Take something that is widely, if not quite universally, regarded as a good, form a phrase by sticking the word 'imperialism' on the end of it, and bingo, you now have something bad. The good could be human rights, for example. But once you've turned them into 'human rights imperialism'... oh no, human rights have become an ideological cover for bad things. Thus, Stephen Kinzer at - where else? - Comment is Free. And this is, from him, the passage du jour:
Those who have traditionally run Human Rights Watch and other western-based groups that pursue comparable goals come from societies where crucial group rights - the right not to be murdered on the street, the right not to be raped by soldiers, the right to go to school, the right to clean water, the right not to starve - have long since been guaranteed. In their societies, it makes sense to defend secondary rights, like the right to form a radical newspaper or an extremist political party. But in many countries, there is a stark choice between one set of rights and the other. Human rights groups, bathed in the light of self-admiration and cultural superiority, too often make the wrong choice.
Well, Lawdy Miss Fothering-Truck Claudy. How bathed in the light of self-admiration must one be not to be able to see that in some countries people might have to settle for being raped by soldiers so long as their right not to be murdered on the street is respected; or might have to forego the right not to starve in order to be assured of clean water; or might have to forget press freedom if their children are allowed to go to school? And so on. Anyone can understand that practicalities, real empirical obstacles, may get in the way of pursuing every just cause everywhere at the same time. But there is a code of fundamental human rights that applies precisely everywhere without exception, and for some not-especially-oppressed journo to pontificate disparagingly about these - as in 'an absolutist view of human rights permeated by modern western ideas that westerners mistakenly call "universal"' - is at once repellent and exactly what you'd expect at Comment is Free.
I look forward to the upcoming CiF post, 'End anti-torture imperialism now' - in which some progressive-minded person lets us know why the prohibition of torture is a culturally relative norm that must occasionally be sacrificed to other pragmatic considerations.
Postscript. In so far as the defence may conceivably be mounted of Kinzer's argument here that he's encouraging us to go easy on narrowly 'political' rights - formation of parties, free press etc - if other more basic desiderata are being adequately attended to in the country or countries under discussion, can he really be unaware that this style of argument has a long and (surely now) discredited pedigree? Starting with Stalinist Russia, through China under Mao, to Castro's Cuba, there have always been these apologetic voices to tell you that yes, OK, all may not be entirely well so far as democratic norms are concerned, but steel production is great, or there's a wonderful educational system or there have been great strides made in health care. One is never invited to consider why the peoples enjoying these benefits may not have self-rule as well.