The Exchange

Compared to many other legal instruments, the prevention of war crimes against civilians is a novel idea. 150 years after its first introduction into a desert of apathy, the necessity for a society built upon the bedrock of human rights is echoed across the world. While the movement is met with global responses from various states, its real drive begins from the lowest and most hidden corners of the world. It is the very individual and the everyone of us who lights the candle in the darkness.

My grandfather always told me that everything begins with how you think. It is the perception of the people which ultimately makes the difference…

The perception of human rights took many years to come. Four generations ago, my ancestors were businessmen in a small town of the Chinese Empire. They lived humbly and contently, blindly obeying the arbitrary powers of the emperor. At that time, no one had ever heard of human rights.

Almost 60 years ago, when Japanese soldiers left the Chinese soil soaked with the blood of the victims from their massacres, my ancestors were forced to recover from their losses. Again, they knew no rights.

One decade later, blood drops, one by one, coloured the dirt below my great-grandmother’s body, as she hang from the roof after days of torture. When my seven-year-old great-aunt handed the Communist officer their last money to save her mother’s life, she saw no rights.

The 1960s was the era of the Cultural Revolution. For weeks, my grandfather was under detention because of his scientific research, as ‘education blinds the communistic mind.’ He was lucky. Too many did not survive, as they were not allowed to have human rights.

I was born right before the Tiananmen Square massacre of 1989. Later, my mom told me that the Chinese TV channel showed no blood, no pain, no violence. It was just another ‘peaceful’ protest. At that time, I was too young to understand human rights, but who asked the students about their rights, when they were dead, beaten, and imprisoned in front of the ‘holy’ Square.

My parents and I left China many years ago. Every time I go back, I see the difference: a changing perception among the people. Sitting at the dinner table with my family in China, I examine the diverse and colourful dishes in front of me, a result of the democratic ‘one vote, one dish’ policy in my family. Next to me, my grandfather made an ardent declaration on the ‘violation’ of his fundamental human rights committed by my grandmother who forces him to take his medicine before the meal. This time, I know the global echo has also reached us.

On 14th March 2004, a bill of rights was finally amended to the Chinese constitution.

The journey to a human rights state and a human rights perception among its people may be a long and hurdled one. It is often tainted with blood and tears. Nevertheless, the power of a rights voice will not cease until everyone of us has heard it and accepted it. Are you willing to listen to it?

This post was contributed in the run-up to the Convention on Modern Liberty, of which you can find out more information here, purchase tickets (with group discount rates) here and submit long comments to these pages here.