Arguing for Human Rights in Myanmar and the Philippines: Asian Values, Populism and the Politics of
Introduction
In the early part of 2018, Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte advised Myanmar’s Chief Counselor Aung San Suu Kyi not to heed the call of human rights groups and just dismiss them for “they are just a noisy bunch” (Reuters, 2018). With both countries confronting serious human rights issues, such a statement has caused a stir among activists within the human rights community around the world. The descriptor used by Duterte to paint an image of human rights as a “noisy bunch” is so telling of how dismissive his administration can be with the value human rights play in many democracies like the Philippines. The question is, will Myanmar trust his words?
Myanmar and the Philippines, while starkly different from one another, share many things in common. Both Southeast Asian countries are challenged by issues of poverty ranging from food insecurity to landlessness, from ethnic divide to religious extremism and from environmental degradation to armed conflict – all underpin the fundamentality of human rights in all human beings. These challenges continue to unfold within the context of a changing political landscape – Myanmar’s transition from military to civilian-led government under the inspiration of Aung San Suu Kyi and Philippines’ new era of change with the presidential victory of Duterte, the “great repudiator” (Teehankee, 2017) from the south who challenged the reformist regime.
In 2015, Myanmar and its people had a taste of democracy as Aung San Suu Kyi led her National League for Democracy (NLD) party to power in a landslide victory during its most democratically contested elections. Despite leading her nation to a new democratic political order, local and international critiques continue to call her attention to some of the world’s most disturbing social problems like the Rohingya crisis and the enduring ethnic conflicts in the countryside. Accordingly, Myanmar’s democracy is still problematic because of three things: 1] the military still controls authoritatively key areas of governance; 2] the culture of loyalty entrenched in Burmese politics constrains real change; and 3] Myanmar is still at war with itself in its continuing search for peace (Drysdale, et.al, 2017).
Meanwhile, the growing frustration of the Filipinos for the failure of EDSA to deliver its promise in 1986 after taking down the dictatorship, led to the clamor for a strong-willed leader upon whom they can see the hope of fulfilling the Filipino dream of a better life. This is the narrative backdrop that brought Rodrigo Duterte into presidency in May 2016 paving the way for a new form of leadership, while not necessarily palatable to many Filipinos for his crass politics, can at least consolidate the different segments of the population under the banner of “change is coming.” But like Aung San Suu Kyi, Duterte’s presidency is also replete with many controversies raising issues on political legitimacy as he persists in his relentless campaign against illegal drugs in an increasingly seeming disregard to the rule of law, the cancelation of peace talks which exacerbated the armed conflict in Mindanao, and the suspicion on his federal project as a means to perpetuate himself into power. Towards this, Timberman (2016) said that, “whether that change will revitalize or damage Philippine democracy will depend on the level of support Duterte receives from the Filipino public as well as the response of elite groups and key institutions.”
Set in a context of change, Myanmar and Philippines have to contend with several important national interest issues to prove that the transitions underway will not revert to the blunders of the past. Transitions are critical junctures in political history since someone or some groups will always take advantage of these moments and seize every opportunity to optimize the situation where the state’s guards are on loose ends. The one who is able to capture power in moments of transition will always have the upper-hand in the monopoly of power and those who fail to take the supreme lead will have to suffer the disadvantages. Myanmar is in a very precarious interval as it tries out a democratic formula in governance led by a civilian authority after almost five decades of military control. Philippines is also under threat of neo-authoritarianism (Teehankee and Thompson, 2016) under the promptings of strongman politics from a populist leader, after thirty years of liberal democracy following the conclusion of the martial law regime.
