Decolonial human rights education: changing the terms and content of conversations on human rights

: The aim of this paper is to search for possibilities to change the terms and content of conversations on colonial/decolonial human rights education. The content of conversations consists of what we know about human rights. The terms of conversations are the principles, assumptions, and rules of knowing in human rights education. The terms and content are interrelated and continually sustain each other. Decoloniality resists global coloniality of power, ontologies and epistemologies which are consequences of colonisation. It also questions the Eurocentric assumptions and principles which serve as a premise for human rights and human rights education. There is an urgent need to explore pluriversal knowledges of human rights and to problematise the Human of human rights. This is explored through data from Roux’s research project Human rights literacy: quest for meaning. Some thoughts on decolonising human rights education are provided in the conclusion. Abstract: The aim of this paper is to search for possibilities to change the terms and content of conversations on colonial/decolonial human rights education. The content of conversations consists of what we know about human rights. The terms of conversations are the principles, assumptions, and rules of knowing in human rights education. The terms and content are interrelated and continually sustain each other. Decoloniality resists global coloniality of power, ontologies and epistemologies which are consequences of colonisation. It also questions the Eurocentric assumptions and principles which serve as a premise for human rights and human rights education. There is an urgent need to explore pluriversal knowledges of human rights and to problematise the Human of human rights. This is explored through data from Roux’s research project Human rights literacy: quest for meaning. Some thoughts on decolonising human rights education are provided in the conclusion.


Introduction
During 2020, the pandemic and economic recession have highlighted global inequality, poverty and grave racial injustice. They have also highlighted the need for human rights education (Hahn, 2020). Although human rights education has made great strides since the 1990s, there has been critique. Both Coysh (2014) and Osler (2015a) unpack the role of asymmetrical power relations in knowledge production and dissemination in human rights education. Adami (2014, p. 165) argues that the role of legal 'experts' in the field of human rights education has the consequence that 'Western legal "experts" hold the agency to decide the content' of human rights education. Moghli (2020) relates how her views on human rights education changed towards a more critical stance on the connection and disjunction between human rights theory and practice while conducting research in the Occupied West Bank. The disjuncture, Keet (2015) argues, is one of the consequences of a human rights education which, more often than not, is the uncritical legitimising arm of human rights universals.
Although many decolonial scholars argue that the premise of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) (United Nations [UN)], 1948) is Euro-western, decolonisation was very much part of the conversation during its drafting. Various scholars and leaders advocated for the rights of colonised peoples (Mackinnon, 2019). In 1947, DuBois brought the denial of human rights to minority groups in the United States of America and the world to the fore, through petitions to the newly established UN and the Human Rights Commission (HRC) (Mackinnon, 2019). The delegates from India not only advocated for their own right to self-determination but also for the rights of Indians living in South Africa. By doing so, they provided the UN and the HRC with a mandate to think beyond the limits of national sovereignty when it comes to a just world and human rights (Bhagavan, 2010). The drafting process of the UDHR (1948) brought together diverse peoples and nations, with a diversity of worldviews, religions, and philosophies, in a diplomatic process within which the rights of all humans could be negotiated (Adami, 2012).
The plight of colonised peoples and minority groups remained in the conversation; in the 1974 UNESCO Recommendation and the 1978 Congress it was argued that human rights and human rights education should be connected to anticolonialism and the struggles of people towards their emancipation and freedom. This vision was, however, diluted in subsequent UN documents (Moghli, 2020).
In fidelity to the leaders and scholars who advocated for the rights of colonised peoples during the drafting of the UDHR (UN, 1948), continuous critique is therefore necessary to facilitate the 'transformative radicality of human rights education' (Keet, 2012, p. 7). Keet and Zembylas (2019) advocate for the decolonising of human rights education in order to facilitate renewal. However, as Tuck and Yang (2012, p. 2) argue, it is easy to talk casually about the need to 'decolonise our schools, or use decolonising methods, or decolonise student thinking.' Decolonising is not easy work. When it is not used as a metaphor, it is unsettling and difficult (Tuck & Yang, 2012). Mignolo (2018c, p. 170) posits that the main task of decoloniality and decolonising is 'to decolonise Man/Human, to liberate pluriversal humanity. ' Mignolo (2018c) and Maldonado-Torres (2007; argue that the concept of Human in human rights is a colonial, Euro-western and Enlightenment construction which excludes the majority of the global human population. Race, as an organising principle, remains a central axis of coloniality and is embedded in the UDHR from 1948(Maldonado-Torres, 2007Ndlovu-Gatsheni, 2019). This results in what Yang (2015, p. 225) refers to as 'the edge between human and Human'.
