Husnain Bin Sajjad Profile picture
Oct 13, 2024 16 tweets 4 min read Read on X
The functionality of the globalisation of "human rights" discourse for the west | 🧵

Most people don't understand the inherent politicisation in the discourse of human rights as preached by the western superpowers - and therefore end up falling for the illusion of benevolence Image
from the western end.

When west exports its value systems to "third-world" or developing nations, its assumed by laymen in naivety that the sole purpose of such 'educational schemes and moral frameworks' is the betterment of their society.
This is because such a discourse in wrapped in so many layers of subliminal incentives that the layman cannot imagine a superior civilisation lending the moral ideals it uses for its own people to third world countries except due to a maxim such as "Love thy neighbour".
What goes unnoticed are the power dynamics attached to such generous exportation of "Human Rights Discourse" to other nations - that help the west play the politics of legitimising/de-legitimising the practices of all the others in a language of ethics. Image
What this means is that once an imperialist regime alters the socio-ethical value framework of its targeted state at the very ground-root level, making it an exact copy of its own socio-ethical model, it paves the way for its justified intervention on ethical grounds of that
targeted state - since it builds into the masses of that state a complacency for intervention on "humanist grounds". This happens because now the targeted nation thinks like its soon-to-become imperial interventionist master and because the imperial state had already
turned the masses regarding socio-ethical issues, into a follower of its own framework - they wouldn't protest any of their interventionist actions/policies on ethical grounds and instead welcome the imperial power as their moral saviour.
Inviting whole-heartedly their policies on social, economic, religious and cultural issues as a sign of good-will, which the target themselves understand and (mis)judge to be for their own benefit and since their own frameworks
have been aligned with (made subservient to) the value systems of the western interventionists they lose the capacity to neutrally judge these policies as subjects external to it.
And consequently, only so much criticism can arise when you are to analyse policies that are a product of the value-system you yourself got gradually indoctrinated into.
Now in such a circumstance, the targeted nation had already lost its own value-system that (acting as a parallel/distinct framework) carried the spirit that was needed to analyse/criticise the western humanist theory - & instead is indoctrinated into adopting the western
worldview regarding rights of humans under the guise of "Lending a hand of help (i.e their own framework of thought) on moral grounds".
In such a scenario the target itself revolts against, not the interventionist, but what's left of its own intrinsic value-system, for its judging criteria is the (imported) standard of the western power and whatever therefore contradicts the understanding of the imperial
power, is judged to be wrong/evil. Hence the masses end up opposing their own former value-system which is the only source of revolt against the imperial power and supporting the external western powers against their own people on "humanist" grounds. Image
The decisive factor for ethico-political and social decision-making doesn't then remain in the teachings and legacy of one's own tradition that has sustained that society for ages but falls into the conclusions of the logic of the interventionist. Image
So, by the politics of human rights discourse as in foreign policy, the west deludes its targets into an active demand for western intervention into ones own affairs as an ethical arbitration from a civilisation that is believed to be superior on moral grounds. Image
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More from @husnayn_

Jul 10
Khilafah as an ethico-spiritual existential purpose: al-Raghib al-Isfahani's theory of human vicegerency | 🧵

Read time - 15 minutes approximately. Image
Introduction -

Khilafah has always been a central concept of Islamic theology particularly gaining momentum in its political imaginations in the 20th century. Its current popular understanding holds it to be restrictively synonymous with exclusive political sovereignty in dunya. The current essay however sheds light on an alternative perspective on khilafah, as an existential ethico-spiritual condition rather than an activity of political domination and subjugation - exploring the theories of the concept independent of its modern articulations within the nation-state paradigm. Al-Raghib al-Isfahani's (rh) conceptualisation of human vicegerency would be our pivot idea here alongside a few other pre-modern and contemporary thinkers of the Islamic tradition.Image
Al Raghib al-Isfahani's Cosmology -

Little is known about al-Isfahani's personal life and biographical details, his scholarly footprint however can be traced from his immense impact on al-Ghazali's thought - he openly confessed to be inspired by his writings and as both the thinkers are analysed it becomes more than apparent how influential al-Isfahani's writings were on abu-hamid.