On one hand, both countries are suffering from alleged human rights abuses that raises serious questions of legitimacy – Myanmar with its Rohingya cirisis and Philippines with its fight against illegal drugs – both are accused of committing crimes against humanity as enshrined in international humanitarian laws and international human rights laws. Because of this seeming inability to comply with human rights conventions, both countries are also suspected of their incompetence in handling their respective peace processes – Myanmar with its different ethnic armed groups and Philippines with the Muslim south. This essay will therefore offer a descriptive contrast of Myanmar and Philippines in the area of their human rights compliance, or the lack thereof. The analysis will be set in the context of a transitioning regime – one which is incrementally moving towards democracy and the other which appears to be slowly leaning towards neo-authoritarianism.
Human Rights Landscape: The Tale of Two Countries
Looking at the current human rights landscape of both Myanmar and the Philippines is reminiscent of Charles Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities (1859), when he showed how the poor are brutalized in both France and England during the Reign of Terror. Although the setting was in France, it is with high hopes that what happened in France will not happen in Britain. Similarly, the poor Rohingyas in Rakhine State and the poor of Manila and other cities and municipalities have been prey to human rights abuse as claimed by different human rights watchdogs. Also, the government of each country, while asserting sovereign independence for non interference into what they assert as an internal crisis, also hope that what’s happening in the other country will not transpire within their territories. Both countries indeed are straddling between the best of times like the rise of democracy in Myanmar and the possibility of genuine reform in the Philippines and the worst of times like the genocidal murder of Muslim Rohingyas and the extrajudicial killings of poor drug traders.
Myanmar’s Rohingya Crisis
Known as the “boat people” owing to their mass exodus via the waterways, the Rohingyas are an ethnic group in Rakhine State, northwest of Myanmar, majority of whom are Muslims. Of the estimated 1.2 million population, close to 900,000 (Al Jazerra, 2017) of them have been expelled from Myanmar seeking refuge in nearby Cox’s Bazaar for allegedly being illegal immigrants from Bangladesh and India, hence, non-citizens of Myanmar. In some occasions, Buddhist monks would even refer to them as “Bengali terrorists” who are spawning discord in Myanmar.
While Myanmar is home to around 135 ethnic groups, making it one of the most culturally diverse countries in Southeast Asia, the Rohingyas are not one of them. In fact, they have been rendered stateless and were stripped off of their citizenship by virtue of the 1982 National Citizenship Act of Myanmar. In effect, the said law deprived the Rohingyas citizenship en masse and were eventually issued Temporary Registration Cards (TRCs) for purposes of census and tracking.
Despite this non-recognition since 1982, Rohingyas were still allowed to participate in democratic elections until 2010 and fielded candidates to the Parliament – a right reserved to the citizens of Myanmar only. It was only in the 2015 elections that Rohingyas were completely barred from participating. Rohingyas argue on the other hand that they are citizens using historical and legal records, that is, they are legitimate Burmese descendants from centuries past and not immigrants.
The anti-Muslim sentiment in Rakhine State grew over time resulting to the mass displacement of Rohingyas fleeing from the brutal military offensives staged by the Myanmar military forces. They are now separated from the rest of the population through what seem to be a concentration camp that is fenced and is heavily guarded which Amnesty International (2017b) described as being “caged without a roof,” in a report bearing the same title.
In the said report, AI (2017b) found serious violations of international human rights law and international humanitarian law which would include: 1] denial of nationality, 2] restriction of freedom of movement, 3] deprivation of health, education, livelihood and opportunities to practice their religion, 4] political exclusion, 5] commission of apartheid as a crime against humanity, and 5] genocide.
Sadly, Myanmar’s Nobel Peace Prize laureate, Aung San Suu Kyi, remained adamant in her strategic silence over the Rohingya crisis giving the international community the impression of her being complicit to the alleged ethnic cleansing in Rakhine State. This has been described by some as the ultimate paradox of the century. While Aung San Suu Kyi hailed as a global icon of justice and democracy, she chooses to be deaf and mute to the cries of injustice and abuse of her own peopke. She needs to make a choice whether to remain part of the problem or be the hope for a possible resolution to the crisis.