Decolonial thinking is a bottom-up, communal, and relational process embedded in the struggles and narratives of a pluriversal humanity. Walsh and Mignolo (2018) call for pluriversal decoloniality and decolonial pluriversality. Answers to decolonial questions are derived from 'a web of consensual relationships that is infused with movement through lived experiences and embodiment' (Walsh, 2018a, p. 18). The notion that human rights education is a relational and contextual practice is not new. Scholars such as Coysh (2014), Adami (2014), Zembylas (2017), and Ahmed, Martin and Uddin (2019) have explored human rights education in terms of contextuality, relationality, plurality and uniqueness.
Decoloniality is also always unfinished. Decolonising human rights education requires a global we who can, in fidelity to human rights education, re-imagine decolonial human rights education. This global we refers to all of humanity; it is an acknowledgment and validation of the pluriversality of knowledges and ways of being. The aim of this paper is therefore to search for possibilities to change the terms and content of conversations on colonial/decolonial human rights education in order to decolonise Man/Human and liberate a global pluriversal humanity. The content of conversations consists of what we know about human rights. The terms of these conversations are the 'principles, assumptions and rules of knowing' in human rights and human rights education (Mignolo, 2018b, p. 212). Content and terms are interrelated and mutually sustain each other. This paper asks: what are the possibilities for resisting coloniality by changing the terms and content of conversations in and though human rights education? This is explored through two questions from Roux's research project Human rights literacy: quest for meaning 2012-2016. The project explored the ontologies and epistemologies of human rights literacies through a rhizomatic research paradigm based on grounded theory methodologies . Although decolonial research does use grounded theory and rhizomatic work (see Williams and Bermeo, 2020 for a rhizomatic approach to decolonial work), this project was not a decolonial project that followed a decolonial methodology. The data from the project are used to write against coloniality. It is, in the words of Mondal (2014Mondal ( , p. 2965, 'writing that sets out in one way or another to resist colonialist perspective'.
To start the conversation, brief explanations of decoloniality and the relation between coloniality/decoloniality and human rights education are provided. The terms and content of conversations are then explored through data. In the conclusion, possibilities of moving towards decolonial human rights education are presented.

Decoloniality
Colonialism was the colonising of the physical spaces and bodies of the colonised by the coloniser. Different regions around the world tell different stories of when their local histories were disrupted by Spanish, Dutch, Portuguese, French or British invasions (Mignolo, 2018c).
Decolonisation is understood as the undoing of colonialism, or the process by which a colonised country gains independence (Mignolo, 2018d). The success of the decolonisation movements during and after the 1960s led to the liberation of many colonies but the failure of these movements points to the fact that the logic of coloniality was left intact (Ndlovu-Gatsheni, 2015). Coloniality refers to patterns of power, knowledge and being which emerged as a result of colonialism and are still embedded in global society. They are manifested through the Euro-western ontological, epistemological, and hermeneutical principles in religion, science and philosophy, by which colonial power was created and continues to be sustained and managed (Ndlovu-Gatsheni, 2015). Global coloniality thus outlives colonialism and decolonisation and 'cannot be separated from Euro-modernity' (Ndlovu-Gatsheni, 2019, p. 210). Moldonado-Torres (2007, p. 243) argues that 'as modern subjects, we breath [sic] coloniality all the time and every day.' It defines human relations, subjectivities, identities, cultures, and knowledge.
Decoloniality is the resistance to hegemonic knowledge, assumptions, rules and terms which keep the logic of coloniality in place (Mignolo, 2018d;Ndlovu-Gatsheni, 2015). It is a trans -and inter-disciplinary concept lived through, and embedded in, continual resistance to coloniality (Mignolo, 2018d) Decoloniality is therefore praxis-driven. The premise of 'decolonial thinking and doing is the praxis of living' (Mignolo, 2018d, p. 107).
Although decolonial praxis describes a pluriversal global, it 'cannot be other than local' (Walsh & Mignolo, 2018, p. 2). It is always contextually grounded. It searches for the otherwise in looking at pluriversal epistemologies and ontologies through local histories, subjectivities, knowledges, narratives and struggles against the colonial/modern order (Walsh & Mignolo, 2018). Decolonial thinking happens with and from a plurality of standpoints and struggles through pluriversal and interversal approaches and horizons (Walsh & Mignolo, 2018;Ndlovu-Gatsheni, 2019). Pluriversal and interversal paths interrupt the totality from which the universal and global are perceived. It means that 'what should be universal is in fact pluriversal, and not a single totality' (Mignolo, 2018a, p. 147).
