance for all continues to be un­dermined by globalization. Our acquiescence to the dictates of globalization embroils us in its oppressive and exploitative dynamics.

 

What we are about to do in this era of globalizing markets is to organize sustainable communities where the practice of economics critiques the bankruptcy of the ideology and idolatry of the market and counterpose an economics of sustainability. In these organized and sustainable communities, politics become the venue to establish the parameters of good governance and of a just society. Cul­ture becomes our efforts at living out the fullness of life and the construction of a culture of peace.

 

Let us oppose militarism and militarization. Let us put an end to human rights violations. Let us oppose globalization. We cannot frustrate our peo­ple and our communities. We can only be true and obedient to the God of justice and peace.

 

(This is the full text of the keynote presentation in the "Human Rights and Solidarity Workshop 2000")

 

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