The film we watched last night, as part of VAST’s Monsoon Film Festival, was Cry of the Snow Lion, a movie about the opression in Tibet. It’s a one sided view, but I have no problem with that and recommend everyone watch it for the powerful message.
The film sent my thoughts in so many directions, it’s difficult to describe them coherently. An old thought popped into my head immediately – that it’s ironic to hear Tibet crying foul against China for opressing them, when Tibet has spent centuries trying to invade Bhutan. It seems we all have double standards.
Another strong thought came in response to Chinese claims that they were only helping the Tibetans to break the shackles of religious domination. Without an invitation for help from the locals, they invaded so that their own views of human rights might be ‘granted’ to the Tibetans. It reminds me of the excuse the US uses to invade Afghanistan, Iraq and wherever else they feel isn’t living by their own values.
It’s something I think about a lot and while I don’t have any definite answers, I feel strongly inclined to a direction of inaction that many people would probably find abhorent. My driving principle is that people have the right to define their own cultures and live by their own values. That could be self-contradictory in certain circumstances, as with Muslim terrorists. They may claim that their values require them to bomb the US, but by doing so, they break the principle in the process of living by it. ‘People have the right to define their own cultures and live by their own values, but not to impose those values on others’ might get closer to a solution.
Then I wonder about Israelis and Palestinians. When both groups value having exclusive rights to their holy city, my principle fails again. I’d like to suggest that they could learn to live together with complementary governments as the Flemish and Walloons have in Belgium, but that’s probably naive.
Perhaps the world has gone too far for this principle to be useful. Australia is another example of two cultures living in the same space and neither ready to give up their own. I think the Aboriginals have a beautiful culture and a 40,000 year greater claim over the land than us, but I’d hate to lose access to their sacred sites or to have to learn to live off the land to be allowed to stay.
Human rights can’t be defined by one group’s values. There are foreign aid groups in Bhutan fighting for equality for women according to western standards, yet any inequality here has occured as a result of westernisation. Women are traditionally the land owners and play an important part in society. But money, a concept only implemented a few decades ago, has meant that men now head the household and own the land. Women with babies to look after can’t go to the office as easily as they could work in the field, so they don’t have the same chance to earn as their husbands.
Bhutan has chosen to adapt their culture to the west – not to copy, but to include certain features – and they invite aid to facilitate the process. Countries like Afghanistan, as far as I know, have not asked for that aid. Certainly the government didn’t ask the US to ‘free the people’. On one hand, I’d like to say that the people have a right to leave a culture / country that doesn’t allow them to live by their own values, which might say that I support the accepting of refugees as long as they choose to live by the host countries values. But then I’d hate to see their culture being lost.
And on the other hand, if all those people leave, then who will stand up to the oppressive government when already I’ve said that everyone else should stay out of it. It hurts to see these people live in terror and poverty, but I’m inclined to take a harsh stand and say that it’s their own responsibility to change things. I guess that agrees with the view of reincarnation I read last night. They are there as a result of their ancestors actions / inaction and they must pay their karmic debt.
I certainly don’t think the west has the right answers, and certainly no right to enforce our values on others, but we have gotten where we are through the actions of the majority (not democratic vote, which is just another value I’m not convinced is the final state) and people of other nations and cultures have the right to do the same as long as it doesn’t impact others.