Human Rights and Asian Values

Taking a stand for universal rights, both theoretically and empirically, this text analyzes social and political processes in a number of East and Southeast Asian countries.
The Asian challenge to the universality of human rights has caused intense debate. In response, the contributors to this volume make a clear stand for universal rights, theoretically and empirically, through an analysis of social and political processes in Asia. asian values are linked to the struggle between authoritarian and democratic forces, which both tend to convey stereotyped images of the west, but with reversed meanings. The view of the scholars represented in this volume is that there is indeed no "Asian" perspectives that is entirely discordant with western or other perspectives and unanimously shared by all Asian societies. Rather, they argue, when looked upon in isolation Asian values are fairly easily exposed as commonplace conservative values: strong leadership, respect for authority, law and order, a communitarian orientation placing the good of the collective over the rights of the individual, emphasis on the family, etc. From a straightforward human rights viewpoint, the real challenge posed by advocates of Asian values is not their ideological message but the mere fact that the 1993 Bangkok Declaration was made - that Asian governments representing or controlling