Value of Human Rights

On the Value of Human Rights: Russian Perspective
By Helen Shelestiuk

It looks as if certain behind-the-scenes impresarios have arranged a contest in the Western high politics and mass media in ‘who will slash Russia the hardest’. The US Council on Foreign Relations has adopted a resolution demanding to blackball Russia from the Big Eight, to refuse it hosting the summit in St. Petersburg, to ostracize Russia in politics and economy. The Department of State in its annual report resents the unsatisfactory condition of democracy in Russia. Many European Council activists criticize Russia with not less zeal. There are attempts to enlist Russia among ‘pariah states’ together with Belarus, North Korea and Iran. It appears that certain powers are interested in formation of a new anti-Russian coalition and the turn from the surreptitious ‘cool’ war against Russia to open cold war.

How can we account for the new confrontational anti-Russian tendencies in the policies of the USA and European countries?

There are no valid proofs for Russia’s forsaking democracy. Perhaps what arouses protest is Putin’s attention to consolidation of power, minding Russia’s national interests – abandoned in B. Yeltsin’s era - and pursuit of more independent and sovereign policy? Or the exclusion from Russian politics of oligarchs and the antinational lobby, which threatens to ‘nullify the achievements’ in loosening the solid state system of the Soviet-times Russia? Or more control over denigrating and manipulative journalism in some politically engaged Russian TV channels, which keep up the traditions of anti-Russian propaganda of Yeltsin’s times? Or is there a fear that Russia, having resurrected, like phoenix, from the post-Soviet ashes, will become an impediment to somebody’s aspirations for global dominance? Or is it because some political hawks have taken on Russia as the familiar old-time ‘enemy image’ and are now refurbishing this image in order to divert the public attention from their own aggressive dealings? All these reasons may have combined to produce the apparent toughening of Western course towards Russia, sometimes bordering on open hostility.

The usual ‘trump card’ for the USA is the play-up of human rights and personal liberties abuse issues. It is well known that sometimes ‘human rights’ have been placed above sovereignty of nations and served as a justification for interference in their internal affairs and even military aggression against them with the purpose of establishing puppet regimes there. The tragic example of Yugoslavia is very representative, as well as the US-inspired coups in many post-Soviet republics. Under the slogan of human rights defense and implantation of democracy the forces are brought to power which are favorable to the USA and hostile to Russia. ‘We have witnessed a Rose Revolution in Georgia, an Orange Revolution in the Ukraine, a Purple Revolution in Iraq, a Tulip Revolution in Kyrgyzstan, and a Cedar Revolution in Lebanon -- and these are only the beginning... America is standing with these democratic reformers because we know that the only force powerful enough to stop the rise of tyranny and terror, and replace hatred with hope, is the force of human freedom. And by extending freedom to millions who have not known it, we will advance the cause of peace and make America more secure’, said G.W. Bush in his address to the Academy's Class of 2001.

America does not only ‘stand with these democratic reformers’, who are always victorious, however few and unrepresentative. In most cases it stands behind them, because these revolutions are in America’s national interests.