The human rights mission in an African context

Abstract

In the annual sessions of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights in Geneva, resolutions condemning African governments for gross and systematic violations of human rights are usually rejected with the whole African block against. Through such block voting even President Mugabe’s policies and actions against the rule of law in Zimbabwe have remained uncensored. Indeed, Africa’s record in the international venture for the realization of human rights looks rather dim. Whereas international human rights do not in any way refer to spiritual roots of the conviction that human dignity must be protected against any abuse of power, in an African setting it is abundantly clear that human rights is a mission that cannot be separated from people’s religious convictions and commitment. In Chichewa the word for God is Mulungu while justice is Chi-lung-amo. God, in other words, is the Upright one, while justice is to do God’s will. That connection is not an invention of the missionaries. It manifests the spiritual strength in which human rights in Africa might build upon a conviction rooted in African culture through the ages.