This does not mean that western knowledge has no role to play in human rights or human rights education. Pluriversal knowledges include western knowledge. Pluriversal knowledges entail an intercultural co -construction of theory, reflection and praxis, seeking and acknowledging diverse understandings of the world, of being and of knowledge (Walsh, 2018b). This enables an ongoing contextual, relational movement to possibilities of pluriversal otherwise modes of being, knowing, sensing and living (Walsh, 2018b).

Decoloniality and human rights education
Although the decolonisation phase of human rights and resulting decolonisation movements happened during the 1960s, the decolonial pushback on human rights can be traced to the 1950s, with Fanon (1952Fanon ( /2008 and Césaire (1950Césaire ( /2000 (Moyn, 2014;Mignolo, 2011;Becker, 2020). After the adoption of the UDHR in 1948. Césaire published his Discourse on colonialism (1950) and Fanon his Black skin, white masks (1952/2008. For Césaire (1950Césaire ( /2000, the UDHR was a limited response to a wrongly framed question which narrowly considered Nazism and anti-Semitism and not the wider problem of colonialism and growing racism (Maldonado-Torres, 2017). Adami (2016), referencing Mutua (2002), points out that the conceptualisation of human rights in 1948 was premised on the atrocities of World War II and western problems and cultural values. Ingrained racism, sexism and resulting exclusions, however, predate the UDHR from 1948. Despite, for example, the acceptance of equality and liberty in the late 1800s, these ideals did not apply to black and indigenous peoples, slaves, women and persons who did not own property (Woldeyes & Offord, 2018). The crucial and fundamental question regarding different forms of being (Human/human) was never addressed by the UDHR (Maldonado-Torres, 2017).
Colonised subjects were excluded from the human rights texts of the 1940s (Maldonado-Torres, 2017; Moyn, 2014). Even during the 1950s, colonial powers inserted a clause in policies to ensure that human rights were not applicable in colonies (Moyn, 2014). Anticolonial human rights movements only started in the 1960s, when the UN General Assembly Resolution 1514 condemned colonisation (Moyn, 2014).
The concept Human in human rights theory is still embedded in a colonial layer of individualism and racism (Maldonado-Torros, 2017, p. 131). All humans might be born equal, but they do not remain so. Mignolo (2011, p. 157) posits: 'For all humans being born equal, losing their equality is a humiliating experience.' Despite disagreements and conflicts, human rights education and decolonial education can learn from each other. They both involve unsettling, unlearning and relearning, and they both disrupt the status quo. The question, however, is towards what do they unsettle, disrupt, unlearn and relearn. The contrasting answers to this question provide us with the current fault line between human rights education and decoloniality. Human rights education is deliberatively designed to dislodge and shift values and behaviour towards those set out by the UDHR (Ahmed, Martin & Uddin, 2019). The decolonial project 'is to unsettle and disobey' the practice and praxis of coloniality which, decolonial scholars argue, is the premise of the universal assumptions of the UDHR (Walsh & Mignolo, 2018, p. 9;Keet & Zembylas, 2019).
Before the data are presented, some methodological considerations are discussed.

Methodological considerations
Roux's research project, Human rights literacy: quest for meaning emerged from previous research projects in human rights education within intercultural and interreligious contexts. It consisted of two phases. Phase one (2012-2014) commenced in April 2012 and was initiated in South African higher education contexts. The second phase (2015-2016) started in March 2015 and included international contexts. Some members of the international team were involved in previous studies on multicultural or multireligious education and indicated their continued interest in the literacy project. The countries for phase two were, however, chosen in order to include countries from the global North and the global South as the aim was to explore how meaning-making of human rights crystallises in diverse contexts.
As data from the previous research projects indicated a lack of knowledge of human rights in primary and secondary teaching and learning, the research team decided to focus on human rights education in teacher education at selected South African universities during the first phase. During the second phase, participants were included if they had been enrolled in a human rights education module at a tertiary institution or if their chosen professions would require them to deal with human rights issues (education, sociology, education law, law, political science, public health). The purpose was to explore how they make meaning of human rights and to ascertain their human rights literacy levels.