The Chief Counselor needs to demonstrate that indeed civilian authority is a legitimate source of power in Myanmar by ensuring that civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights of its people, including the Rohingyas in Rakhine state, are respected, protected and fulfilled. While it is undeniable that the military in Myanmar still holds a sizeable amount of power in areas of defense, home affairs and border affairs making civilian authority relatively weak despite the restoration of democratic governance, at the very least Aung San Suu Kyi must speak truth to power and call for an independent fact-finding mission to validate claims and counter-claims of alleged human rights violations. After all, she still has the whole civilian authority, supported by a “discipline-flourishing democratic” (Croissant and Lorenz, 2018) constitution at her disposal, with 25% of the Parliament reserved to the serving military officers. The constitutional veto power afforded to the military though indicates that the shift to democracy was all a façade since the old military elites still dictate the major direction of the government. Democracy in Myanmar is still captured by the old authoritarian guards.
However, sometime in September of 2017, Aung San broke her silence by saying that her government is still very young and has no intention to abnegate its obligations to protect and respect human rights. The primacy of human rights as a universal, inalienable, indivisible and non-discriminatory tool to freedom and justice must not be compromised and must not yield even to political concessions. She must remain true to her words.
Specifically, Aung San Suu Kyi may optimize her access and influence to civilian authorities in the parliament in Myanmar by calling for the repeal of the 1982 Citizenship Law denying Rohingyas citizenship. Nationality is a right that must be enjoyed by all people across the world. Through this, the displaced Rohingyas are able to return to their homes based on free and informed choices, are allowed to seek redress for their losses, and are recognized as equal therefore free from any forms of discrimination.
In the interim, Aung San Suu Kyi must ensure access to international humanitarian assistance for the internally displaced Rohingyas and other ethnicities who were also affected by the crisis while working out on a safe homecoming for her people.
The Rohingya crisis is compounded by many other human rights issues across Myanmar like the the continuing imposition of death penalty as part of their legal arrangements, although no executions have been carried out as of yet. The armed conflicts in the different ethnic-led communities operate as barriers to development as heightened insecurity displaces a huge chunk of civilian population.
The good thing with Myanmar’s leadership is it does not use a kind of language that emboldens state authorities to utilize their position in brandishing a rights-dismissing actions and operations. It is quite a different species altogether in the Philippines.
Philippines War on Drugs and Threat Against Human Rights Activists
President Rodrigo Duterte earned his way to presidency by bannering his merciless campaign against drugs, crimes and corruption. Immediately after winning in the 2016 Presidential Elections, he scaled up his Davao model to launch the government’s inexorable drive against drugs and “hyperbolized” (Quimpo, 2017) the problem to rationalize the deadly war on drugs. For Quimpo (2017), Duterte’s strategy is contextualized within the language of securitization by pursuing drug traders in defense of the lives destroyed by drug users and addicts through acts of rape, murder and even arson. The public support Duterte is receiving for this campaign is justified by the rhetoric of the Philippines in need to be saved from fragmentation and decay.
Even with disregard to human rights, Duterte was able to and continues to enjoy the approval of 80% of the Filipino people (Roa, 2017). His ability to mask some forms of authoritarianism with instruments of liberal democracy makes him a great wielder of false consciousness (Vom Hau, 2015), the personification of hegemony in the Philippines according to the Neo-Marxian articulations. Gramsci (1999) used Marx's original argument that the ruling ideas in the society are the ideas of the ruling class. Hegemony in effect is the political, intellectual, and moral leadership of the dominant class, which results in the dominated class actively consenting to their own domination.
Alongside the coercive apparatus of the state like the police personified by Chief PNP Bato dela Rosa, the military through Sec. Delfin Lorenzana, and the congress through Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez, there is the ideological state apparatus like mass media through Asec. Harry Roque and popular entertainment via Asec. Mocha Uson through which consent is generated. These apparatuses have been used to convert the popular support, that legitimized the Duterte presidency, to consent given by the dominated class acceding to his rhetoric of change.
