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18 June 2020 | Story Prof Karin van Marle and Prof Danie Brand | Photo Supplied
Prof Karen van Marle,left, and Prof Danie Brand.
What are our human rights in the COVID-19 crisis – not which rights do we have, but what are they as social institutions, what are they supposed to do for us? How do rights assist us in world-making? What kind of worlds can they make?

Thomas Hobbes uses rights to justify a strong unitary state. His main problem was how to ensure peace and order – in the current crisis perhaps how to prevent the spread of the virus and ensure our safety and freedom from infection. Hobbes is concerned about the ‘state of nature’, with no authority, no unity, and no foundational principles: a state of total disorder where “the life of man (sic) [is] solitary, brutish, and short”. For Hobbes, anyone with reason will seek to get out of this state of disorder by giving up all rights to the state so that it can create and maintain peace and order – pledging complete, permanent obedience in return for peace and order. In his view, the sovereign has the monopoly to make laws and to enforce them. Human rights here are a justification for the exercise of absolute state power: we hand over our rights so that the state may protect us from chaos. What our rights are, what they entitle us to, and what should be done to advance them – world-making – is handed over to the state. We become passive recipients of state rule.

John Locke also starts with the state of nature – not a state of chaos and danger, but one of orderly relations in the form of natural law. For him, humans are born equal and have natural rights to life, liberty, and property. Humans in Locke’s state of nature are not concerned with their safety and security against chaos but are driven by individual interest. Hence, we place our rights in trust with the state to protect our individual interests in the context of the individual rights of others. We may revolt against the state if it does not protect our individual rights.  Individual freedom and property are central, and individuals create worlds motivated by self-interest. Living in this world is not about sharing it with others, but about protecting and enjoying it for the self.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau sees the social contract as a means of creating equality and collective self-government. The natural freedom of the state of nature has been lost and civil society is enchained. It is only by giving up the natural right to freedom that the social contract can be made possible. At stake here is not individual autonomy or private interest, but general constraint of the common interest. The social contract here is an association where persons unite while remaining free, enabling association based on the common good. He introduces the general will as a way of overcoming decision-making based on individual interest: laws of the state must reflect a concrete community ethos. Rousseau underscores the importance of the state and its law upholding the common interest, not by authoritarian rule but through popular sovereignty. Here, members of a community work together to create a world that reflects a sense of common good. Living and the good life means a life where everyone shares and has equal stakes in the governance and enjoyment of the world.

In more contemporary transformative understandings, human rights require us to talk about and decide together about what is good for all of us, how we can best live together. The overriding concern is what kind of world do we, as a people, want to construct and maintain? As Jennifer Nedelsky (2011), for example, will have it – once a right has been identified, the conversation starts, not ends. This alternative to a classic liberal understanding of rights is to regard it as relational rather than boundary-like structures. It allows individual interests to overlap and sometimes even conflict with one another, but not in a model of stronger rights trumping weaker ones.

This third understanding of rights and how it regulates our relationship with others is closely aligned to the predominant understanding of rights in our Constitution. Its emphasis on state accountability, transparency in decision-making, engaged democracy, and the boundedness of state power clearly eschews Hobbesian absolute state power that is ostensibly exercised in the interest of us all. Its embrace of substantive equality, of rights to food, water, housing, education, and health care and of demands for redress of past injustices, show a concern not only for individual interest, but for fashioning ways of living better together. Its insistence that rights may only be limited for a public purpose, the achievement of which the limitation is rationally related, and the importance of which is proportionate to its impact on individual rights, shows a concern not only for the public good, but also for engendering conversation about what that public good entails and how best to achieve it.

Despite this, human rights in the COVID-19 crisis have mostly been asserted in either Hobbesian or Lockean terms. We hear of human rights in government’s angry response to criticism of the National Coronavirus Command Council, that its decisions should not be questioned and need not be transparent as they are taken in order to protect all our rights to life and health – i.e., we have ‘given up’ our rights so that we may be ‘protected’ from death and disorder. Hobbes also appears in the skop, skiet en donder of our police and defence force’s enforcement of regulations under lockdown. Again, the idea seems to be that we have given up our rights to the freedom and security of the person and freedom from state violence in return for being protected against the ravages of the virus. Locke’s notion of individual freedom haunts complaints about the limitations placed on, for example, individuals’ freedom of movement, freedom of association, freedom to trade – the threats by big business to disregard lockdown rules and to commence operations because the lockdown breaches their rights to individual freedom and ‘freedom to transact’. Despite vague calls for the articulation of a ‘new social compact’ or a ‘new economic vision’, we have not seen real alternatives to the understandings of Hobbes and Locke referred to above.  Calls for a new social compact and new economic vision have not been made on the basis of rights, or any normative basis, but rather explicitly on so-called ‘non-ideological’ terms, with an emphasis on efficiency and ‘what will work’.

Perhaps, to end, in this lack is where opportunity – bound to lurk in any crisis – is also found in this crisis. Crisis is, after all, at the root of critique.  The collective shock to our systems may just re-alert us to the need to continuously assert our rights, but not without the necessary critical reflection. We should assert our rights against the wanton exercise of state power and even against other people if they do us harm, but in ways that invite conversation about what is good for all of us and how we can not only build better worlds and live better, but build them better and live better together.  

