This is a book about one solution to the terrible social ills that beset us as individuals.
Undeniably, it competes with other solutions; but in recent years it has emerged as
the most plausible as the others have increasingly been found wanting. The solution
is to make universal human rights a reality. This book is concerned with how and
why humans arrived at this particular answer to oppression.
The book shows that far from wanting those rights, in most places, at most times,
most human beings did not. Universal human rights were made against the wishes
of most people. It is a comforting self-deceit that, throughout history, everybody
wanted them. In fact, some people wrenched human rights for all from those with
power, usually the majority of citizens, from states, societies, nations, their laws,
their ideologies and their beliefs, all of which victimised them. So, the book must be
the victims ’ story of centuries of struggle for universal human rights, since the
victimisers clearly had no desire to create human rights for all. Neglect of the victims’
story is what has allowed abuse of universal human rights by the myriad who speak
in their name and a consequent scepticism by many who should be fi ghting for their
implementation.