The project was a multidisciplinary effort. The research team consisted of scholars in human rights education (South Africa and Israel), religion education (South Africa, Netherlands, Israel), peace education (Israel), education law (South Africa), sociology (South Africa and India), social sciences (Germany and India), curriculum studies (South Africa) and teacher training (Netherlands, South Africa, Germany, Israel).
The project used mixed methods of data collection and mixed methods of data analysis . During the first phase an online survey (2013/n=1086) included structured multichoice questions with Likert scale options (quantitative data), open-ended questions and optional comment boxes (qualitative data). Focus group discussions (2013/68 focus group participants) were used to crystallise the survey data and the ontological and epistemological understandings of participants . The participants in the survey and focus groups were students from six different faculties of education in South Africa.
During the second phase a revised (international) online survey (consisting of quantitative and qualitative questions / n=351), based on the survey used in phase one, was used. Universities in Germany, India, Israel, South Africa and a teacher education college in the Netherlands took part. Participants in the survey and focus groups were students from faculties of education (South Africa, Germany, India, Netherlands and Israel) as well as from faculties of sociology (South Africa and India), education law (South Africa), and law, public health, social and political sciences in India. There were only focus group discussions (2015/39 focus group participants) in two sites (Israel and Netherlands), and these were facilitated by the respective collaborators. The collaborators indicated that they wanted to explore the survey data in more depth. During 2015 only three South African sites could be accessed for data collection as it was during the time of the #mustfall protests at South African universities. There were therefore fewer participants.
The aim in the second phase was to explore ontologies and epistemologies of human rights and human rights education in different and diverse contexts, each with its own rhythm of histories, human activities, human rights processes and human rights structures . It was not a comparative study. Neither can data be generalised, as the sites in phase two represented diverse epistemological communities in specific place-space-time (Sporre, 2019). Sporre (2019) explains how theorising within and between diverse epistemological communities depends on each researcher, within his/her context, communicating, understanding and explaining data and context. The project explored how themes and human rights meaning-making crystallise differently in unique and diverse place-space-time. Place is understood as being constructed by sociological facts which form in social spaces and not as geographical boundaries. Meaning-making is not enabled through geographical borders but through discursive factors and their consequences .
One of the limitations but also strengths of the project was the fact that in some of the contexts there are no formal human rights education programmes or modules-human rights form a small part of citizenship or civic education. This is a limitation as participants from the Netherlands, for example, had very little knowledge of human rights and had difficulty in negotiating the answer choices. This can, however, also be viewed as a strength as it highlighted the gaps in human rights knowledge which should be addressed. In citizenship education the 'nation-state remains a potent concept as well as a political reality' and schools generally focus on a national perspective instead of a human rights one (Osler, 2015a, p. 255;. Survey data are referenced as (S2015Q22): S (survey) 2015 (date -second international phase) Q22 (question number). Data emanating from the first phase small focus group discussions are referenced FGD2013_S1Y4M1: FGD2013 (2013 focus group discussions), indicating Site 1 (S1), fourth year students (Y4), first meeting (M1). Data emanating from the second phase focus group discussions are referenced as FGD2015G1M2 _IL: (FGD2015 =focus group discussions during second phase 2015; G1 = group number; M2 =meeting number; IL =country [IL = Israel, NL= Netherlands]).

The origin story and premise of human rights
In changing the terms and content of conversations on and in human rights, we should be aiming towards a pluriversal humanity and pluriversal knowledges. Knowledge has a privileged position in the framework of coloniality as it is evident in both the terms and the content (Mignolo, 2018a). The content consists of knowledge of human rights, and the terms are the principles, assumptions and the rules of knowing what human rights are and who the subjects of human rights are. The interrelated movement between terms and content determines both knowledge of human rights and the assumptions of who the 'Human' in human rights is.
A recognition of pluriversal knowledges of human rights involves defining, understanding and honouring multiple knowledges, epistemologies, ways of being and differing ways of viewing relationships to others, the earth and the cosmos (Hardbarger, 2019). In accommodating such a broad understanding of pluriversality, Williams and Bermeo (2020) propose the notion of Pluriversal Rights Education. Within the broad understanding of pluriversality, the data presented and discussed in this article only represent a fraction of what pluriversality entails. The data, which are illustrative, only deal with a small aspect of knowledge of human rights and the assumptions and principles through which they are validated.
