Right of Man

These days, I am trying to follow an audio book produced by the "Teaching Company", titled
'Right of Man". One problem with Teaching Company audio books is that most of the guys reading or teaching the materials are university professors and no offense they sound boring, if you are not devoted to follow, and you don't have a "no matter what" kind of attitude, it is very likely you drop out or engage in involuntary act of daydreaming,
OK, what was I saying? yes, I have been trying to listen to the audio book; Right of Man, to me this is a very important subject, in many instances you don't realize that to what extent the understanding of human rights depend on cultural and religious believes. When the teacher talks about the basic rights and the the interpretation of the basic rights throughout the course of history, you are amazed by how much these rights have been understood differently at different times and different places.

To my amazement it is stated that religious beliefs are one common cause for uniting the understanding and development of human rights concept, from past and to the present then in future. As regional and short sighted are the nationalist human rights mouvements, the philosophically and religiously supported concepts of human rights are global and inclusive. In the course of a nationalist Human rights activity, you observe and respect the rights of the people like you, with the same cultural background, the same mother land and speaking the same language. You might disrespect anybody not like you, be brutal with any other nation and at the same time feel as if you are not committing any crime against humanity, since humanity is you and your compatriots.

To me this phenomenon explains what exactly is happening in Israel right now. They have a nationalist version of human rights that is just applicable to Jews. In spite of the fact that there is a so called Jewish state in charge of the land, the symptoms and behaviors, especially in the way they deal with the Palestinians, is so non religious and brutal, to the point that a extremely nationalist, secular and racist state could do that. (I know the state of Israel is a secular state, what I don't quiet understand is that how come people of Israel considering they are religious, are so overwhelmingly in agreement with the sheer brutality that the state of Israel has demonstrated against Palestinians).

To some extent the same analogy applies to US and the demonstrated double standards regarding the respect for human rights around the world (for example what is happening in Iraq). The definition of Abuse, based on western human right standards, is very local (in practice, in strong contrast with theory and what is usually preached and lectured in schools), in other terms, it is very important who you are, and whom you are abusing, after all it might not be considered any abuse at all, all depends on to what country the abused and abuser belong, in which God you believe in and so on (the list is long). All these determine how much support you are going to receive from US and its Human rights institutions against the human rights abuse.
By the way I am in favour of secular states, who with a global scope, respect human rights, no exception no double standard.