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 Transcript:
This programme in the 'I have
a right to...' initiative was first broadcast on 20 October
2000. It was presented by 大象传媒 World Affairs Correspondent Rageh
Omar and produced by Charu Shahane.
JULIA MILLER:
"I want to know why when I put the TV on I can see a
commercial or something about the people over in another country
being hungry while we have hungry people here in Washington.
We've got kids here who's families are hungry and starving.
Why can't we be recognised so we can benefit from housing, food
and clothing. Can somebody tell me why?".
When Julia Miller was homeless
on the streets of the United States capital Washington for ten
years, she had the right to vote, but she was hungry. She had
the right to join a trade union, but she didn't have a job.
In this programme I'll be asking whether any rights should have
a priority - in particular whether political freedom is more
important than food.
JULIA MILLER:
"About the age of twelve I left home for a number for
reasons, things happening in my home. So then I had to survive,
so I learned a lot about being in the streets. I've never been
to the point where I would eat from dustbins, like I saw some
other people doing, I was blessed that people gave me food.
I know how to survive. I'm still moving, I'm still struggling
today and I try to help everybody that I come across, because
I know how it is to be homeless and have nothing".
Who should provide for Julia?
Doesn't she have a right to food, a right to shelter, a right
to basic health care? Well in the richest country in the world
it's largely left to charitable organisations, such as the interfaith
group, SOME, - the acronym of So Others Might Eat - to provide
for people like her.
Every day a team of volunteers
comes to serve meals...
DAVID BRIGHT/VOX POP:
"I am David Bright and a volunteer for SOME. In SOME's
main dining room we serve breakfast and lunch here seven days
a week".
VOX POP:
"I'm one of the people from Andrews Airforce base. This
is our Tuesday, the third Tuesday of the month, we do lunch
time. The good people of Andrews sent in today ninety-five casseroles.
We also brought in about eight gallons of orange juice, eight
bags of clothes, four bags of toys".
DAVID BRIGHT:
"OK, you'll see as they come in they'll pick up a plate
and they'll go down the other end and have a seat. This young
man will seat them and the people who come, we treat them with
respect. They generally respond to that, so we have very few
problems here. We give them a good meal - you saw the menu -
we got cookies today".
According to government
estimates, around two million people spend time homeless in
America every year. Among them are women with children, victims
of violence, people with serious mental illnesses, drug addicts,
alcoholics, and those who simply can't afford to pay their rent.
Millions more don't have enough money to pay for their food
as well as their utility bills, such as electricity or gas.
They may use soup kitchens for meals. They many also visit a
food pantry which distributes basic foodstuffs such as bread,
milk, and dried and tinned goods. Linda Donaldson is the director
of advocacy and family services at SOME:
LINDA DONALDSON:
"In the richest country in the world we still have a
problem with the distribution of health care, shelter, food.
I think there certainly isn't a supply problem for food here
in the United States, but there's a very serious problem with
access. In the poorest section of the District of Columbia there
is no major grocery store where people who are poor can buy
food. It's an access issue. The same thing with health care,
especially with this economic boom that we're experiencing.
It certainly isn't true that a rising tide lifts all boats.
I would say that there are lots of people who don't even have
boats, so they can't be lifted".
DION LYLES:
"Give him a hand…"
Dion Lyles recently became the assistant kitchen manager for
SOME. It wasn't so long ago when he found himself with no job
and no home.
DION LYLES:
"I was homeless. I became homeless, lost my job and
besides not having a place to live, I had no way to feed myself
and I heard about SOME from other people, so I started coming
to SOME myself and I was told that they offered housing and
a lot of other services, so I checked up on that. I eventually
got a job with SOME as a part time night manager and was asked
about three months ago to come over here and be assistant manager
of kitchen. And so that's it and here I am today".
The reality of homeless,
hungry people getting by on handouts and voluntary care sits
uneasily with the image of the land of the free. As Julia Miller
told us earlier, it's not just in the developing world that
people are struggling to get by. At the United Nations, the
Commission on Human Rights has set up a working group on the
right to development which is spearheading a change in thinking.
