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A poster for the conference includes this Walkley Award-winning photograph by Afghan refugee Barat Ali Batoor.
Questioning
human rights
Conference called out for its cynical
critique of human rights.
By Loren Smith
A
migrant has hit out at an Australian humanities conference
for questioning human rights.
The migrant, who is also an academic and wishes
to remain anonymous, says the Australian Academy of the
Humanities’ 48th symposium should not critique “sacred” human
rights tenets.
“I am just curious to know how many of your speakers have lived
in a country where there were human rights abuses?
“How many experienced torture or rape?
“How many don’t know where their parents are because they
were never able to find their bodies and give them a proper
burial?” the academic wrote in an email to one of the conference’s
co‑convenors, Professor Jane Lydon.
“I am no one in the academic world … a foreigner and
non-white … but the blurb for your symposium has made me
really angry.”
The blurb contains the following passage:
“Although human rights are popularly regarded as a hallmark
of social justice, peacemaking and emancipation, they are
also frequently deployed to further neocolonialism, Western
supremacy, individualism and nationalism.”
“I think we can talk about the distortion of human rights, but
making very clear that it is their distortion that we are criticising,
not human rights themselves,” the academic asserted.
“The conference’s blurb, in my opinion, did not make this
distinction clear at all.”
Yet the academic expressed some sympathy for the conference
organisers’ perspective.
“I have read Russell McGregor’s work and I understand that when
post-war governments in Australia expressed a commitment to
Aboriginal assimilation, they were in accord with UN principles.”
Lydon, the Wesfarmers chair in Australian history at the University
of Western Australia, told Campus Review that after a cordial
conversation it was clear that she and the academic were “mostly
on the same page” in regard to the issue.
In fact, she respects the academic’s view so much she included it
in her opening remarks.
Yet Lydon diverged from the academic in that she thinks it is
appropriate to analyse human rights.
“Our symposium is all about questioning,” she said. “[It entails] quite
a cynical critique of human rights. Although I agree with the critique, I
think we must go further than that.”
Lydon explained that she agreed with French scholar
Luc Boltanski’s argument that witnesses of human rights or
humanitarian violations have a responsibility to address these
issues. For example, it’s insufficient to simply like a Facebook post
condemning the Australian government’s position on refugees on
Manus Island – we must act to create change.
However, Lydon conceded that it is “absolutely a luxury” to be in a
position to question human rights in the first instance. ■
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