ABSTRACT:
The question of the universalism of human rights and its particular tendencies in a multicultural Age is now gaining currency in contemporary philosophical discourse. This paper is an attempt to contribute to the debate on the universalism and particularism of the values of human rights within the African Diaspora and continental Africa. In pursuit of a synthesis between these two perspectives, this paper raises anew the question of the distinction between the nature of man and the nature of a person, between alienable and inalienable rights, between cultural universals, relativism, and moral relativism. The paradoxes and insights from the conceptual and critical appraisal of these dialectical concepts inform this paper’s thesis that multiculturalism is compatible with the universalism of human rights. While basing the discourse within the purview of the hermeneutic- reconstructionist model in African jurisprudence, this paper establishes through extant texts in Ifa corpus that there are some ideas and principles of jurisprudence in Ifa that show the paradox of the dichotomy between universalism and multiculturalism of human rights. Further, this paper argues that the supposed parallels between the two perspectives become insignificant because human rights in both senses are geared towards the same goals: respect for culture, human values and dignity, tolerance of ideas and beliefs, promotion of peace and human development. It argues further that while this symmetrical ideal is more of a myth than reality in the legal systems of continental Africa and the African Diaspora, it is only in the context of unhindered commitment to multiculturalists’ human rights that human development can be sustained and the capacities of the citizenry most optimized. The paper concludes with an exploration of the implications and imperatives of this resulting synthesis for the quest for development in continental and Diasporic Africa.
