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Qualification of Human Rights 'Judge' Open to Queries
The "report on human rights in different countries" published by the State Department of the United States this year reproves more than 190 countries one by one around the world, while glossing over its own human rights situation, as if putting itself in the position of the world's human rights "judge". Isn't this utterly preposterous?
US human rights "judge" qualification has never been authorized by any international organization, but the United States has been criticizing the human rights situation in other countries annually over the past 25 straight years. This "judge" qualification actually was established by the United States itself, stemming from its strong psychological sense of superiority. Now let's see what is its superiority.
First, the "theory of historical superiority". The document on the founding of their country which the Americans are most proud of, the Declaration of Independence, comes straight to the point: everybody is born equal. So, some Americans brag and boast this, the 200-odd-years of US history is the most equal, democratic and free history in the world, as if this had given it the qualification to teach other countries a lesson on the question of human rights.
However, a slight sorting out of the historical document of the United States will divest this sense of superiority of its factual foundation. For example, although the United States put forward the principle of "everyone is born equal" in 1776, it was 89 years after the birth of the Declaration of Independence that the amendment to Article 13 of the Constitution concerning US approval of the abolition of slave system was passed by the Congress.. And it was only some 30 years ago that the black Americans gained federal protection of their voting rights. The amendment of Article 19 of the Constitution on protecting women's voting right was passed only till 1920. Even today, the black people and other minority ethnic groups as well as women in the American society have not acquired "equality for everybody" in its real sense in terms of civic and political rights. The racial issue can be regarded as the permanent knotty problem of the American society.
In 1995, a mammoth parade staged by a million-strong black people took place in Washington, the capital of the United States, the then President Bill Clinton called for terminating racial discrimination. He admitted that the American blacks had indeed long been living in a legal system that lacks justice. Records on the maltreatment of the blacks include illegal punishment, frame-up charges, unlawful, forcible detention as well as suffering from police brutality. The tragedies of Emmett Till and Rodney King were two bloody cases in point that occurred in the process. With regard to the serious problem existing in the black population, Clinton put it frankly, saying that what many more black people received was education through labor and not higher education; black people, who comprised of almost one-third of those at the 20 years of age group, were either in prison or release on bail, or were placed under the supervision of the criminal and judicial system. Although the term of "equality for everybody" had been written into the Declaration of Independence" for more than 200 years, a society wherein everybody is equal is far from being realized. Where is there the theory of the American historical superiority?
Second, The theory of big power superiority. After the end of the Cold War, some Americans maintained that the United States was the number one great economic, political and military power, it was naturally the best democratic human right big power. And so it has the capital to despise and even censure human rights in other countries.
This not only is hardly justifiable in logic, and it does not exist in reality. Although the United States has riches deserving flaunting, its human rights records, however, are by no means glorious. Since the conclusion of the Cold War, the United States has indeed experienced a period of nearly 10 years of sustained economic growth, with respect to the civic right of subsistence, the gap between the rich and the poor in the US society is widening and its poor population is increasing. In 2000, it had 32 million people living under the poverty line, with the pauperization rate even surpassing that in the 1970s. According to US Department of Agriculture, even when US economic situation is in the best period, at least 10 percent of families in 18 states and the Washington special area are often in a state of hunger or undernourishment. With regard to social security, there are more than 3 million people who die in violence activities every year. The United States is a country with the most prisoners in the world. The 2000 February report of the US Judicial Policy Research Institute shows that the number of prisoners exceeded 2 million, accounting for one-fourth of global number of prisoners. A big country with the most abundant financial resources fails to solve its domestic problem concerning people's basic livelihood, where, then, is there the capital by which it censures others?
Third, the theory of ethic superiority. Influenced by the historical complex of "Puritans", many Americans have a very strong psychological and moral sense of superiority, as the "God's voters", so they maintain they have the responsibility of "teaching" other countries on the human right issue.
It is well known that it is precisely the US own acts that have long before smashed its moral exemplary image to smithereens. Let me cite the latest US media report for an example. A pharmaceutical factory in Pennsylvania is applying for a trip to Peru and other Latin American countries to test its new medicines there. If the application is approved, then the test will be conducted on babies contracted the syndrome of respiratory strain. One-third of them will be assigned in the group having placebo, who will be given no medical treatment and allowed to die.
Such inhuman test which had long been prohibited by official order in the United States has increasingly been approved to be conducted abroad since the beginning of the 80s. What a difference is this conduct from human morality! When this is associated with Japan's practice fishing boat which was butted down by an American submarine, Italy's cable car which was rammed down by a US pilot, the Iraqi and Yugoslav civilians who were killed by missiles, has the ruin of so many lives of the innocent aroused the Americans' moral self-accusation?
Apparently, the US sense of human right superiority is actually unfounded, and its qualification of human right "judge" is all the more untenable.
In the Foreword written by US Secretary of State Colin Powell for the US "report on human rights in different countries, one sentence was rightly put: Not any countries, including the United States, dare to say that its human right situation is perfect.
The United States and other countries alike, the human right situation today is nothing more than a reflection of the development of tradition, idea of the national foundation, history, culture and society of respective nations at a certain stage. The progress of human rights is a historical process which is inseparable from the improvement of living conditions, from social and economic development and from the enhancement of intellectual culture. There exists the difference in fast and slow development between countries, but there is no distinction of superiority and inferiority. In the world which is moving toward economic globalization, what the United States should do should not be arbitrarily brandishing the big stick of human rights, but rather it should abandon the arrogance and prejudice of a big power, in a psychology of equality, it should have a better understanding of and show respect for the national feeling and culture of other nations, only such practice can be regarded as the most useful contributions a great country has done to the world's human rights cause.
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