China: explanation for human rights abuses that "one can understand"
Thursday, November 19, 2009 at 6:42PM I heard the following portion of an interview today on NPR. From a human rights standpoint, it's not encouraging.
GROSS: Well, since you've been going to China since 1975, tell us what you think the state of human rights is there now.
Mr. SCHELL: You know, it's - the state of human rights is not terrific but the Chinese fear, deeply, instability. And whether it was under the old sort of regime of Confucianism and the imperial system or under the newer system of sort of Leninist, one-party structure, it's always been a society that's emphasized control. And so this is the way they sort of manage in the universe and when things get tough they crack down.
So from the perspective of anybody who believes in freedom, it's sometimes a difficult country in which to live. But one can understand why they do it. One can understand that a country of 1.3 billion people, if you spill all those people out like marbles on a gym floor and let them roll in every which direction, you would have chaos and that is their most passionate fear.
So it isn't that it doesn't have a logic. And now the logic has results, has verifiable results, that look quite impressive to many and I think to many Chinese. A lot of - most Chinese that I talk to are quite pleased.
Reader Comments (1)
You're right- that is disturbing. I'd paraphrase this article by saying, "The human rights situation in China is still atrocious, but that seems to work for them." This reminds me of someone that has become so used to a situation that begin to think that it is "normal." After spending 2 years working around malnourished children, it was hard to imagine what a child without a distended belly would look like. I think this man has forgotten what a free society might look like.