The High Commissioner for Human Rights is Mary Robinson:
MARY ROBINSON:
"I think there's an increasing recognition, which I
welcome, that we have under valued the set of rights which we
call economic, social and cultural rights and indeed the right
to development as set out in the declaration on the right to
development of 1986. When I say that the focus of attention
for the human rights community at large for the period of the
Cold War was to focus on civil and political rights, on issue
of torture, prohibition of freedom of expression, preventing
political activity, killings etc. All of those are extremely
important, but equally important are the legal commitments under
the Convention of the Rights of the Child, under the covenant
on economic and social rights, to progressively implement economic,
social and cultural rights: right to food, to basic health care,
to safe water, to education. Increasingly we are recognising
that both sets of rights are intimately linked, that you can't
further human rights unless you adopt this balanced approach.
And if that balanced approach of being strong in supporting
both civil and political rights and also economic and social
and cultural rights happens and the human being is at the centre
of it, that's what we call the human right to development".
It's an increasing recognition but own which has a long way
to go before it is embraced not only by world organisations
such as the IMF and the World Bank, but also by national governments,
because it places a huge burden on them to provide more for
their citizens, more food, more shelter and more health care.
At present, says the renowned Indian economist, Amartya Sen
- a leading intellectual force behind the idea of the human
right to development - the US government is actually violating
its citizens' human rights by not providing adequate medical
care:
AMARTYA SEN:
"In the Human Rights sense, yes, that is if you think
the human right to get health coverage, you could even say.
The United States is not alone in doing that, but it is probably
the only rich country which does not provide that right in the
world. One has to be very careful how one places that, because
the moment you say that you are violating rights, people say,
but there is no such right in the United States. Then you have
to say, well we're not talking about real right, we're talking
about human rights".
In America most people's
health cover is tied to their jobs. The only government provision
is for those over sixty-five and those who are very poor or
disabled. If you don't have a job, or if your employer doesn't
provide health insurance, you may have to go without. On the
other side of the road from SOME's dining room is its free health
clinic. The group's director, Father John Adams, is proud of
the services it provides:
JOHN ADAMS:
"This is our eye clinic which is all beautiful new equipment,
it was all donated. We have one day a week where we pay an eye
doctor to come and we have other eye doctors that come and volunteer
their time from universities. So this is a Godsend to have,
an eye clinic".
It was to a clinic such
as this that Dion Lyles decided to go when he became ill. The
sad fact is, he says, that if you don't have health insurance,
the alternative is to suffer:
DION LYLES:
"My friends who don't have health insurance have to
deal with the illnesses that they have, be whatever it might
be. Some places do have free clinics, but not a lot of places
in (Washington) DC are like that, so they just have to live
with it".
But why is it that charitable
and other non-profit organisations are doing what in many parts
of the world governments do - and their people expect as a right?
Linda Donaldson believes the answer lies in America's origins,
that historically many Americans blamed the poor for being poor:
LINDA DONALDSON:
"I think about the Protestant work ethic and the value
of work and the value of self sustainability and how that seems
to have carried over in many of our American traditions. And
we have not...a more compassionate stance towards people who's
needs arise from their situations, not from personal deficits.
I think we still look at personal deficits versus the environmental
factors that cause poverty".
As estimated forty-four
million Americans are uninsured and the number is growing. Recently
the World Health Organisation rated the USA thirty-seventh in
terms of quality of health care. Those countries with universal
healthcare systems generally had better results and the USA
was ranked fifty-fourth in terms of the fairness of financial
contributions towards healthcare. But, says Gail Shearer, the
director of health policy at the Consumers' Union in Washington,
health coverage for all Americans is still a long way off:
GAIL SHEARER:
"There have been efforts to get national health insurance
in the United States ever since the 1930s, but there have been
decades and decades of fights over this and we haven't been
able to reach a consensus of how you pay for a national health
insurance programme. Over the last twenty or thirty years the
insurance companies, the doctors, the health maintenance organisation,
the pharmaceutical companies, they have been able to use their
power and their money to resist major progressive changes in
health policy in the United States".
The sick, with no health insurance often go to places like DC
General, a charity hospital which has served Washington DC's
poor for two hundred years.
