Westism, Human Rights, and Imperium (Thesis 12)

Today’s protesters in Washington DC march with signs that read, “Abortion is a human right.” While I am in favor of the law moderated to permit abortion until a designated time- such as the moment a fetus can live outside of the womb- I am also opposed to the invocation of human rights language to advocate the position.

It is not a human right to abort a fetus, but an American right or a German right. The supposition that this culturally informed value, the right to abort, is universal, is wrong. It is correct, however, to assert your right to abort, if you so wish, as an American right. No more. No less.

For a country like the United States to demand the world to conform to its Western value system, is wrong. Of all places, you would think that the U.S. would be more tolerant of diverse value systems. As the capital of the New World composed of immigrants of all faiths and backgrounds, the invocation of a universal value system beyond its borders must stop.

While the cause for human rights is humane, its drive is arrogant. The arrogance of Americans, in particular, to claim their rights as human rights is a byproduct of years steeped in imperium. The quest to impose [western] rights is akin to the Roman drive to civilize barbarians -to conquer lands- or the Catholic Inquisition to regulate speech and thought- to conquer minds.

The Declaration of Human Rights (“Declaration”) (1945), forged at a time when half the world sat in ruin, seeks to decimate thousands of years of tradition. And now, despite the high ideals it espouses, the Declaration is a bludgeon of American cultural hegemony across the world. When a powerful agent transgresses, like (allegedly) China against the Uighurs, these rights mean nothing. That is, they mean nothing until the war drums start. An offense against human rights abroad is little more than fodder for just cause to war or sanction- when convenient- to worsen the suffering of common people around the world.

The United Nations (UN) was founded in the West and is funded by the West. The Declaration was written by the West and, when convenient, is enforced by the West. The charade the world plays to appease the hegemon of today is as delicate as a bird’s dance, but underneath, it’s moves are imbued with tension as high-strung as a change of guard ceremony along the Pakistan-India border.

UN Funding by Nation

The constant invocation of human rights language to forward American rights is peak arrogance and severe myopia- the disease of the West.

And so on this occasion of reflection, let us breed a new-ism into the world. We shall call it, "Westism." Defined: (verb) the arrogant disregard for and demand of non-western cultures, societies, and political structures to conform to Western values and systems, i.e. the imposition of Western imperium. (noun) "Westie" a person who willfully, but likely unknowingly, advocates, often with a sense of moral superiority, for the flattening of difference in the world in favor of sameness in accordance with an American or European worldview, i.e. an advocate of 21st century Western imperium.

All told, Heaven forbid the revocation of the Declaration and the reversal of the West’s centuries long campaign to “civilize” the world. But make no mistake! That is what it is. To partake in the invocation of human rights is to advocate for Western Imperium. So long as you are aware, carry on.