The newspaper today reported that a Bhutanese soldier sodomised the 11 month old baby of his neighbour. In general, people here are more peaceful and civilised than anywhere else I’ve been, but then they can be more horific too.
I hate to make judgements about people of another culture, even for something like this. Who am I to say that my values are right? What gives the US the right to decide how people in another country should live and what values they should hold? The fight for human rights seems to me a bad approach. Surely there are ways to help cultures find their own way forward without enforcing or even glorifying our own values. But then perhaps I’ve watched too much Star Trek.
In any case, people here seem as horrified as I feel about this event and I have just enough belief in human rights to be glad about that.