Interrogating Liberal Theories of Rights: An Analysis of Rights in the African Context

Abstract

In this essay, I set out to interrogate:

(1) liberal theories of rights rooted in the French, North American, and Haitian revolutionary experiences of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries;

(2) the institutional legacy of colonialism in regard to rights; and

(3) the crisis of rights in Africa as it relates to the management of pluralistic societies.

The African context shows that where this has been absent, liberal rights theories have set in motion a system based on a conceptualization of citizenship that increasingly disenfranchises mobile labor. In Africa, unlike in Europe or in the United States, there is no convergence of social and political history of a people. Next, I discuss the profound transformation brought about by colonialism that in turn undermined African structures of authority; people’s relationships to land; relationships to other peoples; and gender and generational relationships to communities. These had a negative effect on rights throughout the continent.

Keywords: American Revolution, Citizenship, Colonialism, Democratic Theory, French Revolution, Haitian Revolution, Liberalism, Nation and State-Building, Political Rights, Political Violence, Self-Determination