I was wondering how long it would be before some country that is lectured on human rights by the US government would turn around and hurl its own abuses back at it. It would have to be a country that was independent enough of US influence. Well, it looks like China has taken the lead, in response to Hillary Clinton’s criticism of human rights in China.
According to Reuter’s “The United States is beset by violence, racism and torture and has no authority to condemn other governments’ human rights problems, China said on Sunday, countering U.S. criticism of Beijing’s crackdown.” China also said that the US’s advocacy of free information flow was contradicted by its efforts to shut down WikiLeaks.
Now that China has said it, how long before other countries justify their own abuses in a similar fashion? When one country denies human rights to people, it starts a downward spiral in which other countries justify their own abuses by saying “Why pick on us when they do it?”
China has been doing this since at least 1998.
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_Rights_Record_of_the_United_States
I personally give no weight no any gov’ts report. China clearly has an agenda here: stop talking about how China treats it’s dissidents.
One key difference: in the US, you can write a blog such as yours without worrying about being sent to jail. So the US is better than many countries in this respect…though we do have too many shameful moments (as you recount on this blog).
Sort of related: The LA Times article about the Ikea factory in Virginia, where the same sort of language gets used to describe the poor working conditions of the Virginia factory from the Swedish perspective that American media uses when looking at say, Chinese factories from the American perspective.
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-ikea-union-20110410,0,4172495,full.story
Israel (and Zionists) been using this one for a long time. Any finding by any UN committee that challenges Israel is dismissed as hypocritical, because UN committees will unavoidably have one or more member states with a terrible human rights record of its own. In a similar tactic, when Zionists can’t respond to critics on the merits of the criticism, they accuse them of “singling Israel out” when other countries have as bad or worse human rights records. Most recently, Zionist faculty at UCSD published such a (false) accusation against student activists there. See http://prospectjournal.ucsd.edu/blog/?p=1438.
Ollie,
You are right, I can write my blog without fear of being hauled off to prison. That is precisely why we should use the freedoms that we still have to make sure they are not eroded even further because once we lose them, it will be hard to get them back.
I am fortunate that I have greater freedom to speak than most people, even in the US. You would be surprised how nervous people are. People even ask me if I have had any reaction from my employers for what I say. They are surprised when I say I haven’t (which reflects well on my institution) but the very fact that they ask such a question shows how people are hesitant to speak their minds even in the US.
Glenn Greenwald said that he encounters many people who are nervous about giving money to WikiLeaks because they are afraid that they will be put on some government watch list and maybe harassed.
People having such fears are not a good sign because it leads to a potent form of censorship, that of self-censorship.
In this day and age of high tech., freedom of speech takes on a whole new dimension. I agree that we are fortunate to be able to talk to each other about such things.
Human rights issues are difficult for all countries in the world. “Thiet ke web” feels difficultly to confirm which country has the absolute right.
@Nick above: But don’t you think that we are now almost too accessible? I mean, where does it end. At least 100 years ago people had a chance to cool down before reacting. Now, in an age of instant gratification, I believe that reactions go unedited, unchecked…