Arundhati Roy Quotes About Human Rights
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The idea of justice - even just dreaming of justice - is revolutionary. The language of human rights tends to accept a status quo that is intrinsically unjust - and then tries to make it more accountable.
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Human rights are fundamental rights, they are the minimum, the very least we demand. Too often, they become the goal itself. What should be the minimum becomes the maximum - all we are supposed to expect - but human rights aren't enough. The goal is, and must always be, justice.
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Violating human rights is integral to the project of neoliberalism and global hegemony.
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...a political struggle that does not have women at the heart of it, above it, below it, and within it is no struggle at all.
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The idea of "human rights," for example - sometimes it bothers me. Not in itself, but because the concept of human rights has replaced the much grander idea of justice.
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Human rights takes history out of justice.
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Look at the Israel-Palestine conflict, for example. If you look at a map from 1947 to now, you'll see that Israel has gobbled up almost all of Palestinian land with its illegal settlements. To talk about justice in that battle, you have to talk about those settlements. But, if you just talk about human rights, then you can say, "Oh, Hamas violates human rights," "Israel violates human rights." Ergo, both are bad.
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Talk loud enough about human rights and it gives the impression of democracy at work, justice at work. There was a time when the United States waged war to topple democracies, because back then democracy was a threat to the Free Market. Countries were nationalising their resources, protecting their markets.... So then, real democracies were being toppled. They were toppled in Iran, they were toppled all across Latin America, Chile.
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