Validated knowledge of the origin and premise of human rights is Eurocentric; it came into existence within a specific political order grounded in the liberal views of Modernity and the Enlightenment (Zembylas, 2017). During the conceptualisation of the UDHR the atrocities of World War II, western problems and cultural values were foregrounded (Adami, 2016). The Euro-western premise of human rights is contested by African and decolonial scholars. Ikuenobe (2018) criticises Donnelly (1982), who argues that the concept of human rights is the artefact of Western civilisation. Ikuenbo (2018, p. 589) responds that this implies human rights are not suitable for non-western cultures, which is 'not only presumptuous, because it involves a misunderstanding of African views of personhood and dignity, but also absurd'.
In the following table, participants' views on the premise of human rights are presented. The list of possible answer choices presented in Table 1 was compiled in reference to literature on the premise of human rights and data from previous research projects. As the majority of the literature on the premise of human rights originates from the global North and previous projects featured only South African participants, representing the global South, most of the answer choices are embedded in a modern/colonial framework. This, however, presents possibilities to write against coloniality. The first four ranked answer choices from each site are highlighted. What is interesting is that liberalism, which is often cited as the premise of human rights in human rights discourse and literature, only featured as one of the top four choices in data from India (40.5%), Germany (34.8%) and Israel (28.9%). While three of the participant groups chose liberalism as one of their top four answers, socialism featured in all groups as one of the top four choices (South Africa, 24.2%; India, 37.8%; Germany, 21.7%; Netherlands, 26.2%; Israel, 40.4%).
For German participants, socialism and western values were their joint fourth choice, while for South African participants, Ubuntu was their second choice. Western values as the premise for human rights was included as an answer choice as participants (South African) in previous projects indicated that there is an assumption that human rights are premised only on western values. Ubuntu, chosen by 63.7% of South African participants as the premise of human rights, is an African philosophy and world view, focussing on community, compassion and relationality.
During the 2013 focus group discussions, participants were asked to explain the origin of human rights in Africa and to explain the concept of Ubuntu. Some excerpts are included by way of explanation (verbatim). The African view of rights advocates a relational and not an individualistic approach. Personhood and dignity are defined within a framework which considers the lived experiences of a person's relations with others in the community. This contrasts with the western view, which removes the individual, her autonomy, and her rights from the community (Ikuenobe, 2018).
In choosing an indigenous framework as the premise of human rights, South African participants challenged and contested Euro-western understandings of human rights. This opens up possibilities for a pluriversal knowledge of human rights. As Ubuntu is an African worldview, it indicates the relation between understandings of human rights and place-space-time. Although the UDHR is read by western scholars through a western, liberal lens, 'there could be stories in other parts of the world, revealing different contextual frames for understanding human rights values.' (Adami, 2012, p. 25).

Who and what is the Human in human rights?
Maldonado-Torres (2017) argues that any decolonial conversation on human rights needs to start with the decolonising of the concept of Human (Maldonado-Torres, 2017, p. 117).
The movement between terms and content, between ontology and epistemology, in the colonial framework, cements their relationship. The movement and relation between terms and content in decoloniality is therefore also important. Although Mignolo (2018a, p. 135) focusses on epistemology and posits that 'ontologies are cosmologic/epistemic creations', both Fanon (1952Fanon ( /2008 and Maldonado-Torres (2017) argue that decolonising starts with the coloniality of being (ontology). Decolonising for Fanon (1952Fanon ( /2008 and Williams and Bermeo (2020) requires the decolonising of being and of relationality.
During colonisation, vertical identities were created, using race, caste, gender and sexuality as categories of human differentiation. Race, specifically, through its intersectional nature, alters the ways in which other forms of human differentiation work. It concerns the degree of humanity attributed to different identities and subjectivities. As whiteness is inscribed in the Human, the lighter the skin colour the closer the individual is to full humanity. This is what Yang (2015, p. 225) refers to as 'the edge between human and Human'.
