Wednesday 1 October 2014

Hey Harry Help!

Hey Harry,

I did want to start this conversation slowly: a few general questions about anarchism as a ideology within theatre, the role of performance within activism. You know, abstract stuff that opens up a chat, finds common ground, gives us a framework. Terms of reference, shared assumptions, that kind of thing.

Only, as always, events have caught up with me. I am not the biggest fan of the Conservative party, but I nearly soiled myself when I read David Cameron's thoughts on human rights today. Let's recap his words...

Of course, it’s not just the European Union that needs sorting out – it’s the European Court of Human Rights.
When that charter was written, in the aftermath of the Second World War, it set out the basic rights we should respect.
But since then, interpretations of that charter have led to a whole lot of things that are frankly wrong.
Rulings to stop us deporting suspected terrorists.
The suggestion that you've got to apply the human rights convention even on the battle-fields of Helmand.
And now – they want to give prisoners the vote.
I’m sorry, I just don't agree.

Let's pause there for a moment. Apart from the rather odd tricolon here - he starts with the most frightening thing (terrorists!), and ends on a bathetic note (prisoners getting the vote), I can't quite get my head around Cameron's process here. He seems to be saying the charter of the European Court of Human Rights 'we should respect.' then goes on to say the interpretation are 'frankly wrong.'

I'm sorry, Dave, I just don't agree. If we accept the basic foundation, don't we have to accept its working out through its application? 

I am actually pretty frightened by the thought that Britain might drop our human rights. It's not just the company we'd be keeping (Belarus, Greece during its junta period): it's the idea that a 'British bill of rights' would somehow replace the universal quality of 'human rights.'


So - I am wondering where you'd stand on human rights? I think that they are a fiction, something we made up, but that they represent an ideal - a Platonic Form of social justice that defines us as individual beings of worth - that governments can work towards. They can never be reached, but each attempt makes the world a little better. And a British bill of rights suggests that rights are not universal, but belong to a nation and its citizens. 

And so, other nations, other citizens, can't share those rights. 

I rather hope I am over-reacting. How do you understand this?




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