Opinion article by Prof Karin van Marle, Department of Public Law, Faculty of Law, and Prof Danie Brand, Director: Free State Centre for Human Rights 


News Archive

UV vestig hom afgelope eeu as leier op verskeie terreine
2004-05-11

Michelle O'Connor - Volksblad - 11 Mei 2004

Ondank terugslae nou 'n 'gesonde volwassene'

HOEWEL die Universiteit van die Vrystaat (UV) vanjaar sy eeufees vier en met 23 000 studente die grootste universiteit in die sentrale deel van die land is, was dié instelling se geboorte glad nie maklik nie. MICHELÉ O'CONNOR het met prof. Frederick Fourie, rektor, oor die nederige begin van dié instelling gesels.

DIE behoefte aan 'n eie universiteit in die Vrystaat het reeds in 1855, kort ná die stigting van Grey-kollege, kop uitgesteek.

Grey se manne het hulleself teen 1890 begin voorberei om die intermediêre B.A.-eksamens af te lê. Dié eksamen het hulle toegang gegee tot die tweede jaar van 'n B.A.-graad aan die destydse University of the Cape Good Hope, nou die Universiteit van Kaapstad.

"Presidente F.W. Reitz en M.T. Steyn het destyds albei die stigting van 'n universiteit hier bepleit. Die grootste rede was sodat die seuns van die Vrystaat nie weggestuur word nie.

"Dié twee se droom is op 28 Januarie 1904 bewaarheid toe ses studente hulle onder dr. Johannes Bril, as hoof/rektor van Grey-kollege, vir die graad B.A. ingeskryf het. Dié graad is aanvanklik deur die Kaapse universiteit toegeken.

"Net die klassieke tale soos Latyns en Grieks, die moderne tale, Nederlands, Duits en Engels, filosofie, geskiedenis, wiskunde, fisika, chemie, plant- en dierkunde is aanvanklik aangebied.

"Die UV se geboue het gegroei van 'n klein tweevertrek-geboutjie wat nou naby Huis Abraham Fischer staan, en verblyf in die Grey-kollege se seunskoshuis," sê Fourie.

Volgens hom is die universiteit se eerste raad en senaat tussen 1904 en 1920 saamgestel. Die eerste dosente is aangestel en die eerste geboue opgerig. "Dié tyd was egter baie moeilik.

"Die instelling het teen 1920 net 100 studente gehad en was geldelik in die knyp. Daar was geen vaste rektor nie en geen vooruitgang nie. Vrystaatse kinders is steeds na ander universiteite gestuur.

"Ds. J.D. Kestell, rektor van 1920 tot 1927, het egter dié instelling finaal gevestig.

"Hy het self studente van oor die hele Vrystaat gewerf en geld by onder meer kerke en banke ingesamel. Kestell het selfs Engelse ouers oortuig om hul kinders na die Greyuniversiteitskollege (GUK) te stuur en teen 1927 het dié instelling met 400 studente gespog.

"In die tydperk tussen 1927 en 1950 het die GUK weer verskeie terugslae beleef.

"In dié tyd was dit onder meer die Groot Depressie en die Tweede Wêreldoorlog. Die armblanke-vraagstuk het regstreeks op studente en dosente ingewerk en die politieke onderstrominge van dié tyd het die instelling ontwrig.

"Die GUK het egter oorleef en die Universiteitskollege van die Oranje-Vrystaat (UKOVS) is in 1935 gebore," sê Fourie.

Hy sê in dié tyd is verskeie fakulteite gevestig en teen 1950 het die UKOVS met 1 000 studente gespog.

Teen 1950 het dit 'n onafhanklike universiteit geword en die naam is verander na die Universiteit van die OranjeVrystaat (UOVS).

Dié tydperk is gekenmerk deur Afrikaner- en blanke selfvertroue en heerskappy. Studentegetalle het tot 7 000 in 1975 gegroei en heelwat vooruitgang het in dié tyd plaasgevind.

"Tussen 1976 en 1989 sukkel dieuniversiteit weer met onder meer ekonomiese krisisse, die land se politieke onstabiliteit en word die UOVS geï soleer.

"Een ligpunt in dié tyd is die toelating van die eerste swart studente, die nuwe Sasol-biblioteek en die fakulteit teologie wat die lig sien.

"Tussen 1990 en vanjaar het die UOVS verskeie op- en afdraandes beleef. Die universiteit doen nie net die eerste stappe van transformasie nie, maar begin ook aan 'n beleid van multikulturaliteit werk.

"Die UOVS se naam verander in 1996 na die Universiteit van die Vrystaat/University of the Free State en in 2001 word die Sotho-vertaling bygevoeg.

"Geldelike druk en probleme neem drasties toe en personeel word gerasionaliseer.

"Teen 2000 begin die UV met 'n draaistrategie en studentegetalle neem tot meer as 23 000 toe," sê Fourie.

Hy sê die UV het die afgelope eeu nie net verskeie terugslae oorleef nie, maar homself ook op verskeie gebiede as 'n leier gevestig.

Die universiteit behaal sy eie geldelike mikpunte, neem 'n nuwe taalbeleid van veeltaligheid aan en herbelê in personeel.

Die instelling inkorporeer die kampusse van die Vista- en Qwaqwa-universiteit en groei internasionaal.

Die UV vestig ook fondamente van 'n institusionele kultuur van verdraagsaamheid, geregtigheid en diversiteit.

"Die baba het in die afgelope eeu 'n gesonde volwassene geword."

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