Is there universal “human rights” independently of citizenship?

In theory, there are universal human rights like freedom of speech and equality. But
when it is searched deeper, these theoritical human rights do not function in every country. In
this essay I will be giving couple of examples about this situation and my take on why this is
the way and how it can be improved.
My first example is from United States of America. When we looked into the country
during Obama era, it appears like a post-racial country, but underneath this picture, there is a
whole different agenda. The minorities is still discriminated and the majority of the people
had not even noticed this fact or used the situation as a defensive mechanism for protecting
their privileges. Eduardo Bonilla-Silva and David Dietrich, writers of the article called “The
Sweet Enchantment of Color-Blind Racism in Obamerica” say that, with the misidentifed
symbolism surronding the Obama’s election, racism decreases even further beneath our
personal and national consciousness and this is the problem. Because of this, nowadays
almost all whites can say with self-confidence that “I elected for Obama and it shows that I
am not racist.” (2011,
The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, issue: 1, 190-206).
Superficially, this seems like a good thing on paper about universal human rights, but in fact,
rather than solving problems such as inequality and racism, this means that people start to
forget these problems and do not notice them. It is the same for human rights. I think these
kind of problems cannot be solved in a short period of time, but creating awareness by
keeping the subject alive even if it is uncomfortable, also by teaching people how to support
human rights, a difference can be made.
Another example comes from gender difference. In an ideal world, every person
should be equal and has the same rights but we do not live in an ideal world, so human rights
change according to the country you live in and this difference in human rights can be seen
very clearly from a perspective of gender. In some countries, women have the same rights as
men, while in another country they cannot even choose their marital partner. On this topic,
Turkey as a country is not in a very bad situation, but in some areas leans towards that side.
About the textile industries, Fatma Umut Beşpınar & Cagatay Topal, writers of the article
called “ Interplay of gender subtext and local culture in the organizational logic: the case of a
textile factory in Turkey”, say that they showed the relation between this traditional culture,
and perspective of gender in Islamic religion and natural applications to daily life. Lastly,
based on our regional study in this field, they learned that experince, reputation and
responsibilty are the subjects that have been regularly disregarded by the bosses, labourers
and families (2018, issue: 3, 292-309, DOI: 10.1080/13668803.2017.1303447). This study
shows that in general, women in textile industry in Turkey is overlooked only because of their
gender, but in another country they can be the boss of a textile factory as women and has men
working under them.
In conclusion, even if it seems like there are universal human rights, the examples
above show that the country you live in has an effect on your rights as much as your race and
gender. Sometimes these effects are very much under the radar so people do not notice them
until they look into it deeper. Because of that, the effects seem so natural and we see human
rights as universal but when we look at them specifically, we see that each citizen has their
own set of rights according to their country they live in. So there are no universal human
rights from my point of view practically.
020160352 Kaan Uçarcı