Science and Human Rights (1988) / Chapter Skim
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Pages 39-60
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From page 39... ...
We turn now to concepts of human rights, civil and political rights, and how these are related to social and political and economic rights and needs. To do this, we intend to begin by exposing the situation in one country South Africa-which has been very much in our minds in recent years, as an arena in which there has been systematic discrimination against the great proportion of the population.
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From page 40... ...
It is an honor for me to be a guest speaker at this symposium on human rights at the annual meeting of the National Academy of Sciences. and my fellow oppressed in South Africa value your concern for us.
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From page 41... ...
Third, for the redistribution of the wealth of the land and, of course, for an unfragmented South Africa. In short, our struggle has been about the unacceptability of homelands.
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From page 42... ...
With that kind of background to tell you, really, about what is it that drives people along, ~ want to turn now very briefly to the issues that must concern you. The concern of the oppressed people in South Africa about the decisions that we make, or you make, at aD the various levels confronting us is who wiD it help in that struggle that is being waged in the townships and the streets.
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From page 43... ...
Therefore, the only meaningful question to ask in relation to participation by those in South African universities and academic institutions in international conferences and other forums is, Who will be helped in that war that ~ spoke about? You must clearly identify those struggling for liberation.
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From page 44... ...
Because of the international Isolation of South African universities, more blacks have been appointed to academic positions. We have heard the annual reaffirmations of the ideals of academic freedom and opposition to apartheid in university education.
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From page 45... ...
Now, the crimes of apartheid are many, and ~ cannot go through them all. Perhaps just to give you a little bit of an insight into the trauma of the lives of people in South Africa, ~ am going to tell you very briefly of my own, not because we epitomize in any sort of way the frustration of our people, but perhaps, on the contrary, because we, ~ anti my family, live rather middIe-cIass lives.
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From page 46... ...
In the middle of the night we went sneaking into our home and collected some of our clothes, because it seemed clear that I was no longer safe there, and we left South Africa on December 20, 1986. Thank you.
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From page 47... ...
The then-Iranian representative to the World Bank wrote in The New York Times: In spite of some 30 years of debate over this complex issue Human rights] in the United Nations, American and Western libertarian philosophy still regards 'human rights' in a very narrow context: as essentially political, universal, and timeless.
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From page 48... ...
so We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness. And that the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted some 172 years later, would also declare that "everyone has the right to life .
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From page 49... ...
Recent experience has shown that economic development in market-dominated societies may happily coexist with authoritarian regimes, as, for example, in South Korea, Taiwan, or Brazil under the military. But if we would begin to address basic social and economic rights, it is the crise de conscience of the Third World that ~ find most compelling, just as in asserting civil and political rights we ithe Committee on Human Rights]
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From page 50... ...
The lists of needs sometimes vary, but water, food, shelter, health and education are found on most of them. Which of these would qualify as human rights?
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From page 51... ...
(While the United States has signed this covenant as well as the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, it has ratified neither.) At the same time, and for more lasting impact, we can examine our own science and our own activities in the National Research Council.
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From page 52... ...
These issues, like those of human rights, are not issues in which benefits of the moral behavior of scientists can be easily quantified in cost/benefit terms. They are more in what our forebears might have called the nature of a tithe, of an ethical imperative.
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From page 53... ...
Obviously, this is not the occasion to discuss the history and the alternate strategies and tactics that human rights advocates have developed in defense of those colleagues whose human rights have been violated. And we must defend those colleagues.
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From page 54... ...
But, basically, it addresses the issue. Only a short five years ago, Sakharov said something about the worldwide character of the scientific community assuming particular importance when dealing with problems of human rights.
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From page 55... ...
The human rights movement cannot be expected to develop such a plan or to unite on one. Also, historical experience shows that a government that justifies its curtailment of political rights by its overwhelming concern for social rights usually ends up by denying all rights.
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From page 56... ...
Therefore, ~ think that the basic emphasis on negative rights by the international human rights movement is a reasonable thing. If we want to do things beyond this and participate in organizing a social democratic party in America, ~ will gladly discuss this later.
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From page 57... ...
Elizabeth Russell, Jackson Laboratory, Bar Harbor, Maine ~ would like to inquire of Dr. Mohamed whether it is still true, as stated in our program, that you are speaking within the limits of South African government restrictions?
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From page 58... ...
So, it is very clear that ~ have deviated from that initial statement that ~ will not go beyond the restrictions imposed on me by the South African government. More and more people are defying those restrictions.
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From page 59... ...
students and junior white lecturers-comes from the vice-chancellor of the University of Witwatersrand. The statement that ~ could not be appointed to teach certain courses, or ~ could only be appointed to teach certain courses if the head of the department could determine that nobody else with simular expertise was available also comes from the head of the Department of Mathematics at the University of the Witwatersrand.
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