It's emergency room is one
of busiest in the city. This lady has CLPD, which is a kind
of obstructive pulmonary disease and we're trying to evaluate
her for admission and I just need to go and see her chest X-ray
to see what's going on because her oxygen levels were very low.
The Chief of Emergency Medicine
here is Doctor Howard Freed.
HOWARD FREED:
"We see on average a hundred-and-forty patients a day
in the range of fifty to fifty-two thousand patients a year.
Here you are looking just at how many have commercial or private
insurance, which is the main group in the United States. Around
one or two per cent of our patients have insurance, about half
have some form of government coverage and then about forty-eight
per cent are what are technically called self-pay, but sometimes
called no-pay. These patients who really don't have any insurance,
most of that is uncollected".
Doctor Freed says that every
day many patients who've been turned away by other hospitals
end up at DC General, which today is struggling for funds itself
and is threatened with closure.
If you're rich or insured in America, doctors are happy to treat
you, if you're poor or uninsured many might turn you away and
you just suffer. You can find some compassionate doctors who
treat patients for no payment, says Howard Freed, but that is
not enough:
HOWARD FREED:
"One of my uncles was a physician in a small community
and after he passed away and the family went into his home to
collect his things, in the basement they found hundreds and
hundreds of unopened packages and gifts from patients that he
would happily accept and then throw in the basement and not
even look at. So certainly there are providers with terrific
compassion and the economic wherewithal to provide a lot of
uncompensated care. On the other hand it is perfectly legal
for one to be quite selfish about it. I believe that access
to good health care is a basic human right. There is no question
that we can afford it here in the United States".
GAIL SHEARER:
"We are at a time of incredible prosperity. We are a
country with tremendous political freedoms. There is reason
why in the United States there should have to be a trade-off
between political freedom and economic freedom and economic
rights to health care. We have the potential to have it all
and it's just a question of overcoming the special interest
and mounting the political will to bring health care as a right
to all Americans".
Gail Shearer of the Consumers'
Union. The new human rights thinking is about "having it
all". It reasserts the ground of the Universal Declaration
of Human Rights of 1948, which says that all rights are equal,
putting political and civil rights on the same footing as economic,
social and cultural rights. And it stresses that they are also
interdependent; you can't achieve one without the other. It
was just the Cold War rivalries that muddied the territory,
says Christine Chinkin, human rights legal expert at the London
School of Economics:
CHRISTINE CHINKIN:
"If you look at the Universal Declaration itself, you
have got both sets of rights in the single document. It's in
the 1960s when you get the separate covenants for the civil
and political rights and the economic and social and cultural
rights, which was essentially the political compromise to the
fact that there was this tension between the major players.
So then there was the agreement that OK we'll have two separate
documents and the wording and the enforcement measures are stronger
in the civil and political rights covenant, feeding into the
West's argument that therefore this is really the dominant one.
And it was really post Cold War, end of Cold War, that it's
become again more possible to assert the indivisibility of the
two sets of rights".
And that idea of interdependence
is key because it means that governments can't claim to offer
their people freedom or food, they've got to give them BOTH.
CHRISTINE CHINKIN:
"If you fail to provide people with an adequate protection
of the economic and social rights, if you fail to provide basic
housing, basic food, access to employment, access to education,
their enjoyment of civil and political rights is also highly
likely to be impeded".
This is a double-edged sword.
Just as it challenges Western nations to deliver on their citizens
basic needs, it also challenges those countries which have failed
to deliver political rights to their citizens. There was a view,
particularly amongst communist countries, that certain civil
and political rights would only come after a certain level of
development had been reached and this attitude lingers on.
VOICE IN CHINESE: TRANSLATION:
"You can't say things that are too extreme. That's illegal.
You have to love the Party and the country".
An unlicensed taxi driver
in Beijing goes about as far as anyone will in China in decrying
his lack of freedom of speech. But today people in China need
a voice and the opening up of the economy over the past decade
has turned their lives upside down.
BEIJING STREET:
In modern China, jobs are no longer guaranteed, factories have
closed and people made redundant survive on subsistence payments.
Kong Li lives in a flat in north east Beijing with her husband
and daughter who is twenty.
