The Collective Right to Abrogate Individual Rights

The Collective Right to Abrogate Individual Rights
China Post editorial
by Bevin Chu
July 6, 2009

Human rights are the rights of the individual human being to be protected from other human beings. Collectives of human beings are the victimizers of individual human beings. Collectives of human beings are precisely what rights were intended to protect individual human beings from. Therefore the notion that "collectives have rights" that trump individual rights, is both an affront to reason and a travesty of justice.

One Taiwan independence sympathizer disagreed. He wrote in, arguing that "within the Taiwanese context," the notion of a "collective right" has a pragmatic basis. He supplied a long list of "abrogations put in place by the KMT during Chiang Kai Shek’s and Chiang Ching Kuo’s brutal reign" that purportedly legitimized a "collective Taiwanese right to self-determination."

Let's examine his list, one abrogation at a time.

Abrogation One: A ban on private radio stations, compulsory registration of radio sets and a monthly charge of 10 NTD for the privilege of owning a radio, a ban on newspapers not officially sanctioned by the state, a “General Inspection of School Books,” which required elementary schools to inspect all books for evidence of opposition to state policy.

Response One: What were these, but baseless assertions that a government has a "collective right" that trumps the right of the individual to decide what radio stations he may listen to, and what newspapers or books he may read? Lest we forget, the DPP relished this "collective right." Its 2004 ban on CCTV still hasn't been lifted.

Abrogation Two: A ban on men’s “strange apparel,” which were fashions showing relatively new styles or evidence of individualism [you read that right!], and a ban on middle school student’s long hair, for both men and women.

Response Two: What were these, but baseless assertions that a government has a "collective right" that trumps the right of the individual [that's right] to decide how he or she may dress? Lest we forget, anyone wearing a red shirt during Chen Shui-bian's second term needed to be extra careful.

Abrogation Three: A ban on overseas tourism and visits to overseas relatives.

Response Three: What were these, but baseless assertions that a government has a "collective right" that trumps the right of the individual to decide where he may travel and whom he may see? Lest we forget, these bans targeted "mainlanders." Ironically this affected not only first generation mainlanders, but even "nth generation mainlander" Lu Chuan-sheng, Annette Lu's elder brother, who would later travel to the mainland and participate in family reunions with Lu clan members in Fujian.

Abrogation Four: Encouragement of class struggle, a ban on Taiwanese history being taught (only Chinese history was to be taught), a ban on local dialects, Hoklo (Taiwanese) [sic!], Hakka and Aboriginal tongues, and a ban on Taiwanese folk songs and popular songs inclined to social realism.

Response Four: What were these, but baseless assertions that a government has a "collective right" that trumps the right of the individual to decide what his children should be taught, what dialects he has the right to speak, and what songs he has the right to sing? Lest we forget, the DPP relished this "collective right." Once it acquired this "collective right," it eagerly fomented class struggle between "Taiwanese mutts" and "Chinese poodles." Its "Educational Reform" program virtually banned the teaching of Chinese history. Only "Taiwanese" history was taught. It too had no qualms about government coercion. Instead of forbidding students to speak local dialects, it compelled students to speak local dialects.

Between 1945 and 1988, the Two Chiangs callously abrogated the rights of the sovereign individual by invoking the anti-concept of "collective rights."

Between 2000 and 2008, all that had changed. Between 2000 and 2008, Chen Shui-bian and the ruling DPP callously abrogated the rights of the sovereign individual by invoking the anti-concept of "collective rights." The Green Camp refers to this as "Taiwan's political maturation."

The Taiwan independence sympathizer who wrote in was not the least bit interested in discrediting the Two Chiangs' "collective right" to abrogate individual rights.

Instead, he argued that 'It should not at all be difficult to surmise the origins of the previously mentioned [assertions of collective rights and demands for collective self-determination]. It is because so many Taiwanese’ “individual rights” have been infringed upon that their shared experiences of oppression have given rise to collective ideals.'

Translating his convoluted phrasing into intelligible English, he was merely interested in appropriating the Two Chiangs' "collective right" to abrogate individual rights, and reassigning it to champions of Taiwan independence, to champions of a "collective Taiwanese ethnic, cultural, and political identity."

Anyone who purports to be a champion of human rights must evince a desire to right wrongs, and not merely change victimizers. Anyone who evinces merely a desire to change victimizers, has not earned the right to be taken seriously.