There is a distinction between colonial difference and ontological colonial difference. Colonial difference is the consequence of colonisation and ongoing coloniality of power, knowledge and being. Ontological colonial difference is the specific product of coloniality of being (Maldonado-Torres, 2007, p. 254). It is the existential condition of a non-being linked to race, ethnicity, gender, religion and sexuality (Maldonado-Torres, 2007). It is a process of degradation where 'the meaning of human alterity [is violated] to the point where the alter ego becomes a subalter.' (Maldonado-Torres, 2007, p. 257). It produces doubt as to the full humanity (Human or human) of the subalter. Fanon (1961Fanon ( /2017 refers to this condition as being 'sealed into [that] crushing objecthood.' The existential condition of only being 'human' is crystallised by participants' responses in the following table. The statement: All humans have inherent dignity and are therefore entitled to rights is from the preamble of the UDHR (UN, 1948). This statement is fully accepted in human rights rhetoric. However, it seems it might only be fully accepted on a discursive level, and this also points to the disjunction between discursive human rights theory and material reality explored by Moghli (2020) and Keet (2015). The analysis focuses on participants' hesitation in fully committing to all humans. The I agree somewhat and I neither agree nor disagree answer choices are highlighted. The given statement can be divided into two statements: All humans have inherent dignity and All humans are entitled to rights; the answer choices do not differentiate between the two possibilities. The statement and answer choices assume a link between all humans having dignity and all humans having rights. A high percentage of participants over all five sites fully agreed with the statement. Although a percentage of participants hesitated to include all humans in dignity and rights, very few participants answered in the negative (I disagree somewhat and I totally disagree).
Participants from India overwhelmingly chose the I fully agree option (88.7%) despite the fact that India has horrific ethnic and religious violence (Kumar & Banerjee, 2019). All Indian participants had human rights education incorporated in their curricula and they might therefore regard the statement as a discursive fact and not necessarily relate it to material reality. South African participants had human rights education incorporated in curricula in 1994 and only 67.0% of them fully agreed with the statement that all humans have dignity and rights. It does not seem as if South African participants regard this statement as a discursive or material fact, and this might be a consequence of South Africa's history of colonialism and apartheid.
Israel had the lowest number of participants (54.2%) who fully agreed with the statement and the highest number of participants who agreed only somewhat (29.2%). As Israel is a complicated and complex society, some focus group excerpts might shed light on conflicts and complexities (verbatim). The following statement was made by a Jewish Israeli participant: PM2: Can I make a comment about human rights in Israel, human rights are associated by Israelis as pro-Palestine agenda usually, and people [human rights advocates] have taken the part of the Palestinian aspect. People have a little bit of a…. (FGD2015G1M2 _IL) Researcher: Resistance? PM2: Resistance. When you say human rights that is the first thing that pops into my head. When you say religious rights, gender and everything that is what human rights really is…. Because the human rights organisations in Israel are very involved with Palestinians… (FGD2015G1M2 _IL) Opinion polls indicate that the majority of young Jewish people do not believe that Palestinian citizens should enjoy equal rights (Gordon, 2012). Although Palestinian Arabs are afforded equality under the law, they suffer discrimination at every societal level. This is due to the negative assumptions and attitudes of Jewish Israeli society (Gross & Maor, 2019). In exploring the disjuncture between human rights theory and material reality in the Occupied West Bank, Moghli (2020, p. 18) references a Palestinian participant: 'Human rights are great but when it comes to Palestine, they mean nothing.... You hear me.... Nothing. It does not matter what methods we use to resist, we will always be dehumanised and called terrorists.' In recent decades, the Israeli labour force has been flooded with non-Jewish labour migrants. Perceptions and attitudes towards non-Jewish workers or migrants are extremely negative in Jewish Israeli society (Groos & Maor, 2019). Various Israeli participants discussed their fear (and sometimes hate) of different others (because he is not my own colour or is from a different country or culture or something like that) and the dissonance and conflict resulting from it (verbatim): PM1: And the people of the neighbourhood who have lived there for years are frightened to walk at night because of the crime rate which is through the sky since these immigrants have come to their town. So, the right wing, so to speak, not political, would say kick them out, send them away, okay and the human rights are saying let's show them compassion, we are Jews, we are Israelis. But there is a conflict there… (FGD2015G3M1_IL) PF2: I think we fear someone because he is not my own colour or is from a different country or culture or something like that. So, I can have a fear for him. But it is not always hate or should become hate. Like if he is different from me so I can come to know about his culture. Here in Israel you can see all kinds of people, cultures, Israeli, Arab, Russian, and if you like, not to become friends, but you can have interaction with them so maybe the fear will disappear, and will not become hate. (FGD2015G4M1_IL) From the focus group data presented it seems as if the difficulty participants had to commit to all humans having dignity and rights is due to historic assumptions, prejudice and negative attitudes to people not my own colour or [is] from a different country or culture or something like that (Participant PF2: FGD2015G4M1_IL). The data indicate a colonial suppression of being (see Moghli, 2020 andGordon, 2012), and an existential condition of non-being linked to race, ethnicity and religion for those not included in the Jewish Israeli community (cf. Maldonado-Torres, 2007).
