In celebrating the 60th anniversary of the proclamation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) on Dec. 10, 1948, the UN has invited all its member states to join in the party — despite the fact that some of the invitees have a disturbing human rights record. Taiwan, because of its international status, is not on the guest list. It is denied statehood and thus UN membership by the huge majority of that very same international community that received invitations to the global party on Human Rights Day.
Taiwan’s government, however, is not excluded from demonstrating its commitment to the provisions of the UDHR on that day. But there are doubts about the present administration’s stance on human rights, as recent violent events on the occasion of Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait Chairman Chen Yunlin’s (陳雲林) visit to Taipei suggest.
Likewise, President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) latest negative comments on a potential visit by the Dalai Lama next year nurture these doubts. The Ma administration has yet to make a clear statement where it stands on basic civil rights, which would also require a critical look into the ruling party’s dark human rights record, something it refuses to do. So why — and what — should Taiwan celebrate on Dec. 10?
Sixty years ago, for the first time in history, governments throughout the world agreed to respect the basic principles of inalienable rights of individuals regardless of their nationality, gender, ethnicity, creed, social status or political opinion. These rights were, and still are, considered to be the inalienable rights of each individual. They have also been described as the “ultimate norm of all politics” (Boutros Boutros-Ghali), meant to protect citizens against arbitrary and unlawful incursion by state officials into what is generally accepted to be either a public right or a private matter.
The UDHR emerged from the human catastrophes of World War II and what led to them, when millions of people were discriminated against, persecuted, tortured and often murdered by state mechanisms in the name of a superior race, a “true” political or religious system, or simply to eliminate political opposition.
In the past decade, and with the advancement of globalization, the UN’s policies have reframed the functions of human rights, endowing them with a more apparent role for the enhancement of economic and social development, for the process of democratization and good governance and for the establishment of peace and security.
These policies are contained in the “Millennium Development Goals,” a list of eight humanitarian challenges of the highest priority.
Former UN secretary-general Kofi Annan said: “We will not enjoy development without security, we will not enjoy security without development and we will not enjoy either without respect for human rights. Unless all these causes are advanced, none will succeed.”
The message was clear — peace, political stability, economic and social development and individual human rights are intrinsically linked to each other.
The perception that human rights center on the individual drew criticism in the late 1980s, especially from some Asian countries with authoritarian governments. They felt that the universality principle of the UDHR represented Western values. Genuinely Asian values were promoted instead, including, among others, nation before community, society above self and the family as the basic unit of society.
But it has become evident that the evocation of Asian values serves best those who hold political power (as much as so-called “family values” serve best those who are heads of the family) in countries without democratic representation for their citizens.
“Nation before self” is an adequate and convenient formula used to oppress any kind of political opposition under the aegis of Asian values. But it is one of the crucial points of the UDHR that the “essence” of human rights eludes any concrete social (family or community) or political (state) definition — their essence is that they are inalienable.
Human dignity does not depend on the myopic views of politicians with a decidedly regional mindset.
Quite understandably, totalitarian governments do not like any idea of universal human rights. They would not like to accept that “everyone is entitled in full equality to a fair and public hearing by an independent and impartial tribunal,” because there are no independent and impartial tribunals in their countries.
Neither would they like to read that “everyone has the right to freedom and thought, conscience and religion,” because such freedom does not exist in their countries.
In non-democratic countries these freedoms simply do not exist.
China has a dismal human rights record and there is an awkward logic behind this since Beijing places political and national stability, and, in its wake, social and economic development at the top of its agenda, high above the dignity of the individual.
I wonder how those Chinese individuals who are deprived of their individual human rights would judge these very same Asian values by which they were or are politically oppressed.
I suggest we ask them. But this is exactly what “Asian” human rights would disallow. The “right to freedom and thought” is not inalienable in the canon of “Asian” human rights.
Taiwan has to decide where it stands — on the side of the rule of law based on individual human rights, or on the side of law and order prioritizing national stability.
Only in the first case does Taiwan have a good and legitimate reason to commemorate Human Rights Day.
Herbert Hanreich is an assistant professor at I-Shou University.
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