Human rights: a political and cultural critique

Preface Introduction Chapter 1. Human Rights as a Metaphor -The Metaphor of Human Rights -The Grand Narrative of Human Rights -The Metaphor of the Savage -The Metaphor of the Victim -The Metaphor of the Savior Chapter 2. Human Rights as an Ideology -The Authors of Human Rights -A Holy Trinity: Liberalism, Democracy, and Human Rights -Conventional Doctrinalists -The Conceptualizers -The Cultural Pluralists -Political Strategists and Instrumentalists Chapter 3. Human Rights and the African Fingerprint -Africa in a Rights Universe -Human Rights in Precolonial Africa -The Dialectic of Rights and Duties -The Duty/Rights Conception -Whither Africa? Chapter 4. Human Rights, Religion, and Proselytism -The Problem of Religious Rights -Demonizing the Other -Proselytization in Africa -The Legal Invisibility of Indigenous Religions -Ideals Versus Realities -The Moral Equivalency of Cultures* Chapter 5. The African State, Human Rights, and Religion -Religion and African Statehood -Identity Disorientation -The Culture of Silence and Postcolonialism -Counterpenetration as a Farce -Benin Returns to Its Roots Chapter 6. The Limits of Rights Discourse -South Africa: the Human Rights State -The Rights Framework as an ANC Strategy: A Snapshot of Apartheid -The Evolution of a Rights Approach -The Compromise of the Interim Constitution* -The 1996 Constitution as a Normative Continuum -The ANC's Gradualist Rights Approach -Land Reform as a Central Plank of the Struggle -Women in Post?Apartheid South Africa -The Status and Orientation of Post-Apartheid Courts -Humanizing the Instruments of Coercion -Rights Discourse Not a Panacea Conclusion Notes Index Acknowledgments