‘As Flies to Wanton Boys’ A Literary and Cultural Perspective on the Intrinsic and Extrinsic Nature of Human Rights
Authors: Yar Khan Shahab 
Published: October 2024

The author argues that instead of long elaborated charters on human rights which have never helped to secure lives, property and honour, the world needs to have consensus on three basic rights suggested in the article. The argument revolves around the concepts of literary and cultural responses to the idea of human rights. The author suggests that literary art stems from the seeds of prejudice, bias and personal inclinations. It is a theoretical framework which functions as an indicator of one’s perspective of history. It can also be taken as a psycho-analytical framework of social groups to understand development of ‘historical truths’ and ‘literary fallacy’. Literary studies bring us a step closer to the truthful nature of a crisis, especially when the crisis is still in the offing. However, to understand the true nature of someone else’s crises we need to have cultural life that can produce a cross-cultural profile. Cross-cultural profiles lead to the appreciation of the principle of diversity inherent in Nature. In our age where we observe escalations in the violation of human rights as military combat, invasions, militancy intensify and the aftermaths of COVID-19 along with the fears of new pandemics, visible changes in the weather pattern and mass migrations of terrified, exploited, humans from their ‘prison houses’ to ‘dreamlands’ shake the existing world order, understanding the diversity principle is essential for the survival of the human race. The escalating situation confirms that the post WWII civilization, rather than to continue, needs to halt and argue on empirical grounds the validity of its international institutions. The new world order requires the notions of ‘cultural-fluency’ to create new cross-cultural profiles. The world that lacks vision needs productive control over ‘ideas of identities’. These identities not only function as a cultural system but project humans as ‘gods’ on earth. Writers of great profile have always criticised these self-assured ‘god-men’. As far as we travel in history, we observe the ideas of identities functioning as efficient destructive forces designed by the religious-political-resources controlling elite. It is this alliance that designs our cultural and historical map. We are forced to locate ourselves within the map as nothing exists for us beyond its boundaries. It is this identity-projecting mafia that makes the laws ineffective and safeguards its interests by selling theories of cultural-spiritual supremacy. It designs minds to sacrifice lives in order to maintain the cultural-spiritual status quo. Fundamental human rights cease to exist when the forces of status quo are mobilized by the alliance of the mafia called the elite. Keywords: Literary art, theoretical framework, fossilized life, word-craft, cross-cultural profile, arm trade, religious businesses, cultural-supremacy, nationalistic enthusiasts, cultural fluency, Shakespeare, Thomas More, Hafiz, Bhagat Kabir, Ghalib, Goethe, Federico García Lorca, Iqbal, Rwandan refugees, cultural competence, meaning of culture and the means of culture.