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Internet access as human right?
A poster placed on a lamp post calls for the return of the internet after it was shut down by the government on February 1, 2011 in Cairo, Egypt. Protests in Egypt continued with the largest gathering yet, with many tens of thousands assembling in central Cairo, demanding the ouster of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarek. The Egyptian army has said it will not fire on protestors as they gather in large numbers in central Cairo. (Photo by Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images)
Egypt has cut off almost all Internet and cell service in an attempt to disable the antigovernment protesters and their use of these communications media. Tech-savvy human rights activists in Egypt, in Tunisia and elsewhere in the Middle East, have used these electronic tools to organize protests.
The right to access the Internet and other electronic media is becoming the new human rights issue of this generation. But it is not a new human right. Freedom of opinion and expression in all media is already included in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted by the United Nations General Assembly more than 60 years ago. While the drafters of the Universal Declaration could not possibly have foreseen the explosion of new media in our age, they already included access to communications media as a basic human right.
Article 19: Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.
There is a great deal of debate about whether the concept of universal human rights is an imposition of western cultural values, and incompatible with both traditional religious and cultural values. There are aspects of this current struggle for self-expression on the part of the people of Egypt and Tunisia, and now in several other places, that can help us see how the issue of human rights is not an either/or around the world in a stereotyped 'West vs. the rest" perspective. It can also help us see what the moral issues are regarding Internet access.
When the concept of human rights is abstract or idealist it can become a legal, philosophical, political and even religious quagmire. It also does risk being culturally alien for people around the world. Human rights fare best cross-culturally when they are practical, concrete and pursued at the grass-roots level by peoples themselves.
This is very much what we are seeing about the use of the Internet in these events in Egypt. The young people who kicked off these events using their social media tools were exercising their right to Internet expression, based in their struggles in their own countries for jobs and for genuine political responsiveness by their government. It is a grassroots struggle and it seems wholly owned by the Egyptian people themselves.
From a dynamic Christian theological perspective, this is also a moral struggle. Christian theology that stays close to what human beings are actually striving for in terms of achieving democratic reforms overlaps with the kind of humanism that informs the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. This is one of the key insights of South African theologian and activist John de Gruchy in his book Confessions of a Christian Humanist. "Christian humanism" is open to insight into our common human condition wherever it is found. Human rights and Christian ethics are not identical, but in terms of affirming the human striving for justice and peace, they are mutually affirming. This was critical in the South African struggle against apartheid, and it is a way for Christian theology to denounce the unethical act on the part of the Egyptian authorities in cutting off Internet and cell access by the Egyptian people.
Internet access is a new human rights issue and a new dynamic Christian ethical issue because these overlap in the affirmation of humanity and the universal human quest for dignity and freedom.
By
Susan Brooks Thistlethwaite
|
February 1, 2011; 11:50 AM ET
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Posted by: WmarkW | February 3, 2011 11:02 PM
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WmarkW
If you persist in making veiled racist comments on the internet, and people don't like it, that is a lot different from a national government cutting ALL internet access to ALL people, as a political response to some of its critics, whom it seeks to confuse and silence.
Posted by: DanielintheLionsDen | February 3, 2011 12:51 PM
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Internet access a human right?
Could someone tell Amnesty International that my Verizon DSL line went out last night?
(sent from work)
Posted by: WmarkW | February 3, 2011 12:08 PM
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I don't know if internet access is a human right. But to me, for a third party to mess with my internet access would be about the same as a third party sticking his dirty finger in my bowl of cereal as I am trying to eat it. I would just haul off an punch that person in the nose! And I would stay mad for several days.
What a lot of nerve these psychopathic people have; they do not even seem to comprehend or realize that they are putting their dirty filthy hands into the most private and personal aspects of people's lives. They have rights that trump all others. Why?
Posted by: DanielintheLionsDen | February 3, 2011 1:03 AM
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The Internet is an important contribution to democracy, as the leaders of China acknowledge in the negative with their Great Firewall.
But on these boards, I've had posts taken down for wanting to discuss:
1) Why African-American History Month is never used to examine the roots of serious black issues like fatherless and homicide, instead of just repeat homilies to Rosa Parks and Frederick Douglass
2) Why so many educated and sophisticated Jewish individuals and organizations got involved in Bernard Madoff's obvious scam
These boards, like virtually all, have a "report offensive comments" clicker, to keep off stupid spam like male enhancements pills and Nigerian business opportunities.
But if you let offensiveness be in the ear of any listener, then tough questions and thoughts they don't want to be let propogated end up in the same category as using the N-word, if someone can convince those in power that it's not in their interest to let the discussion continue.
Posted by: WmarkW | February 2, 2011 12:49 PM
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If you persist in making veiled racist comments on the internet, and people don't like it, that is a lot different from a national government cutting ALL internet access to ALL people, as a political response to some of its critics, whom it seeks to confuse and silence.
-------------------------------------------
It's certainly different in degree. But when those who want an open discussion about the differences in values between different groups are shut out from raising the question, that does constitute confusing and silencing the critics of received dogmatism.