Eritrea, Human Rights, and Neocolonial Propaganda
The East African country of Eritrea is
once again being demonized internationally as a systematic violator of
human rights. The United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for
Human Rights (OHCHR) has issued an allegedly damning report detailing what it claims are “systematic, widespread and gross human rights violations” taking place in Eritrea. Media coverage
has similarly echoed those claims, presenting Eritrea to a western
audience as a backward and “brutal dictatorship,” playing on the
traditional stereotypes of totalitarianism from East Germany to Stalin’s
Soviet Union.
However, a closer and more critical
analysis of both the report, and the true agendas of the western
institutions promoting its narrative, reveals a vastly different
motivation to this report and the continued anti-Eritrean narrative. It
could be called politically motivated propaganda, and that would be
correct. It could be called a distorted and biased perspective rooted in
fundamental misunderstandings of both politics and history, and that
would also be correct. It could, quite simply, be called abject
neo-colonialism of the worst sort, and that too would also be correct.
analysis of both the report, and the true agendas of the western
institutions promoting its narrative, reveals a vastly different
motivation to this report and the continued anti-Eritrean narrative. It
could be called politically motivated propaganda, and that would be
correct. It could be called a distorted and biased perspective rooted in
fundamental misunderstandings of both politics and history, and that
would also be correct. It could, quite simply, be called abject
neo-colonialism of the worst sort, and that too would also be correct.
For while the UN and western media
portray Eritrea – a country most westerners know nothing about, if
they’ve ever even heard of the country at all – as little more than a
“Third World dictatorship” because of its alleged violations of human
rights, they conveniently ignore the actual human rights issues that
Eritrea champions, making it a leader on the African continent, and a
country that in many ways should be held up as a model of human
development and adherence to true human rights.
First appeared: http://journal-neo.org/2015/06/17/eritrea-human-rights-and-neocolonial-propaganda/
portray Eritrea – a country most westerners know nothing about, if
they’ve ever even heard of the country at all – as little more than a
“Third World dictatorship” because of its alleged violations of human
rights, they conveniently ignore the actual human rights issues that
Eritrea champions, making it a leader on the African continent, and a
country that in many ways should be held up as a model of human
development and adherence to true human rights.
First appeared: http://journal-neo.org/2015/06/17/eritrea-human-rights-and-neocolonial-propaganda/
