The "Neutrality" of Universal Human Rights

Examining Contemporary Moral Opinions

Djokovic’s statement on Kosovo.

This is part of a new series of shorter essays that examines the contemporary moral and political opinions of our time / cave. Usually this will consist in thinking through claims that ought to strike the healthy perceiver of them as strange or bizarre or all together questionable, but which are taken for granted as just and good by their utterers.

We begin with this BBC article on tennis player Novak Djokovic’s statement on Kosovo and Serbia. He was born in Kosovo and said that, “Kosovo is the heart of Serbia. Stop the violence.” ostensibly in support of Serbian nationalists who do not recognize Kosovo’s independence.

In response, France’s sports minister, Amelie Oudea-Castera said, “There needs to be a principle of neutrality for the field of play.” What counts as a “neutral” comment? Consider:

“When you carry messages about defending human rights, messages that bring people together around universal values, a sportsperson is free to express them. But in this case it was a message that is very activist, that is very political. You shouldn't get involved, especially in the current circumstances, and it shouldn't happen again.” (emphasis added)

Djokovic, who supports his own nation and the reunification of Serbia, does want to bring people together. —”NO YOU CAN’T BRING THEM TOGETHER LIKE THAT!”

On one hand, Djokovic’s message is indeed political and activist: it is political because it supports one particular nation-state and it is activist in that it seeks to make the world otherwise—to change it. And on the other hand, Oudeau-Castera’s message is neutral, but in the Schmittian sense, in which it is neutral because it seeks to extinguish the political. There should be no more groupings of human beings that at least, in potentiality, could find themselves in deadly conflict with others. She seeks a world in which there are no friends or enemies. And one might add, that she also seeks to eliminate reasonable discussion about what is good and bad and hence what is just and unjust.

Djokovic should not be allowed to speak because he loves Serbia and wishes for it to be distinct from other nations. Serbia shouldn’t be allowed to do anything that might promote reunification with Kosovo; rather, both states should wait until they can both be absorbed into the human family that will be ruled by beneficent technocratic overlords (hopefully, if we are lucky, by a combination of the World Health Organization and a renewed United Nations that no longer allows particular nations to vote, but instead entrusts rule to experts who can keep us safe).

Which is to say, there is absolutely nothing really NEUTRAL about promoting universal human rights because the ideas that undergird them are not universally agreed upon. Such wording is designed to conceal friend / enemy distinctions: Djokovic is a criminal who wants to commit crimes against humanity as a whole and this French AOC ;) is just performing a police action against a criminal who does not deserve the legitimacy of the title “enemy.” And such wording is designed to cut off conversation. It is a statement about who has power. As others have said, look around at what you aren’t allowed to talk about and this will give you an indication of who is in charge.

---

For a slightly less polemical treatment of universal human rights, you might consider this lecture.