I’m on the road this week, speaking to you from the foothills of the Blue Ridge, outside Washington, DC. I’m here for the annual training camp for human rights activists presented by the Ruckus Society. One hundred activists from four continents are spending a week sharing their skills and stories.
There is no shortage of topics for conversation. There’s the plight of the Panchen Lama, Tibet’s second-ranking religious leader. He is a nine-year-old boy, soon to be ten. He has spent nearly half his life in the custody of the Chinese Communist government, which wants to control not only Tibet’s land and people, but also its soul. There’s the story of Larry Robison, who has an appointment with a Texas executioner later this summer. Twenty years ago, the mental health establishment diagnosed but repeatedly failed to treat Larry’s schizophrenia. One doctor advised Larry’s parents to put him on the street. Lacking proper treatment, Larry killed five people. Now Texans, whose governor has his eye on the White House, will kill Larry.
We talk about the history of human rights. In this century, our lessons have been written in the cruel texts of genocide and torture and our concept of “human rights” has been limited to the categories of civil and political rights. Significant protections for civil and political rights have been established, even if they are frequently ignored. But as more stories are shared, it becomes clear the human rights most frequently attacked are not civil and political, but social and economic rights. Many activists here are in exile from their native lands, not for opposing the sitting government, but for opposing oil companies like Shell and Unocal or clearcutting companies like Mitsubishi or mining companies like Freeport MacMoran.
Other activists in camp are the intelligentsia, international lawyers and think-tank types. They talk about the big picture, the large institutions – structural readjustment, Jubilee 2000, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. The other night, one of them was speaking about what he calls the “race to the bottom.” The race is run like this: a product is made in the U.S. by a worker who is paid ten dollars an hour. The manufacturer doesn’t think that rate is competitive, so production is moved to Mexico where workers get perhaps two dollars an hour. If that’s not profitable enough, production can be shifted to Indonesia, where workers receive 75 cents an hour and then to China for 20 cents an hour and finally to Burma for five cents an hour. That’s the race to bottom. For every step on that race, there is a diminishment of economic and social rights expressed as wages and working conditions. For every diminishment of economic and social rights, there’s a corresponding drop in civil and political rights, because human rights are a bundle, they rise and fall together. The experts describe the process for us and the exiles bear the scars.
There is no accident to the occasion of this camp. Tomorrow is the tenth anniversary of the massacre of student protesters in Tianamen Square. One of those former students, Tung Yi, is among us. She told us her story one night as twilight fell. She spoke of her two years in a labor camp, working 16 hours a day in a battery factory. She told how she and other prisoners developed layer upon layer of rashes from exposure to toxic chemicals. She told how she was beaten by her fellow prisoners for resisting the guards. She spoke of prisoners who had completed their terms but continued to be held at the labor camp because they had failed to fill their production quotas. When she stopped speaking, there was a long moment of silence, and then we all cheered for her.
Later, by the campfire, we coaxed Tung Yi into singing a song in Chinese. I don’t know what she sang, she just described it as “a simple song.” It was slow and plaintive, Tung Yi’s voice was firm and clear. We’ve heard dozens of frightening stories this week, but if by the light of a small fire, one voice rises in song, we can all find the strength to keep trying.
Race to the Bottom
I’m on the road this week, speaking to you from the foothills of the Blue Ridge, outside Washington, DC. I’m here for the annual training camp for human rights activists presented by the Ruckus Society. One hundred activists from four continents are spending a week sharing their skills and stories.
There is no shortage of topics for conversation. There’s the plight of the Panchen Lama, Tibet’s second-ranking religious leader. He is a nine-year-old boy, soon to be ten. He has spent nearly half his life in the custody of the Chinese Communist government, which wants to control not only Tibet’s land and people, but also its soul. There’s the story of Larry Robison, who has an appointment with a Texas executioner later this summer. Twenty years ago, the mental health establishment diagnosed but repeatedly failed to treat Larry’s schizophrenia. One doctor advised Larry’s parents to put him on the street. Lacking proper treatment, Larry killed five people. Now Texans, whose governor has his eye on the White House, will kill Larry.
We talk about the history of human rights. In this century, our lessons have been written in the cruel texts of genocide and torture and our concept of “human rights” has been limited to the categories of civil and political rights. Significant protections for civil and political rights have been established, even if they are frequently ignored. But as more stories are shared, it becomes clear the human rights most frequently attacked are not civil and political, but social and economic rights. Many activists here are in exile from their native lands, not for opposing the sitting government, but for opposing oil companies like Shell and Unocal or clearcutting companies like Mitsubishi or mining companies like Freeport MacMoran.
Other activists in camp are the intelligentsia, international lawyers and think-tank types. They talk about the big picture, the large institutions – structural readjustment, Jubilee 2000, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. The other night, one of them was speaking about what he calls the “race to the bottom.” The race is run like this: a product is made in the U.S. by a worker who is paid ten dollars an hour. The manufacturer doesn’t think that rate is competitive, so production is moved to Mexico where workers get perhaps two dollars an hour. If that’s not profitable enough, production can be shifted to Indonesia, where workers receive 75 cents an hour and then to China for 20 cents an hour and finally to Burma for five cents an hour. That’s the race to bottom. For every step on that race, there is a diminishment of economic and social rights expressed as wages and working conditions. For every diminishment of economic and social rights, there’s a corresponding drop in civil and political rights, because human rights are a bundle, they rise and fall together. The experts describe the process for us and the exiles bear the scars.
There is no accident to the occasion of this camp. Tomorrow is the tenth anniversary of the massacre of student protesters in Tianamen Square. One of those former students, Tung Yi, is among us. She told us her story one night as twilight fell. She spoke of her two years in a labor camp, working 16 hours a day in a battery factory. She told how she and other prisoners developed layer upon layer of rashes from exposure to toxic chemicals. She told how she was beaten by her fellow prisoners for resisting the guards. She spoke of prisoners who had completed their terms but continued to be held at the labor camp because they had failed to fill their production quotas. When she stopped speaking, there was a long moment of silence, and then we all cheered for her.
Later, by the campfire, we coaxed Tung Yi into singing a song in Chinese. I don’t know what she sang, she just described it as “a simple song.” It was slow and plaintive, Tung Yi’s voice was firm and clear. We’ve heard dozens of frightening stories this week, but if by the light of a small fire, one voice rises in song, we can all find the strength to keep trying.