Proposing a new agenda: Bioethics and international human rights

Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics

Volumn 10, Issue 3, 2001, Pages 299-310

  Thomasma, David C ^a  

^a NONE

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

ARTICLE; BIOETHICS; BIOETHICS AND PROFESSIONAL ETHICS; CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY; FREEDOM; HEALTH; HUMAN; HUMAN RIGHTS; INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION; INTERPERSONAL COMMUNICATION; SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY;

BIOETHICS AND PROFESSIONAL ETHICS;

BIOETHICS; COMMUNICATION; CULTURAL DIVERSITY; FREEDOM; HUMAN RIGHTS; HUMANS; INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION; INTERNATIONALITY; SOCIAL VALUES; WORLD HEALTH;

EID: 0035354570     PISSN: 09631801     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/S0963180101003097     Document Type: Review

References (59)

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14. See note 9, Chicago Tribune 1993:54.
15. A report of blows exchanged at a news conference at the fiftieth session of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights demonstrates just how difficult the process of developing a human rights basis for international and international bioethics will be. A representative of the Sudanese Nation Islamic Front had just finished an extended interruption of a report on conditions in the Sudan, when he was attacked by a rival group member. In the words of a columnist, this "disorderly exchange at the usually somber commission lifted the thin veneer of decorum over the confrontations between victims and perpetrators. . . ." The most heinous violations of human rights occur in the areas of the world we ignore most. Brown BA. Human-rights abuse is "business as usual" in much of the world. Chicago Tribune 1994 Apr 15:19.
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20. Without secular protections, religious bigotry all too often results. Consider the Rushdie affair. Salman Rushdie wrote The Satanic Verses, which was highly critical of the Prophet Muhammad and sexually offensive to Muslim leaders. Rushdie was condemned to death by Iran and the Ayatollah. This led to international withdrawals of embassies by Western European countries. Internal debates about the freedom of the press and the freedom of expression occurred especially in England and the United States. Workers at mall-based bookstores were threatened by calls and bomb scares. And the book was kept off the shelves. Full-page advertisements were taken out by Waldenbooks and were taken out by Muslims defending their religion and their religious sensibilities. A similar occurrence involved the writings of Taslima Nasrin of Bangladesh, a physician and nonbeliever who is critical of Muslim views of women and marriage. She is now in hiding in Sweden. As she said of her own life, "They've taken everything from me . . . my innocence, my youth, now my freedom." See Weaver MA. A fugitive from injustice. The New Yorker 1989;70:60. Much of the Western reflection on the Rushdie and Nasrin affairs betrayed a note of cultural superiority. We admonished fundamentalist Muslims because they had not entered the golden era of responsible, international citizenship. Amnesty International took up the authors' causes. Protests were lodged by Western governments with Iran and Bangladesh. Some countries threatened to cut off economic assistance. Yet, not that long ago, the power of Christianity was allied to the state for almost 1,000 years, during which time many persons were tortured and killed put on racks and burned at the stake, for being different or refusing to follow Christianity. We escaped the "medieval and violent darkness" of Christianity, in the words of one commentator, "by depriving Christian religious authorities of political and legal power of the community." Dyer G. The secularizing evolution that includes Islam. Chicago Tribune 1989
21. Without secular protections, religious bigotry all too often results. Consider the Rushdie affair. Salman Rushdie wrote The Satanic Verses, which was highly critical of the Prophet Muhammad and sexually offensive to Muslim leaders. Rushdie was condemned to death by Iran and the Ayatollah. This led to international withdrawals of embassies by Western European countries. Internal debates about the freedom of the press and the freedom of expression occurred especially in England and the United States. Workers at mall-based bookstores were threatened by calls and bomb scares. And the book was kept off the shelves. Full-page advertisements were taken out by Waldenbooks and were taken out by Muslims defending their religion and their religious sensibilities. A similar occurrence involved the writings of Taslima Nasrin of Bangladesh, a physician and nonbeliever who is critical of Muslim views of women and marriage. She is now in hiding in Sweden. As she said of her own life, "They've taken everything from me . . . my innocence, my youth, now my freedom." See Weaver MA. A fugitive from injustice. The New Yorker 1989;70:60. Much of the Western reflection on the Rushdie and Nasrin affairs betrayed a note of cultural superiority. We admonished fundamentalist Muslims because they had not entered the golden era of responsible, international citizenship. Amnesty International took up the authors' causes. Protests were lodged by Western governments with Iran and Bangladesh. Some countries threatened to cut off economic assistance. Yet, not that long ago, the power of Christianity was allied to the state for almost 1,000 years, during which time many persons were tortured and killed put on racks and burned at the stake, for being different or refusing to follow Christianity. We escaped the "medieval and violent darkness" of Christianity, in the words of one commentator, "by depriving Christian religious authorities of political and legal power of the community." Dyer G. The secularizing evolution that includes Islam. Chicago Tribune 1989
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48. A brief note about traditional Chinese xenophobia bears on this point. Chinese xenophobia is so entrenched that the story is told of the 200-year-old diplomatic failure of the British mission there. The British Crown sent Lord George McCartney to Peking in 1792 to exchange ambassadors and to improve how the Chinese were treating British merchants. McCartney was accompanied by huge warships and a retinue of 100. Yet the Emperor of the Ming dynasty treated the British as vassals, as he would Mongolians and Tibetans, and the gifts they brought as tribute. When McCartney arrived in Peking, according to Alain Peyrefitte, as a representative of King George III, he was herded together with many other subordinates to bring tribute for the Emperor's birthday! The British simply did not understand the degree to which the Chinese regarded their empire as the center of the world (even though by then it had become quite poor and backward) or the degree to which the Chinese scorned business and businessmen. Peyrefitte A. The Collision of Two Civilizations. London: Harvill, 1993.
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