Scholarly Contributions

HUMAN RIGHTS AND DEVELOPMENT

Professor Said emphasized the interconnection between human rights and economic development throughout his career, particularly from the 1970s forward. As he observed growing economic, political, and ecological instability across the globe, he continuously advocated for placing human dignity at the center of analysis. He also called for moving beyond abstract theories and formulas to cultural and humanist approaches to economic development, fueled by his own personal experiences. Focused on the advancement of universal human rights, he demonstrated how human rights are inextricably linked to more cooperative approaches to development and democracy, as well as to the advancement of peace and conflict resolution. His efforts advanced both theory and policymaking practice by providing avenues through which to rethink human rights and development away from Western-centric approaches and toward embracing global cultural pluralism.

In Said’s 1978 edited volume Human Rights and World Order, he underscores that “human rights are concerned with the dignity of the individual – the level of self-esteem that secures personal identity and promotes human community.”¹ In a separate paper he explains that dignity means “self-love and self-respect as a creative free person, the fruit of such dignity being the ability to allow all other human beings the same dignity.”² At a time when human rights were becoming increasingly prominent in international political discourse, Dr. Said sought to avoid the conventional dichotomy between universalist and particularistic approaches to human rights, asserting that “while the pursuit of human dignity is universal, its form is designed by the culture of a people.”³ As he frequently stated in his work, “politics is a cultural activity”⁴ that reflects the values, traditions, and environment within which it is being practiced. “Human rights are no exception.”⁵ He asserts that the contemporary global human rights discourse has been largely shaped by Western norms and attitudes and excludes the cultural realities and experiences of other, non-Western societies. Yet, it proceeds “from the assumption that all states share a common agenda of goals – reinforcing the perception of the universality of Western values.”⁶

As “the very conception of the organization of society differs from one culture to another,” Western (capitalist or socialist) and Third World⁷ perspectives on human rights can also differ, such as the emphasis on individual rights within the West versus the value placed among Third World societies on the collective good.⁸ However, as Said clarifies in a paper written with Oussama K. Safa in the 1990s, there is no such thing as “Eastern or Western concepts of human rights” as some leaders dangerously claim. Arguing for “cultural human rights” permits abuse and the violation of basic individual rights, such as the example of forced child labor or genital mutilation, which are often predicated on social and cultural imperatives or religious misinterpretations. For this reason, Said and Safa stress that human rights must be detached from politics and treated as a pressing humanitarian issue, pointing to the United Nations as a key actor with the authority and means to intervene. “It is not enough for governments to ratify the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR); it is imperative to implement it and allow the people to decide on the way to adopt its concepts.”⁹ Ultimately, Said argues, “the character and nature of human rights is determined in the crucible of a specific sociopolitical culture.”¹⁰ Rather than a strategy of pressure or intervention, he stresses that US foreign policy must be reshaped to pursue alternative strategies, such as dialogue, to promote human rights and democracy in other countries.¹¹

Said’s own life experiences undoubtedly influenced the weight he placed on human rights throughout his work. (See A Meaningful Life.) Growing up in Syria during World War II, French colonial rule, and then during its tumultuous post-colonial period, he experienced and witnessed human rights violations as a child and young adult. The anti-Christian attitudes he faced as a member of the minority Syriac Christian community in Syria and later in Egypt instilled a deep understanding of the importance of treating others with respect. He later became involved with the investigation of human rights violations in several countries, including multiple trips to Iran where he visited political prisoners and saw evidence of torture. He was also deeply affected by the abuses of individuals he knew well, including his close friend Khaled Saghieh, who was assassinated in Lebanon in the 1970s for his political activism in defense of the rights of poor people.¹²

Human rights are also at the forefront of Said’s framework for economic development. While theorists and policymakers in the 1960s and 1970s debated the framing of national and international development, Said joined those advocating for more participatory models that centered on human dignity. Writing with Brady Tyson, Said offers a development approach that is open-ended and humanistic, in contrast to the more conventional, materialistic approaches that emphasize economic growth and inaccurately conclude that “bigger is better.”¹³ Said recalls the historical assumption that “development would naturally and inevitably follow the end of colonial rule”¹⁴ and the false optimism of the 1960s “decade of development,” which ultimately “degenerated into theoretical and policy frustration.”¹⁵ These unmet expectations were based on an equation that “stability plus democratization (broadening the base, interest aggregation, etc.) equals, at a minimum, the necessary preconditions for political modernization,”¹⁶ and that modernization and development go hand in hand. While this equation may be logical, Said explains it is not useful, as it is based on Western concepts and experiences that when superimposed “on a framework for Third World studies was doomed to failure from the start.”¹⁷ It also ignores the growing ecological crisis stemming from rapid industrial growth and limited resources. Said’s 1971 edited volume Protagonists of Change presents a collection of essays that represent a response to the failure of “predictive” policy-oriented economic development models. It argues that the usual focus on the nation-state as the unit of analysis in the study of development is limiting; rather, throughout this book, Said demonstrates that “subcultures may be a more unifying conceptual frame of reference for discussing problems of development” as they “will find more affinity across national boundaries rather than within nations.”¹⁸

