Politicizing human rights

Human rights museum is indifferent to some human rights

Gerald Caplan is an African scholar, former NDP national director and a regular panelist on CBC’s Power and Politics.

As the brainchild of the late Izzy Asper – his photo appears on the home page of its website – the newly-opened Canadian Museum for Human Rights was always bound to be controversial. I was friendly with Izzy and liked him a lot, but I was always concerned that some of his passionately-held views didn’t at all fit with a passion for human rights, a contradiction he never recognized.

But to be fair, with or without Izzy, controversy was built in to the Museum’s very raison d’etre, and I don’t envy some of the small-p political choices its officials had to make. (I am told I appear in the section on the Rwanda genocide.) The institution bit off a huge chunk of territory, much of it inherently sensitive, antagonizing vested interests, and inevitably leaving disappointed parties in its wake.

READ MORE: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/human-rights-museum-is-indifferent-to-some-human-rights/article20921189/