Political Thinker/Justice Brennan, “Why Have a Bill of Rights?”

Political Thinker/Justice Brennan, “Why Have a Bill of Rights?”
Hannah Arendt
A
Hannah Arendt’s contribution to political thought can be understood from three points of view. These include totalitarianism, the loss of public debate, and plurality. For Arendt, totalitarianism arises as a result of the loss of public debate. Having grown up in Germany and seen the rise to power of Nazi Germany, Arendt saw how totalitarianism arose. She explains that she witnessed the collapse of politics as totalitarianism crept up under Hitler. Her ordeal in Germany forced her to delve deeper into the matter to study and understand what gave rise to this particular form of government. In her quest to demystify how totalitarianism forms of government develop, she realized that in Germany, the lack of public debate was the main reason for the above. In Germany, Hitler was able to construct a false narrative based on anti-Semitism and the repercussions on the Jews was quite evident as millions were killed during his reign. For Arendt, Hitler’s narrative took root because there was nothing to rival what he was propagating because public debate was lacking.
With regard to plurality, Arendt believed that politics ought to be based on diverse perspectives. Arendt believed that people are equal, but this does not mean that people see or hold similar views. So, politics ought to involve shared communication between equal parties. While talking about the downside of what the League of Nations did, Arendt notes that the ignorance of the minority groups made it impossible for their plan to hold. She offers one example with the Russian and Jewish minorities in Poland. “The Russian or the Jewish minority in Poland did not feel Polish culture to be superior to its own and neither was particularly impressed by the fact that Poles formed roughly 60 per cent of Poland’s population” So, minority groups decided to band together “in a minority congress which was remarkable in more than one respect.” So, in their quest to seclude minorities, European majorities empowered the minority groups that sought to preserve the public space. These groups recognized that they held legitimate power and not their governments.
B
Having seen and been a part of the suffering of refugees and stateless people during Hitler’s reign, Arendt saw some flaws in how the world perceived human rights. First of all, she makes it clear that human rights as they are known today were simply citizen rights. Being in the position of someone with no rights was quite scary back then as it meant that someone did not belong. Hitler sought to ‘purify’ Germany, and in his quest, many Jews found themselves as refugees, and thus without rights. So, for Arendt, the above can only be solved if people could understand human rights as simply the right to have rights. What this means was that justice could only be attained if people were judged by their actions or opinions, and if they had a sense of belonging. For Arendt, just being human should be a guarantee of one’s rights.
C
The political scene of the time lacked public debate. Politics was killed as people rallied behind narratives that were propagated by men who soug...