Professor Said defines development as an “historical process through which human beings choose and create their future within the context of their environment to achieve a humanist and creative society.” It is concerned with both the dignity of the individual – “that level of self-esteem and self-awareness that is secure and self-accepting” – and “the restructuring of the institutions and culture of society to support such ends.”¹⁹ Further, he defines humanization as “the process of enlarging and making more equal the dignity, freedom, and opportunity for creativity and community, and welfare of persons in society, as well as the restructuring of the institutions and culture of that society to support these goals.”²⁰ Instead of assuming that modernization – the adoption of modern technologies and scientific evolution – leads directly to development, Said asserts that modernization plus humanization equals development. Connecting human rights to his conceptualization of development, he argues that the most reliable sources for common humanist goals, including for economic development, are the internationally recognized human rights documents of the UN. In particular, he advocates for a cooperative development that is participatory and recognizes the connections between individual and community rights and development.

While Said was interested in issues of development globally and within the Global South, he focused extensively on democracy and development in the Middle East and Africa (MEA). He argues that models of development rooted in Western experiences fail when imposed on the MEA, as efforts within the regions to assimilate and modernize produce “a crisis of alienation (mobilization, coercive assimilation, and imperialism)” and a rise in ethnic conflict.²¹ Considering the region in the 1970s, he argued that “development is simply being latched on to modernization” while “social justice and political participation in the Islamic world are sacrificed.”²² He proposed an alternative approach that places human development over economic development and draws on local cultural and religious values.²³

Said also considers a paradigm of development rooted in Islam that can offer relevant pathways for Islamic societies. He notes that all traditions have a core “perennial wisdom” that is better communicated through metaphor, poetry, and art rather than formulation, and that does not necessarily conflict with Western science. Considering these sources of locally and traditionally rooted wisdom, Said asserts that “it is not necessary to become ‘true believers’ in any particular outlook. The purpose of the dialogue is not to make converts, but to explore promising development alternatives.”²⁴ Ultimately, Said was urging a rethinking of development for non-Western societies. As he later writes in a 2004 paper,

When societal values are not integrated into emerging designs of development, serious problems arise. A society whose leaders dream another society’s dream – or simply a dream that is not widely shared by other citizens – is likely to awaken to a national nightmare. Culture wars in America and the Middle East provide clear evidence of this possibility, which at its worst can deteriorate into violent conflict.²⁵

By the 1990s, Said observed that the conceptualization of human rights and development had become more dynamic, moving from a narrow focus on economic growth or civil and political rights only, to include economic, social, and cultural components. Sustainable economic development had also become an important part of the conversation, which Said defines as “a holistic and dynamic approach that attempts to meet today’s development needs without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs” by combining “the need for economic growth with the needs of the environment.”²⁶ Said and Tyson outlined a Development Evaluation System derived from principles of human rights, which categorized the goals of development into two broad categories. The first is “the human quality and level of life,” which is subdivided into physical and mental health; security, dignity, and freedom; education and training; and culture and leisure. The second broad category is “the infrastructure of the development process,” which is subdivided into “the system of ecosystemic utilization and maintenance”; social, cultural, educational, and communication support systems; the political system; and the economic system. According to Said and Tyson, the purpose of the evaluation system is to assess the state of development against a series of indices and to compare these across different development components and countries. Notably, many of the issues reflected in these categories can also be understood as critical to human rights in peace and conflict resolution.

Indeed, Said’s work often illustrated the connections across the different areas of study on human rights, development, global politics, and peace and conflict resolution, particularly as he formulated a vision of a pluralist global civilization. As Said explains in Concepts of International Politics in Global Perspective, “development is a process in which one of the principal ‘products’ is the very process itself – the open-ended process – of the constant creation and re-creation of a global humanist culture.”²⁷

Notes