Darlington Mahuku and Bowden Mbanje
In one of our contributions we submitted that human rights are a product of social struggles. We posited that our rights as Zimbabweans must be firmly fixed in our past, not an American or British

past. 
This entails that our rights as Zimbabwean citizens must be embedded in the Chimurenga or wars of liberation, the right to be recognised as an independent person both politically and economically. To try and extricate ourselves from our past will therefore be a serious error.

Our historical experiences as Zimbabweans and as a country must be the marrow of Zimbabwe’s future.  Mamdani noted that without the experience of sickness, there can be no idea of health. And without the fact of oppression, there can be no practice of resistance and no notion of rights. This explains why Issa G Shivji contends that human rights talk should be historically situated and socially specific.

The argument that we are putting across is that the human rights talk is the chosen battlefield of Western Europe and America in their effort to fulfil their own interests. One very interesting observation made by Shivji is that “the human rights talk is a major element in the ideological armoury of imperialism and neo-imperialism.”

Neo-liberals purport to absolutise the issue of human rights as the most important and integral question. They are also of the view that the human rights struggle is the bedrock of all democratic struggles. Notably, Henry Kissinger submitted that, presidents Nixon, Ford and Carter employed the human rights-talk to enhance their own political standing and language, but Ronald Reagan went a step further and used human rights as a weapon to destroy communism and denied the

Soviet Union citizens of their social and economic rights.
The human rights talk is presently being used in Africa to justify intervention in the internal affairs of independent African states and in the process effect regime change so that the developed world will become perennial beneficiaries of African mineral resources.
It is not surprising that the human rights talk is now being used in Africa, diabolically insulated in what is termed “humanitarian  intervention” either through naked and outright military intervention or through sanctions.

The argument given for intervention by intervening states are moral considerations in which they have the duty of safeguarding and respecting the sanctity of human life in accordance to international law.
The most debatable issue with regard to humanitarian military intervention is the principle of sovereignty. A state is an entity whose space must be respected as enshrined in the 1648 Treaty of Westphalia and later codified as core principles of international law. This was later buttressed by the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Genocide convention of 1948 and the four Geneva conventions signed in 1949.

Consequently it was after the end of the Cold War that the democracy and human rights discourse and the issue of the rule of law have become the pillars that have to be respected by the international community. so that governments become accountable for their actions.
What must be noted is that military interventions as what happened in Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan and other countries and sanctions illegally imposed on targeted nations like Zimbabwe are a grave injury to human rights.

Human rights have become a very persuasive tool in the hands of neo-imperialists to achieve big power political objectives than had been envisioned in the past. Innocent citizens in the countries targeted are subjected to intense suffering as human rights are wantonly violated in the name of the right to protect.
Hunger and poverty are unleashed on the unsuspecting populations with homesteads being decimated under the pretext that “after these temporary disturbances” the new regimes will commence a new reconstruction exercise.

Uwe-Jens Heuer and Gregor Schirmer observed that these countries that purport to be championing and defending human rights like the United States, Britain, France and Germany inter-alia, are only interested in politico-civil rights and are not interested in socio-economic rights of people whose rights they say they want to protect.

Serious unemployment, hunger and disease that are a product of economic sanctions are not bracketed human rights crimes. This supports the Hobbesian argument that human nature is anarchic and explains why some scholars have maintained that human rights ideology is an ideology of domination and part of the imperialist and “neo-imperialist” world outlook.

This is why Shivji noted that “the colonial native who had earlier been saved from anthropology and inserted in history was now to be tutored in democracy and human rights.” Mamdani posits that in the international system, human rights are an ideological and political initiative with a strong American aura.

What then is the position of Africa as regards the politics of human rights? As a point of departure it must be noted that human rights were a result of anti-colonial struggles by the masses mobilised by a few intelligentsia like George Nyandoro, Joshua Nkomo, Ndabaningi Sithole, Hebert Chitepo and President Mugabe, who organised national movements for independence.

In Southern Africa human rights were part and parcel of a political objective that was meant to reorganise changes from above, led by popular revolutionary movements that would in the end lead to popular political and economic sovereignty. This was meant to come up with “human rights that are organic to African realities,” the reason why Zimbabwe is against the neo-colonial extra-exploitation of the ordinary people in society.

Zimbabwe has refused the IMF and World Bank policies that enhance the exploitation of the Zimbabwean peasants by the operation of the market, explaining why it embarked on the land redistribution exercise and now the indigenisation and black empowerment exercise.
With the end of the Cold War the West reinvented itself and “partnered” with some groups and individuals in African countries to maintain their stranglehold. It is therefore not surprising that the 1990s witnessed the mushrooming of Western sponsored opposition movements and civil organisations intoxicated with the neo-liberal human rights ideologies that are subversive to the interests of the African ordinary citizens.

Neo-imperialists have arguably strategically associated themselves with some social forces and groups in Africa, “the enemies within” so that they can continue strengthening their neo-imperialist base. What these Western sponsored opposition movements are only interested in is political office and not human rights that are organic to Africa.

It must be clearly understood that they are turning a blind eye to the right of the African as a person to be empowered and be a beneficiary to his God given resources to the right of encouraging same “sex marriages”, that are appalling. To us as Africans this must be condemned unapologetically.
The submission given by Professor Shivji is more appealing and worth contemplating, “the human rights ideology has to be appropriated in the interest of the people.” This entails that those sections of our African societies that are experiencing oppression and exploitation under the neo-colonial yoke must be identified

and their requirements used unreservedly as the basis of human rights ideologies in Africa.

This calls for a human rights vocabulary renaissance culminating in a situation where “one joins the oppressed, exploited, dominated or ruled against the oppressors, exploiters, dominant and ruling to expose and resist such exploitation or dominance.” 
Africans must therefore have the right to determine their own livelihoods. The people must have the right to freely pursue and develop their culture and traditions.

They must give themselves the leeway to democratically determine their own socio-political and economic systems of governance that is not alien to Africa.
The world has witnessed military violence being employed as a means for human rights enforcement and yet Article 2 No. 4 of the UN Charter forbids the threat or use of force in international relations.

Uwe-Jens Heur contends that “with no anchor in international law, human rights end up in the juridically dubious sphere of natural law.” In the above context the human rights-talk ends up being tools of neoliberal propagandists. The most powerful states become themselves the world guards.

They have the veto power and choose when and not when to intervene and arguably they are the worst human rights violators. This is why President Mugabe is on record that the United States, Britain and their allies must not be arbiters of human rights because “their hands are dripping with the blood of innocent civilians.”

Political interventionism has therefore been reduced to mere political expedience and opportunism, it is not a case of human rights violations per se that determine how and when the big powers have to pull their guns and move in, but self-interests and yet soft power can be employed as a corrective measure to ensure that the people’s rights are respected.

Human rights talk in Africa must fall in the hands of the ordinary citizens in Africa so that it will be geared to serving their interests that is equality of all people. Their interests must be enshrined in their own country constitutions. African countries must therefore come up with constitutions that have the will of the people. It must not be a case of duplicating other countries’ constitutions.

A borrowed suit can never be one’s own hence what the African people want in their respective countries is the foundation of legitimate political authority. A constitution must therefore be legitimised and endorsed by the people and not be simply a reflection of the aspirations of the wishes of ruling elite. 
For the time being all progressive Zimbabweans must reflect on whether the draft constitution presented to the three principals will be the focal point of a particular form of collective identity and whether it will generate a patriotism based on the constitution itself.

• Darlington Mahuku and Bowden Mbanje are lecturers in International Relations and Peace and Governance with Bindura University of Science Education