This litany of false consciousness would include the belief that killing is a logical by-product of its campaign against drugs, that human rights advocates are a noisy bunch of idiots even if this meant to include Nanay Soling who staunchly fought the dictator, that he disdains corruption yet glorifies Marcos who was judged by history as the most corrupt leader the Philippines ever had, that brags of his landmark policy in Davao protecting women's rights yet insults women's dignity by way of sexual innuendos and sexist jokes, that he only wants to protect the poor yet runs a drug campaign that targets the poor, that honors free speech yet resorts to crass politics whenever his policies are criticized, and many more.
President Duterte firmly believed that those who are involved with drugs are less than human and therefore they deserve to die. This he had publicly admitted without reservation or hesitation. Since taking office in the Philippines on 30 June 2016, Amnesty International (2017a) reported that his administration’s “war on drugs” has claimed lives of many civilians linked with drugs, some of whom are children. The report titled “If You Are Poor, Your Are Killed: Extrajudicial Execution in Philippines’ War on Drugs (Amnesty International, 2017a) indicate that police officers and unknown armed persons collectively carried out 7,025 drug-related killings between 1 July 2016 and 21 January 2017, roughly an average of 34 per day.
The same report showed some patterns in the alleged extrajudicial killings. One, the targets are usually the poor in urban neighborhoods of the major cities in the Philippines. Second, the triggers are usually police officers on operation or unknown armed persons typically in tandem riding motorcycles. Third, police officers’ usual retort to justify the killing is “because the victim resisted arrest and fought back.” There is also an allegation of economics being involved in the killing spree where financial incentives are made available for every drug offender killed not to mention the alleged scheme between police officers and funeral homes where a fee is given for every corpse delivered. Despite calls from human rights groups and the international community, the rise of deaths on account of the drug war continued unabated.
In an age of strongman populism, it appears that the structures protecting liberal democracies like respect for human rights are also prey to governmental attacks. Recently, impeachment cases, real or imaginary, hounded the Office of the Ombudsman, the Commission on Elections, the Supreme Court Chief Justice, and unimaginably Congress having the power of the purse, reduced the budget of the Commission on Human Rights to one (1) peso only. Clearly, the judiciary has been politicized and at the endtail of this is the impact that human rights in the Philippines have to absorb.
The very dangerous times for human rights in the Philippines is exaggerated by Duterte’s attack against human rights defenders. Recently, he unleashed some forms of threat against human rights activists. In turn, they reminded Duterte that the freedom Philippines enjoy is etched from the blood of its martyrs who fought for human rights. They have died so that everyone will live and an attack against one human rights defender is an attack against all human rights activists, here and around the world.
The threats of possible execution of human rights defenders made by President Rodrigo R. Duterte when he said that that he would kill Human Rights Defenders along with drug personalities if the drug problem worsens in the country is an alarming sign of popular politics in the country. Public statements like this coming from the most influential leader of the country leave some chilling effect and stifles the role human rights defenders play in a constitutional democracy. It is replete with despotism cloaked in executive prerogative.
No less than the Universal Declaration of Human Rights recognized the inherent dignity and the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family as the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in every nation and the world.
Historically, the disregard and contempt for human rights have resulted in barbarous acts which have outraged the conscience of humanity, and the advent of a world in which human beings shall enjoy freedom of speech and belief and freedom from fear and want has been proclaimed as the highest aspiration of the common people.
Duterte’s statement is problematic because it is condemning the human rights defenders without logical and concrete evidence. It is misleading how the President hastily connected the increase of drug personalities with the call to respect and protect the rights of all, regardless. With such statement coming from the President, it creates an illusion that killing under his command is legitimate. The ease with which the President can declare an order to kill, especially Human Rights Defenders in this pronouncement is nothing short of sowing terror.