She remembers how things used to be:
KONG LI:
"When students graduate today they have to look after
themselves. Before it was better, when your child graduated
the state would assign them a job. But the development has been
so quick that now there are too many people, the migrants get
all the jobs. Even graduates can't find work".
But Mrs Kong has no concept of demanding that things should
be different. She can't imagine that her government could provide
more for her.
KONG LI :
"If you're not satisfied, well, bad luck. That's what
the state has decided. There are policies. If you're not satisfied
and you dislike not having enough money - well there's nothing
you can do about it".
Kong Li lost her factory
job over a year ago and now receives a state pension, which
she say is not enough to live on. Now that she's past fifty
she says there's no chance of her getting another job.
KONG LI :
"You have to rely on yourself, there's no other way,
the state can't do anything either. If you don't have enough
money, you just have to borrow. Borrow from friends. You have
to borrow from friends to pay your medical expenses. You have
to borrow from friends to pay school fees too and you can't
delay otherwise your child can't go to school".
So who looks after China's
poor today, particularly the multitudes of rural poor? Marcel
Roux is the former head of the Medecins Sans Frontier mission
to China and now works to help street children there.
MARCEL ROUX:
"We must understand that since the opening up of China
to the World Trade, there is a big change in Chinese society
and everything has become private. Now you have to pay for any
medical care which is not often good at rural level and you
have to pay for education. In some areas there are a lot of
children who no longer can afford to go to school and these
days there are a lot of children that have never been to school.
Today in China in practice, you can say that social rights for
education or for proper medical care are existing only if you
have the money. It looks like a capitalist society, you can
compare it with the American society because it's almost the
same".
China's emphasis on rights
has been the reverse of the United States. It claimed to put
food before freedom, basic needs before political rights, the
masses before the individual. But the move to a free market
economy has threatened many areas of state provision. The UN's
High Commissioner for Human Rights, Mary Robinson, points to
the growing divides in the country, between the affluent boom
areas and the vast swathes of extremely poor rural China:
MARY ROBINSON:
"These are big challenges to China and they bring up
questions because China has made very significant progress on
economic and social rights, but has not made progress to the
same extent - and indeed in some areas has gone back on freedom
of expression and freedom for religious belief, freedom of association.
And part of what I'm trying to do is to bring home the need
to recognise the integration of both sets of rights that really
a sustained advance will be when it is an advance of both sets
of rights".
But there are still governments
which say that political rights as understood in the West, aren't
as important as economic rights if you are doing well enough.
Governments like Singapore's, for example. While clearly having
a far smaller population to provide for, this island state has
achieved what neither China nor the United States has managed
to, by providing a very high standard of living for the majority
of its citizens. But do its people miss not having full political
freedom?
SPEAKER IN HONG LIN PARK:
This is Speakers' Corners, Singapore-style. It's loosely modelled
on the historic Speakers' Corner in London's Hyde Park, where
people are allowed to stand up and say whatever they want. But
there are major differences. In Hong Lin Park speakers have
to register in advance with the police. Their chosen topic is
vetted and religion and politics are banned. Also no foreigners
are allowed to speak. Our speaker is complaining about the high
rents in government-owned apartment blocks:
So what big deal, I can't
go there to address political issues, oppositions still have
no platform to express their views. For this young PR executive
the restrictions on Speakers' Corner are typical of a society
where criticism of those in power is frowned upon.
SOUND OF COFFEE CUPS:
Over a coffee in one of the island's smart cafes, he explained
why he was willing to talk to us, but not to reveal his name.
PR EXECUTIVE:
"We have seen situations where if you speak openly against
a certain authority and you put yourself in a situation where
you may not be able to find a job related to that authority
or to the government. I have to safeguard my job, my security.
I have no worries about getting robbed on the streets, I can
quit my job today and I'm pretty sure within a week I can find
an new job. The education system is very vibrant, it's very
competitive, but the fact of the matter is free speech still
must play a role in our development. We are just lagging behind
in that area".
Some young people in Singapore
are becoming impatient with their lack of free speech, but most
people are happy with the way things are. Ovidia Yu works in
advertising and believes that the rights to a job, to a good
education and to a high standard of living are more important
than the right to freedom of speech. Ovidia thinks that the
unlimited free speech allowed in much of the West is dangerous.