The high percentage of participants from the Netherlands who chose I agree somewhat or I neither agree nor disagree might be due to the fact that they had had very little exposure to human rights education programmes (Ter Avest & Stedenburg, 2019). The focus group discussions do, however, shed some light. Participants constructed subjects of the Third World [sic] as not part of the Human of human rights. Participants (FGD2017_NL) explained human rights as a self-evident practice in Western countries and specifically in the Netherlands, and argued that 'life in the Netherlands is all inclusive regarding human rights, however not selfevident in the Third World' [sic] (FGD2017_NL) (Ter Avest & Stedenburg, 2019). Osler (2015a, p. 252) posits that such processes of othering lead to notions where the non-European outsider needs to be induced into and included in 'our' (European) human rights culture. By inviting the other to be included in 'our' human rights, 'dominant social groups reassert their territoriality' and determine who speaks, what they should say and how it should be said (Ahenakew, 2016, p. 324). Such a process of degradation results in doubt as to the full humanity of the other and the possibilities for inclusion in the human rights framework.

Decolonial human rights education and a pluriversal humanity
In the previous sections, the colonial nature of human rights education was explored. There are two points to consider: decolonising the Human in human rights, and working towards pluriversal knowledge for a pluriversal humanity. Becker and Becker (2021) use Fanon's (1961 notion of the three stages of decolonisation to explain a process of decolonial becoming-human which might be of benefit to human rights education. There is continual movement between the three phases. Using Fanon's (1961Fanon's ( /2017) work on decolonising, an onto-epistemological decolonial process which is continual, relational and always in-becoming is proposed for human rights education. Decolonising is an inter-related embodied process and praxis moving continuously between decolonising both being and knowledge.
The first phase in decolonising entails an acknowledgement of colonial suppression and assimilation into a culture that imposes hegemonic universal standards of being (ontology) and knowing (epistemology) (Fanon, 1961(Fanon, /2017. Lamola (2018, p. 7) argues that colonial being is 'not merely an idea of the Othering subject or a representation of a capricious colonial mind.' It entails a continuous negation of self. Lamola (2018, p. 7) unpacks this process as follows: 'Others tell and teach her who she is, pricking and shaping her self-consciousness. She is not her own.' When historic and oppressive ontologies and epistemologies are acknowledged, critical consciousness develops and reflexive engagement with difference becomes possible. This can bring about increased agency and a feeling of being seen and heard (Hardbarger, 2019). Through enabling a plurality of voices speaking for themselves in classrooms, each student recognises and acknowledges self in unique difference (Adami, 2014).
The second phase of decolonising involves a reclaim and recall of full humanity. While the first phase focusses on acknowledging self and other in difference, the second phase focusses on recognition and relationality. This requires an acceptance of Fanon's argument (1952Fanon's argument ( /2008Becker & Becker, 2021): 'Since the Other was reluctant to recognise me, there was only one answer: to make myself known'.
During 2020, #BlackLivesMatter, which started in 2013 in the USA, grew into a global social justice and human rights movement. During 2020, global BlackLivesMatter protests were aimed, as Fanon (1952Fanon ( /2008 posits, 'to make myself known' and to move along the path towards being recognised as fully human. This was also evident in the #mustfall student movements of 2015-2016 in South Africa. Students, in recognising the ongoing coloniality in higher education in South Africa, could no longer be invisible or silent (Becker, 2017). Human rights education could and should be a strategic partner to such movements. Hahn (2020) references Parker (2018), who advocates for enacted human rights education curricula which include notions of dissent, activism, respect and human dignity.
Attempts at claiming full humanity are, however, not new and point to decades of ongoing coloniality and decolonial resistance. During the 1960s, Malcolm X (1998, p. 110) said the following: 'in this country the black man [sic] is not only not respected as a citizen, he is not even respected as a human.' He insisted on human rights which would imply that every human being would be granted the status of full humanity. He was also steadfast in his resolve to incorporate the UDHR in the struggle against coloniality and racism (Yang, 2015). The resistance to ontological coloniality of difference is a historic and ongoing struggle.