The Human Rights Defenders must be treated by the government as a conscience block of the nation and not as enemies in this war against illegal drugs. Once and for all, it must be understood that Human Rights Defenders do not advocate the use of illegal drugs nor protect the drug users and pushers. Rather they only assert that the government must do the right things the right way in its anti-drugs campaign, that is, founded on the respect for human rights and due process of law.
The challenge to mainstream human rights in governance in the Philippines is quite daunting given the abhorrence to it by its Chief Executive. What the public does not recognize though is that, much of the contraptions utilized by the government allowing it to pursue its own agenda and even the Presidency of Duterte itself is founded on the solid bedrock principles of human rights.
Re-thinking Asian Values and Populism in the Politics of Demonization
Set in these contexts, Myanmar and the Philippines, although different in many respects, offer some lessons when it comes to the normative value of human rights within transitional governments. Human rights are essential in securing the interests of the people as Philippines ease its way towards a federal set-up or at the minimum towards neo-authoritarianism with its current order. The same can be said with Myanmar as it transitions from military to civilian democracy. In the attempt to hold their respective countries together amid the attacks from human rights organizations and activists, a re-thinking of the Asian values is surfacing in relation to the alleged Western-centric character of human rights. There is also a need to understand the potential impact of the “politics of demonization” of human rights to democracies in Southeast Asia and a critical analysis of populism’s compatibility or incompatibility with human rights is in order.
The Interrogation of Asian Values. Oftentimes, human rights in Asia is met with resistance alleging that the whole human rights ethos is too western-centric and therefore is largely based on individualism and liberal philosophies. This makes it incompatible with Asian values where states are largely and quite a majority embrace autocratic and collective principles arguing that this is culturally embedded in Asia’s way of life. The resulting consequence therefore is a toggle between liberalism and authoritarianism, between individualism and collectivism.
The posture of both Duterte and Aung San manifests the resistance to a perceived western world view of state-society relations by disallowing interference of human rights bodies into what both of them claim as simply a domestic issue and does not necessitate surrendering their sovereignty for investigations to take place. The reaction of both leaders reflect a message, whether explicit or implicit, that discipline is an important value in this part of the region more than democracy. Singapore’s Lee Kuan Yew and Malaysia’s Mahathir Mohamad were among the early agents of the “Asian Values” paradigm which has roots in Confucianist traditions particularly filial piety or loyalty to the nation. In operational terms, this may sometimes require the relinquishment of personal freedom in lieu of social stability and development. This frame of mind justifies the authoritarian regimes in Southeast Asia as opposed to the democratic societies of the West.
Quite intriguing however, is the fact that Asian values are invoked by Philippines and Myanmar which are both espousing liberal democratic regimes, although the former has a longer experience with democracy than the latter. These are indications though of a fragile democracy in Asia, perhaps because of its incompatibility with the region’s culture, where discipline is imperative and this means sometimes that human rights can be forgone.
But, the Asian values argument faded after the 1997 Asian financial crisis (Langguth, 2003) when the weakness of the region’s institutional mechanism became manifest out of its difficulty to manage the crisis and resiliency seemed formidable for most countries, including the Philippines and Myanmar. However, Teehankee (2007) argued that democracy nor Asian values was the culprit of such crisis. He asserted that the Asian “’Good governance’ emerged as the primary institutional and policy prescription for combating and preventing a repeat of the crisis in the future.”