Al-Raghib al-Isfahani can be said to belong to the same intellectual family of philosophers such as al-Tawhidi & Miskawayh - his cosmology was therefore influenced by the inherited philosophical paradigm of neo-platonism but departed from the ideas of ikhwan-as-safaa and the falasifa due to his strong adherence to quranic themes of willing creation and a transcendent yet personal God rather than necessary-emanationism. The general neo-platonic hierarchy of existence (universal intellect - tablet - material existence etc) was accepted by al-Isfahani alongside the macrocosm - microcosm interdependent dichotomy of man and the universe. Man is placed therefore in his cosmological order as (ideally) a united culmination of the values, ideals and attributes of the universe, where the universe itself is the fragmented manifestation of the attributes and qualities of God. With such a cosmological dynamic between God, universe and man, al-Isfahani's proto-akbarian theory presents man's ontological role to be necessarily linked with that of the universe since both are manifestations of the same ultimate ontology - God. Man's understanding of the universe and therefore God is henceforth dependent on his understanding of his self and vice versa - and this understanding, cognition or knowledge of his is man's prime mode of self-actualisation since the self can only be actualised when it grasps the inter-connected hierarchy of existence (as bestowed through the attributes of God) through which its essence is derived. Knowledge of the self here, leads to spiritual ascendancy, for just as one unravels their self and achieves intimacy with their soul by knowing more about it, they achieve closeness (qurb) with God since their self is a manifestation of God's attributes, and their cognition of their self thus is the closest they can get to a cognition of God i.e. pure being, absolute existence & ultimate goodness. How exactly does this process of spiritual cognition and ascendency of the self unfold is tied to his theory of human vicegerency (khilafah).

Important to note that unlike the Akbarian school, al-Isfahani doesn't hold God, universe and man to belong to a single ontological field but rather affirms a fundamental ontological distinction between the creation and the created regardless of their interconnection through the attributes and their manifestations (not being) in the creation.Image
Read 11 tweets
Jun 4
The mirage of the success through imitation of the modern west | 🧵

& the muslim need for ideologically sovereign material institution building. /20 Image
Secular modernity as a social system is a consequence of the western historical contingencies (genealogy) and is therefore particularly native to western identity and its success - the west can be true to it and thus achieve success through it.
It's (secular modernity's) imposition on the 'rest', or its imitation by the rest, regardless of their own genealogical contingencies/ continuities of selfhood and worldview wouldn't automatically bring about a sovereignly sustainable success like that of the west's.
Read 20 tweets
Jun 3
إِنَّمَا الأَعْمَالُ بِالنِّيَّةِ

Prof. Jackson's islamic secular is a backtracking from the ghazalian shariah-tasawwuf synthetic culture of the islamic legal philosophy.

The sacred & the profane were never distinct in Islam because of the all encompassing muslim subjectivity. Image
Image
For even the "profane" acts as minimal as clearing any obstruction in the civil pathway or putting a morsel of food in one's wife's mouth were qualified as components of faith and described in the language of religiosity because they were governed by and hence judged by niyyah.
The niyyah in islamic theories of selfhood is a formation of an internal primary will (to oversimplify) that cannot be formed (ought to be formed in a muslim) except through putting the sunnah and the pleasure of Allah as integral spiritual-moral ideals.
Read 8 tweets
May 29
muslim secularists would have you believe that - our souls were gathered in alam e arwah for a direct covenant with God, that the entire world was destroyed through flood during nuh's a.s times, that ibrahim a.s clashed directly with the babylonian emperor of his time,
that ibrahim a.s left his family in the barren deserts of arabia, that ibrahim a.s sacrificed laid down every single thing he loved for sacrifice, that yusuf a.s was sold in the bazaars of misr, that musa a.s confronted the most powerful earthly authority of his age head on,
that musa a.s brought the entire force of the empire upon himself, that bani israel wandered cluelessly in the deserts for forty years, that muhammad ص, the most modest and honest of all men, was ridiculed, tortured and exiled by his own family and authoritative clan,
Read 4 tweets
Mar 27
The Muslim youth should be aware that this idea of forced financial independency doesn't go well with our identities and the sacred duties on our shoulders in this age.
Indeed there are those who have to support their families all by themselves and they should definitely work on financial independency & success.
However all those who would probably inherit a good sum from their parents (that the prophet has commanded: al-Bukhari 5354), enough to support their families and homes should really stop chasing the modern materialistic standard of success.
Read 7 tweets
Mar 23
The idea of Western Modernity as a Category Neutral and its self perception as the Meta-Worldview | 🧵

a brief introductory overview.

(Read time: Approx. 30 min) Image
Introduction. Image
Western Modernity as the "Meta-Worldview" - definition and meaning explained. Image
Image
Image
Read 11 tweets

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