Claiming full humanity requires mutual recognition of all of humanity, for all of humanity. It requires a global we. Nothing less than reciprocity in recognising each other's full humanity will suffice (Becker & Becker, 2021). Fanon posits (1952Fanon posits ( /2008: 'if I make the two-way movement unachievable, I keep the other withinhimself. In an extreme degree, I deprive him of being-for-self.' Legal recognition, on its own, is insufficient in this process (Osler, 2015a), which demands the recognition of the full humanity of all humans, equal and dignified in their uniqueness.
For human rights education to enable such recognition there needs to be a shift towards a focus on the subjects of rights in ethical narrative spaces in which they can express personal narratives, counter-narratives and explore new collective narratives (Osler, 2015b). Coloniality and decoloniality are embodied and dissonant experiences. Cook-Sather, Kenealy, Rippel and Beyer (2018) argue for pedagogies which recognise and value diversity, centre students' knowledge and experiences, and build deep relationships with others and with knowledges connected to their lived experiences. In developing an assignment on Jacqueline Woodson's poem 'It'll be scary sometimes' they created spaces for their students to listen to each other and to speak and respond in their own voices (Cook-Sather et al., 2018, p. 133). To resist coloniality and to speak in one's own voice takes courage. Cook-Sather et al. (2018, p. 141), reported that students confessed that it was scary to speak in their own voices, to be 'vulnerable', 'to share a piece of myself '.
When Lamola (2018, p. 7) laments that 'she is not her own', such safe narrative spaces are needed in order for her to recognise and acknowledge herself, and for others to recognise her. In these spaces, answers to decolonial questions can also be found, in a mutual 'web of consensual relationships that is infused with movement through lived experiences and embodiment' (Walsh, 2018a, p. 18).
Human rights have been, since their inception, the result of many contradictory, conflicted struggles of people to realise their rights (see Mackinnon, 2019;Adami, 2012). In human rights education, teachers should continually narrate these historic and ongoing contradictions and conflicts (Keet & Zembylas, 2019). Pluriversal and embodied human rights education is a bottom-up process about 'the hopes, needs and experiences of human beings in specific situations.' (Blanchard & Nix, 2019, p. 66). There is an urgent need to re-phrase the history and premise of human rights by including pluriversal and interconnected (human, planetary, cosmic) sufferings, struggles and conflicts.
During the final phase of decolonising, possibilities for pluriversality in and though human rights education open (Fanon, 1952(Fanon, /2008. This phase requires a shift away from hegemonic universal ontologies and epistemologies and ways of being and knowing towards pluriversal and transversal otherwise ways of being and knowing. In this phase, options, and choices for otherwise ways of thinking, living, speaking, listening, acting and being appear (Becker & Becker, 2021). Such pluriversal understandings of being and knowing distrupt and decentre Eurocentric hegemonic assumptions and knowledges (Keet & Zembylas, 2019). This opens a plurality of epistemic spaces for all silenced subaltern voices and knowledges.

Concluding thoughts
Although decolonial work can be difficult and will cause dissonance, it brings about healing and restoring. Globally there is a need for otherwise knowledges and conceptualisations of being human, and human rights education is crucial to this. This article has aimed to problematise colonial assumptions and possibilities for resistance in human rights education. While problematising coloniality, there is however also a need for researchers and teachers to carefully consider 'the paradoxes and limitations of translating insights between Indigenous and non-Indigenous spaces' (Ahenakew, 2016, p. 337). It is hoped that, in fidelity to human rights education and in fidelity to the scholars and leaders advocating for colonial peoples during the drafting of the UDHR there will be continuous careful and reflexive conversations on decolonial human rights education.
There are possibilities to resist coloniality in human rights education. The colonial principles and assumptions through which the Human/human is constructed should be disrupted. The data in this study furthermore indicates that there are possibilities to disrupt colonial hegemony and move towards pluriversal knowledges and understandings. This was illustrated by South African participants proposing Ubuntu as the premise of human rights. Such resistance open possibilities for the inclusion of decolonial otherwise histories, sufferings, struggles, conflicts, and re-awakenings in human rights knowledges. A continual and relational ontoepistemological decolonial process which is always in-becoming, could change both the terms and content of conversations in human rights education.
When a plurality of voices, speaking for themselves in decolonial becoming, are enabled, decolonising of different and unique selves will lead to mutual recognition. A pluriversal humanity can then move towards understanding and honouring multiple knowledges, epistemologies, ways of being and relationships to others, the earth, and the cosmos within the place-space-time we share.