A day to reflect on state of Human Rights in Indonesia

Benny YP Siahaan, Jakarta

Today we celebrate Human Rights Day, a clearly important day for the human race. Ironically, in the case of Indonesia, many of us do not know that Dec. 10 is Human Rights Day, with the exception of those who are involved in or have a keen interest in human rights issues.

Hence, it could be one of the signs that there is much more to do in the field of promotion and protection of human rights in the country.

However, the challenge lies not only at the national level but also at the international level. The challenges posed by the new millennium have become more complex and inextricably intertwined. These new challenges includes a wide-range of conundrums from terrorism to transnational crime. Indeed this is a tremendous challenge that has to be seriously dealt with by the international community.

Nevertheless, apart from those problems, if we reflect on the years past, there has no doubt been progress made in the field of human rights.

There is an ever increasing understanding of human rights as a universal language; it is a word that you can find in almost every corner of the world. Indeed, human rights, together with democracy, has become a buzzword both in policy-making and civil society circles over the past decades and the trend seems to be continuing. Even a dictator who has a poor human rights record, in his speech, has to put in one or two words regarding democracy and human rights.

In this context, although most of us now agree that human rights are universal many are still of the view that this universality of human rights has been the victory of the West.

While the world conference on human rights in Vienna and other subsequent UN documents have recognized that all human rights -- civil, cultural, economic, political and social-- are universal, indivisible, interdependent and interrelated, they are applied against different national and regional historical, cultural and religious backdrops, making them difficult to achieve.

Indeed, at the international level the protection of human rights still leaves much to be desired and a global consensus on the content and implementation of those rights often seems difficult to achieve. Thus, many quarters are still suspicious of universality in the implementation of human rights.

One of the reasons is that human rights is a fluid concept. It keeps developing. Since the coining of the term, it has been developing. The first generation of human rights is about civil and political rights, the second generation is regarding economic, social and cultural rights. The third generation is about solidarity rights.

Further, many concepts that were merely concepts and subjects of discourse in the past have now become rights, such as self determination, implying democracy and self government -- a principle that was once thought applicable to all humankind, but in recent times has brought disaster and bitter conflicts between states and within sovereign states.

The persistent debate is not only whether human rights are universal but also whether they are indivisible. If we observe the criticism of the human rights' record in one country, mostly it relates to civil-political rights such as torture, restrictions to freedom of expression, etc. and seldom relates to social, cultural and economic rights.

Indeed, the rise of human rights politics in the past two decades poses a puzzle both to leaders and scholars of international relations. Like many other states, Indonesia has been inescapably involved in human rights politics at the international level in recent decades. During this period Indonesia has been increasingly active in participating in discourse on international human rights.

Against this backdrop, for us as Indonesian citizens, it is crucial to ask what Indonesia is doing, what it has not done and what it should be doing in the field of human rights.

After the collapse of the Soeharto regime in 1998 the protection and promotion of human rights have significantly improved. For example, Indonesia now has a liberal press and better conditions in the field of civil and political rights.

This at least shows Indonesia's commitment to the protection and promotion on human rights although the most important thing is its implementation. Indeed, social and economic development, the improvement in individual and collective welfare and security cannot be attained or sustained without full respect for human rights.

Nevertheless, like the human being, no country is perfect. Once you feel you are perfect, you tend to judge the human rights' record of other countries.

Human rights promotion and protection is not about pretending to be perfect. It is about being transparent and honest about our strengths and weaknesses, and more importantly to do our best to rectify them. If we continue to act as if we are perfect or pretend to be perfect then the politicization of human rights and human rights politics will always prevail.

The writer is an alumnus of Tsukuba University, Japan. The views reflected herein are strictly personal.