Communitarian Violence Versus Human Rights Violence

Jacques Deboheur Koukam (University Paris Nanterre)

When, in a rational and civilized world, the dead are counted in tens or hundreds per day, the meaning of human life must become a considerable concern. Moreover, when these deaths are as a result of murder, that is, human acts on other humans and very often because of religious, cultural or racial differences, we must reflect on the general principles governing reports of each other in this so-called cosmopolitan society. In fact, it seems that the world has left the traditional forms of barbarism to build a rational barbarism (even more deadly) in a context governed, oddly enough, by human rights. While democracy, the rule of law and human rights have become the pillars of the inter-human and inter-societal relationship, we must question the basis of the values on which they are based and this is in order to create a fraternity shared in human association.

Are human values natural or cultural? If they are natural, they would be inherent to all humans, if they are cultural, then they should be acquired in the course of history, considering the risk that historical trajectories are diverse and relative. From this moment, it is possible that conflicts arise in relationships because of differences in the understanding of the universality of law. In addition, the assertion of values from a centre in relation to other contexts that would be peripheries comes to create a mortgage on this notion. Hence the need to search for the foundations of so-called universal values in their progression from a given individual.