Schedule:

Saturday October 2 at 2pm Eastern (New York Time)

Saturday October 9 at 2pm Eastern

Saturday October 16 at 2pm Eastern

Saturday October 23 at 2pm Eastern

Instructor: Dr. Firoze Manji

Title:

Human Rights or the Right to be Human?

Description:

We will look at the way in which the adoption Universal Declaration of Human Rights and subsequent HR instruments reflected the long standing tradition of Liberalism in which two zones were established, the sacred and the sacrifice zones, one occupied by those proclaimed to be human, the other by the less that human. We will discuss the birth of Liberalism as the conjoined twin of racism, a relationship it has had since its origins. We will discuss how the struggles of those of the sacrifice zones were in essence driven by the need to assert themselves as humans, and in the process inventing what it means to be human. We will discus the extent to which the human rights discourse has the potential of depoliticizing popular struggles.