双语国际人权事业需平等交流

国际人权事业需平等交流

Global Human Rights Development Demands Equal Exchanges

钟声

Zhong Sheng

今年12月10日是第六十八个世界人权日,提醒人们深入观察国际人权事业发展。实现人民充分享有人权是人类社会的共同奋斗目标。为了这一共同目标,加强不同文明交流互鉴、促进各国人权交流合作,形成健康有效的全球人权治理格局,能够有利于实现国际人权事业更好发展。

December 10 marks the 68th International Human Rights Day, a day that reminds us to respect the course of human rights undertakings.

Mankind shares a common goal to enjoy human rights. To realize this objective, the world should boost exchanges of diversified civilizations, bolster collaboration on human rights and build a healthy and effective governance system, so that international human rights undertakings can progress in a smooth way.

值得深思的是,当下的国际人权交流还远远不是其应有的样貌。特别是西方一些人,根本没有把全球近8亿人每天面临饥饿威胁的“人权困境”放在眼里,根本没有把难民危机、恐怖主义、排外情绪、种族主义等问题的人权属性当回事。他们自诩为“人权教师爷”,在国际关系领域玩弄人权政治,奉行双重标准,频频借人权问题干涉别国内政。

Meanwhile, current international exchanges on human rights are far from ideal. Some Westerners, in particular, have turned a blind eye to the 800 million people who are still suffering from hunger around the globe, and have not paid serious attention to the issues of refugee crisis, terrorism, xenophobia and racism. But all these predicaments come down to human rights challenges.

They, though dubbing themselves as “lecturers in human rights,” in fact resort to it as a tool to play politics, adopt double standards and interfere in the domestic affairs of other countries by using human rights as an excuse.

西方国家的人权话语垄断是完全经不起推敲的。著名学者佩里·安德森不久前指出:“(当前国际)人权话语宛如19世纪‘文明标准’的当代翻版。”19世纪末,欧洲国际法学家明确以欧洲“文明”来衡量世界各国,将各国划分为“文明”“野蛮”和“蒙昧”等类别。尽管历史已经证明这种文明观的荒谬与非正义,但时至今天,西方一些人还是没有弄明白,他们的人权“等级观”和“优越感”,本身就是落后和蒙昧。

The West has no grounds to monopolize the rights of speech in terms of human rights. Scholar Perry Anderson said in a recent commentary that the human rights discourse in today’s world is a contemporary version of the “civilization standards” of the 19th century.

Back at the end of the 19th century, European jurists pigeonholed countries as “civilized,” “barbaric” and “savage” by comparing them with a “European standard,” but history has proven that such logic is absurd and unjust.

However, some Westerners, up to now, failed to realize that their so-called “superiority” and “classification” are the best evidence of their barbarism.

西方把自己想象为“人权标准化身”,却经不起事实检验。仅在过去这一年,西方国家内部各领域频发的深层次问题,就大大暴露了人权短板。种族冲突、枪支泛滥问题继续撕扯美国民意,难民危机拷问欧洲良心,社会价值失范、贫富不均等问题加剧,“选票民主”的体制性弊端在一场场公投、选举中尽显无遗,反主流、反建制思潮愈演愈烈。迭出的乱象,引起世界的警醒。

The Western world imagined itself as a “standard of human rights,” but failed to withstand the test. All kinds of deep-rooted plights they encountered in the past year have exposed their shortcomings. Racial conflicts and uncontrolled use of firearms have split the US public, while the refugee crisis is torturing the conscience of Europe.

Because of these twisted social values, widening disparity between the rich and the poor and other escalated challenges, the public are increasing their hatred toward the mainstream, establishment and politics after a host of elections have brought institutional flaws in the “voting democracy” of Western countries to light. The world is now alert to its emerging chaos.

颇为蹊跷的是,每每有严重问题在西方社会出现时,其主流话语却拼尽一切可能去放大乃至无中生有制造别国的问题。他们对自己的问题视而不见,却还说什么“这为莫斯科、北京提供了宣传机会”,走进“无理搅三分”的死胡同。

What is ridiculous is that any time Western countries met with a predicament, their mainstream voice will exaggerate or make up some questions of other nations. They are now in dead ends that always blame others like Moscow and Beijing, but ignore their own flaws.

“橘生淮南则为橘,生于淮北则为枳。”世界上没有放之四海而皆准的人权发展道路,人权保障没有最好,只有更好。这是一个朴素而又深刻的道理。

In terms of international human rights, it means that there is no “one-size-fits-all” path in the world. What the world can do is to pursue a “no best, but better” protection of human rights.

世界不乏教训。不顾自身国情、全盘照搬别国发展道路,导致水土不服,引发社会剧烈动荡的例子让人痛心。其结果是,人的生存权、发展权都无从谈起,更不要说什么政治权利了。

The world has learned not a few lessons caused by copying other development models regardless of the reality. In those harrowing cases, social unrest was triggered because the borrowed system cannot acclimatize to national conditions. The involved nations, as a result, failed to secure their people with the right to survive and develop, not to mention political rights.

世界也不乏成功经验的积累。国际社会普遍承认,中国坚持把人权的普遍性原则同中国实际相结合,不断推动经济社会发展,增进人民福祉,促进社会公平正义,加强人权法治保障,努力促进经济、社会、文化权利和公民、政治权利全面协调发展,显著提高了人民生存权、发展权的保障水平,走出了一条适合中国国情的人权发展道路。

But there are indeed a number of successful cases. The international community recognized that by combining the universal principle with the Chinese reality, China has boosted its economic and social progress, improved its people’s livelihoods, bolstered social justice, optimized protection of law-based human rights, pursued economic, social and cultural rights as well as civic and political rights in parallel, and significantly strengthened protection of people’s rights to survive and develop, thus finding out a unique path suitable to China’s conditions.

人权事业发展需要良好的国际环境。尊重各国自主选择的人权发展道路,尊重各国价值观、历史文化传统和政治制度,并在此基础上展开平等对话与合作,交流互鉴,才是各国在人权事业上实现共同进步之道。

Human rights undertakings require a sound international environment. All countries can only seek shared progress by launching equal-footed dialogues, cooperation and exchanges based on respect to each other’s development path, social value, historical and cultural traditions, as well as political systems.