The whole China-Japan situation makes me angry and very close to hating people. It isn't pretty, it isn't nice, and it is too damn complicated for people to throw mud in any direction. But I am Chinese, and I'd be lying if I said the whole situation isn't getting to me. It is all nice to say that you can't live in the past, that you have to move on, but you can't do either when the past is
not even acknowledged. So, stop making damn judgements about China when you don't have relatives who still remember the Japanese occupation. Don't make damn snipe comments about the past actions of the Chinese government when, at the present time, it is the Chinese people who are angry. And for damn sake don't compare the China-Japan situation to Germany and its treatment of the Holocaust. Japan have
not acknowledged the actions of its own army during WW2. Several generations of Japanese does not know their own history because their government decided to delete a section of their history. There are people in China, in Korea, in Thailand, hell, in most of the South East Asian countries who does remember. So, please, don't make a damn judgement when all you know is that 'Japan did some bad things to other Asians during WW2.'
I'm so sick of the people who don't know anything, who have no personal investment, being all high and mighty. Forgiveness does not come from you. So, back off.
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chasethestars
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I found an interesting article (http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0GER/is_1999_Summer/ai_55127415) here that you might like to check out. It's about the whole definition of human rights thing - Singapore is among the countries that said that a singluar definition of human rights fails to take into consideration cultural context of each country.
Back on the China = supreme power example, I'd say that probably the human rights issue, if aligned according to their system, may have certain elements that perhaps Westerners might oppose to. I think a lot of people will agree that all humans need to be treated humanely (equally is more subjective), but human rights also include your rights to those which extend outside of your physical body such as rights to property ownership. Cases of property seizure are a grey area from what I know in China, so that's one concern that one might have if we had based the human rights standards upon them. Sure, respect human lives is agreed upon, but what about your other rights that extend beyond yourself? That's where the definition of human rights becomes a huge mess.
I cannot seem to locate a UN source, but here I think I've a webpage (http://www.thinkcentre.org/article.cfm?ArticleID=2486) that says that Singapore does have the Universal Declaration of Human Rights enshrined within its Constitution.
* very high grade demand
Interesting article. It seems to me that a lot of the objections to the declaration is based on the fact that it purports to be 'universal', by which some people read as "American" or "Western" and balk. I think it's true that there must be certain aspects of culture that the Declaration did not address, but my main impression is the objections have a strong political angle. Besides, I look at some of the countries (other than Singapore?) that DON'T ratify the declaration, and I think, do I really want to be associated with them in anyway (like North Korea)? *g* You're known by the company you keep, and all that.
Sorry for the mini-rant. I like the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, so I get a bit emotional.
Ultimately, you'll probably notice that a lot of these so-called universal standards for human rights, animal rights, etc are all nothing but ideals - to each country it's own way of enforcing it. I like what the Universal Declaration of Human Rights stands for as well, but since it tends to be rather broad in its statements (e.g. "Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person."), it leaves a lot of ground for people to interpret around.