Asian values therefore should not be made as an excuse to human rights abuses. This form of escapism is a bastardization of Asian culture in the name of vindicating an act that infringes human dignity. According to William Theodore de Bary (2000), while Asian’s sense of personhood differs in many respects from Western’s emphasis on individualism, it is “not at all incompatible with human rights, but could, rather, enhance them.” This is based on his observation that Confucian communitarianism has accounts of resistance to state domination and offered that many of the Confucian principles can be integrated with some beliefs in Western civil society. This was also reinforced by Amartya Sen (1997) who concluded that there is no basis for the “grand dichotomy” between Asian Values and Western libertarian philosophies. She asserted that human rights is as much Asian as it is Western and many of these individual freedoms are found in many Asian countries. To this, she said, “authoritarian readings of Asian values that are increasingly being championed in some quarters do not survive scrutiny. The thesis of a grand dichotomy between Asian values and European values adds little to our comprehension, and much to the confusion about the normative basis of freedom and democracy.”
The present human rights situation in the Philippines and Myanmar therefore, cannot be justified by the Asian values arguments. However, given the complexity of the political and philosophical undertones democracy and authoritarianism vis-à-vis human rights, the nexus between the contingency of cultures and universality of human rights could probably be the crux of political debate within the years to come in this part of the world.
Incompatibility of Populism with Human Rights. The next possible analytical method is to justify the irreconcilability of human rights with populism. Some thinkers assert that the two are oil and water (Alegre, 2016) since populism capitalizes on particularities while human rights are founded on universalities.
Both Aung San and Duterte can be classified, albeit arguably, as among the result of the explosion of populist leaders in the world in recent history. Populism can be considered both as a discourse and a regime trait. As a discourse, it is an ideology that successfully divides the society into two identical and highly hostile groups – the “pure people” and the “corrupt elite” – which follow the argument that politics should be the articulation of the will of the people (Abao citing Cas Mudde, 2017). This “us” versus “them” narrative seeks legitimacy from the people’s support thereby towing the line between the people and the perceived elite. This can make the regime a bit fragile with the dichotomy created. Aung San who is considered as the symbolic representation of democratic Myanmar, will have to trudge a perilous path in order not to disenfranchise the people which she represents, or in a populist term, embodies. The same is true with Duterte whose rise into power is emblematic of the people’s reclamation of power from the elites. Because of this imagination, there is an expectation on his part to not only represent the people, but to deliver the change he promised to the people.
However, there seems to be an incompatibility of democracy with populism as Abao (2017) posited that since populism overvalues power, it will logically end up producing authoritarianism, which can undermine human rights. For Alegre (2016), populism and human rights vacillate between cooperation and conflict. On the one hand, they share the memorialization of human rights victims and the use of popular methods of resistance like public rallies and demonstrations. From an observable point of view, populism also appears to elevate the primacy of economic, social and culture rights and vitiates civil and political rights. As such, populism on the other hand can be dismissive of freedoms of expression and redress for grievances and can be antagonistic against dissent and counter-consciousness.
Among the challenges to human rights in a populist regime is the centrality of the leader as the embodiment of the people. A populist government gravitates around the leader, therefore, the exclusive recourse to manage conflicting interests of the people is through the leader. This becomes problematic especially when the leader does not see the ethical import of human rights. Following the logic that if the leader is the people and the people is the nation, then those who question the leader is perceived as the enemy of the state. This is anathema to the universality, interconnectedness and indivisibility of human rights which presupposes diffusion among the people and not centralized in a singular leader. Populism therefore defies liberal rationalism, from which human rights draw its inspiration. But confusingly, it cannot be accused of pure authoritarianism because it uses the most powerful tool of liberal democracies – the election and the people’s vote.
The incompatibility of human rights and populism is further widened by their philosophical landscapes. Human rights are specifically concerned with individualism while populism follows the logic of holism in favor of the people which is manifested through its representation – the leader. If human rights’ universality will also be abandoned in favor of the “leader,” then human rights can be used for convenience due to its relative conception, that is, it can be invoked when favorable to the people through the leader but can be discarded when found to delay the leader’s development agenda owing to the measures imposed by human rights on state obligations.
