چکیده:
This paper will seek to present an understanding of the historical
conditions that make possible a convergence of the selected religious
teachings and human rights, and ask the question if such a convergence can
operate successfully within a hierarchal bureaucracy such as found in
government or institutional religion. The paper will look at three specific
case studies where there has been a convergence of human rights and
religion and the resulting struggle to influence the behavior of the state: >.
the example of Christian liberation theology in South America in the >AB9s
and @9s. :. The example of the movement Rabbis for Human Rights within
the Israeli milieu from its founding in >A?? to the present. =. The example of
CAIR –The Council on American-Islamic Relations– which presently operates
in the U.S.
Within the teachings of most great religious movements are found
principles of behavior that support the concept of universal human rights.
However, these principles are overshadowed when the religious teachings
are enlisted to the needs of institutions, be they of the state or established
religious hierarchies. The needs of institutions and hierarchical
bureaucracies do not reflect universal human rights and the principles of
behavior that underpin them. Rather, such institutions reflect the particular
needs of interest groups and elites. These elites often are able to use
ideology 8which may be religious in nature< to cause their own special
interests to be substituted for a community’s more general needs and
interests. As the rules of behavior narrow to accommodate institutional and
bureaucratic dictates, universal human rights becomes the cause of minority
groups and others on the margin of society seeking to reinterpret and
broaden the definitions of what is humane and proper behavior. It is within
this struggle to reinterpret rules of behavior along the lines of universal
human rights that a convergence between religious teaching and human
rights becomes most possible. But once again, this will happen as an alliance
of those outside the dominant power structure. The three case studies given
above demonstrate how this struggle from the margins has been fought in
three contemporary arenas. A reasonable conclusion drawn from this is that
supporters of universal human rights seem, ironically, condemned to never
to attain the structural power necessary to enforce, on a universal scale, the
practice of their principles. For, no such structural power exists that is
designed to realize such universal ends. Thus, even on those rare occasions
when champions of human rights manage to attain positions of power, they
are always restrained, co-opted, or otherwise compromised by the
institutional and bureaucratic matrices of power–all of which are typically
designed to promote and protect particular, and not universal, interests.
Thus, from an historical prospective, those promoting universal human
rights, even when allied to or inspired by religious teachings, are condemned
to always fight as outsiders. For to move inside is to transform universal
principles into special interest dictates
خلاصه ماشینی:
1098 Abstract This paper will seek to present an understanding of the historical conditions that make possible a convergence of the selected religious teachings and human rights, and ask the question if such a convergence can operate successfully within a hierarchal bureaucracy such as found in government or institutional religion.
If this is so, a "convergence of religion and human rights" is not likely to be found among bureaucratic religious establishments that are hierarchically organized and have a centralized leadership.
" What is being asserted is that the claim to universal human rights is more compatible with the needs and interests of such groups, than with those of the leadership cadres of centralized, bureaucratic organizations be they religious or non-religious.
10 In this case study the liberation theologians, who stood apart from the dominant elite that controlled the Catholic Church, found it necessary and natural to interpret universal human rights as an aspect of the true meaning of the gospel, and demand that it be put into actual practice.
Yet the State of Israel, like the Catholic Church, is a large, centralized and bureaucratically structured organization with myriad rules of conduct and ends defined by the need for organizational survival.
To date the CAIR leadership have done very well and have established their organization as one of the major civil liberties/human rights groups in the United States.
As the three case studies given above suggest, the possibility of a convergence of religion and human rights is greatest among smaller religiously oriented groups that do not have entrenched elites that seek to maintain control through doctrinal interpretation and bureaucratic manipulation.