OVIDIA YU:
"I think that total freedom of speech might bother me
more. I know that's the wrong kind of thing to say to you isn't
it? But you read about total freedom of speech and how people
can't stop - people in America for instance can't stop people
getting up big rallies with the neo-fascists and holocaust deniers
and anti abortionists and anti-gay movements. And you can't
stop these people from saying things and sending out hate mail
because they have freedom of speech. They are protected. And
that I find more scary".
Across Singapore there are
many who share her view. In one of the richest countries on
earth, with hugely impressive public systems for health, education
and welfare, many people feel they have what they need. The
ruling party has been in power here since independence thirty-five
years ago. And within the country's tightly controlled form
of democracy, there are just two opposition MPs out of eighty-three
elected to Parliament. One of them is Chiam See Tong of the
Singapore People's Party:
CHIAM SEE TONG:
"Singapore is a nation country, predominantly Chinese
and of course they originally come from China. In China there's
no background of democracy, no background of human rights, it's
a purely feudalistic oppressive country and people who migrate
to Singapore, their main concern is to make a good living here
and not to come over here to build a politically acceptable
country. They are more concerned with their livelihoods. So
I think everybody is striving to make material improvements
first".
Such a mindset was reinforced
by the ideas of Singapore's ex-Prime Minister, Lee Kuan Yew,
who subscribed to a school of thought that actually said political
and civil rights hamper economic growth. The economist, Amartya
Sen, says there is simply no evidence of that being true:
AMARTYA SEN:
"It never was a robust contrast, even when Singapore
and South Korea were going faster than any other country in
Asia. The fact was that the fastest growing economy in Africa
was Botswana, a major defender of democracy, through thick and
thin in Africa. So the Asian evidence, which was in any case
sporadic, was contradicted directly by African evidence".
Professor Sen is known for
his observation that no democracy has ever had a famine - and
is not likely to, as people with political rights have the means
to object to their plight, while a free press keeps the government
more aware of what's happening. And, he says, the peril of pursuing
economic development without political rights was amply demonstrated
by the crash of the Asian financial markets in 1997.
AMARTYA SEN:
"It is not surprising that South Korea came into difficulty
when there was an Asian economic crisis. Because while there
wasn't a famine, people who were suddenly thrown to the wall
did miss the fact that they didn't have a political system to
protest and holler. Not surprisingly in the same period democracy
became a much bigger issue in Korea and of course it had moved
very firmly forward under Kim ......(the former leader) by making
democracy as the big slogan".
Political rights are there to give people a voice, to give them
the capacity to complain. If you can't complain you can't make
things better and you can't claim your rights. As our young
PR executive in Singapore says:
PR EXECUTIVE:
"I know that he wants to do what is best for the country.
They live in the same country as I do and at the end of the
day, what is good for me - I would like to have a say in how
to achieve that end".
The human rights standards
do not prescribe any type of political or social system, they
just set out the basic standards that should be reached, it's
up to each country how it does it. But there are choices. Providing
for civil and political rights is just as costly as providing
for economic and social rights. Courts and lawyers cost a lot
of money, just as hospitals and doctors do. In human rights
terms it's not a matter of good countries and bad countries
anymore, but areas where all can improve. Mary Robinson again:
MARY ROBINSON:
"Sometimes foreign ministers of countries come to see
me and they want to talk about human rights problems elsewhere
in the world. I usually start by talking about the human rights
problems in their country and then we go on and perhaps discuss
other issues".
Other issues like press
freedom and fair trials, perhaps, but also healthcare and housing
and poverty. And perhaps even people, like Julia Miller in Washington:
JULIA MILLER:
"I do think the government should provide for ones on
the street, the homeless, you know and we need help. Why can't
we be recognised so we can get benefits, so we can benefit from
housing, food and clothing? I need to know why, why?".
The new framework for human
rights thinking tries to put people at the centre, so that Kong
Li in Beijing can claim the same rights as Julia Miller in Washington,
both in terms of political rights and economic rights. But it's
clear that differences will remain - not only in terms of what
governments can deliver, but also in terms of what individuals
themselves expect.
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