The rising wave of populism across the globe has evolved a new reliance on strongman politics. This is true to Duterte’s leadership and to the Tatmadaw’s invisible hegemony in Myanmar. The greater challenge now for human rights in populist regimes is how to negotiate with the government without insulting the imagined dichotomy with the “pure people” recognized as allies and not as enemies. Abao (2017) is more optimistic in dealing with populism by impelling both the subject and the trajectory of the discourse, believing that populism is a form of language. This task is daunting especially in with the growing politics of demonization.
Demonization of human rights. The rise of populism carried with it the demonization of human rights. In the Philippines more specifically, the “us versus them” rhetoric is dividing the already divided society. With leaders who turn their back on human rights, they collectively polarize the world into “people” whom they embody and the dissenters whom they view as the “enemy.” Amnesty International (2017c) reported, thus “today’s politics of demonization shamelessly peddles a dangerous idea that some people are less human than others, stripping away the humanity of entire groups of people. This threatens to unleash the darkest aspects of human nature.”
When drug addicts and the Rohingyas are perceived and treated as non-human, the whole conception of humanity becomes blurry, whether it is embedded naturally or it is contingent upon what one does or does not do. Instead, expediency is weaponized against human rights rather than espousing an all-encompassing respect, protection and fulfillment of people’s human rights.
The demonization of human rights poses a domestic and global threat to the consolidation of democratic principles. When the people accept the demonizing and dehumanizing language of the leaders, they commit themselves in turn to abandon the normative value of human rights, exposing their persons and effects to possible violations against their individual and collective aspirations.
There are many assumptions that led to the demonization of human rights. Duterte for example, captured the people’s imagination by binding himself to a mission of ending inequality and poverty in the Philippines. Aung San convincingly re-channeled her people’s hearts by calling for healing of the ethnic divide in Myanmar. Sometimes, these narratives are used by the leaders to justify the politics of demonization, that is, in order to deliver the promise, the barriers need to be cleared including human rights. The divisive rhetoric is sometimes used to legitimize the rule of the regime by appealing to the frustration and sometimes anger of the people. As an implication, the people believe that constraining human rights is needed in order to promote other more superior concerns such as security and development forgetting that they are all underpinned by human rights principles. Also, dislike against human rights is further inflamed by establishing that human rights is an instrument of the elite that further marginalizes the average citizens, therefore, an anti-thesis to the promotion of national interests. Although as observed, the political will of the leader to human rights becomes crucial in cultivating a national culture that either respects or abuses human rights.
Just like populism, the demonization of human rights largely covers the discursive plane. Therefore, this means that parties need to compete in influencing the platforms of conscientization and ideological formation in order to revert a society from one that paints an evil image of human rights to one that consecrates human dignity as the ultimate celebration of our humanity.
Conclusion
We have in pain, recalled the human rights situation in Myanmar and the Philippines. The genocidal murder of the Rohingyas and the ruthless execution of drug-linked poor individuals offer a very disturbing feature of democracies in Southeast Asia. However, we have pointed out that neither the Asian Values nor the populist argument can justify the flagrant disregard on the normative value of human rights. Compounded by a language of demonization, human rights have become a more elusive project in this part of the region. Central to the cases of Myanmar and Philippines is the role of the leader in cultivating a global culture that respects, protects and fulfills human rights. Either way, the leader can be an apparatus to solidify or to destroy the whole institution of human rights. Conversely, human rights workers must repackage the rhetoric for the protection of human dignity in a way that it is relatable, palatable and acceptable to the people across all segments and not only to the few elites. The discursive arena will be the battlefield in the ensuing years.
Indeed, democracies present stark contrasts of the best of times and the worst of times. With all hopes that we are able to emerge from the worst of times to embrace the best of times, let us end this essay with how Charles Dickens perfectly opened his “A Tale of Two Cities,” with these lines:
“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way—in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.” (Dickens, 1859)
So goes the hope of Myanmar and Philippines for the resurrection of the society from this horrendous human rights abuses to a society that respects, protects and fulfills human rights.
(photo from Asian Policy)
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