Us and Our Rights
Why is Human Right Important?
When writing this passage, I would be ending my internship in Amnesty International Indonesia soon, and perhaps move elsewhere to find a probable job to suits my personal growth. In the most candid explanation, there is much to be condensed throughout my experience interning in one of the world’s oldest human rights NGO. But to do enough justice, I am going to focus on one particular aspect of my vast experiences :how human rights should be an important aspect to one’s life.
Starting from where I left off, I have to scrupulously point out that this is based on my personal experiences working, handling, and even coordinating with the Amnesty International Indonesia’s National Teams effort in promoting for human rights. However, before I enter my long arduous experience, I would like to give some background, especially to those who are not familiar with Indonesian Eastern-Centric believes.
It goes to say that almost all people around the world believe that human rights’ is a viable and indivisible aspect of the human nature, we were born with these sets of rights, and not inherited them based on a merit blood line. This maybe true if you lived in the antiquity or the Dark Ages; except, those plausible contrasts were deconstructed after the 2nd World War. After the Holocaust, the Allied Countries of Russia, USA, French, UK, and China believed that they need to prevent any catastrophic consequences from happening again; henceforth, declarations after declarations were issued to prevent the same genocide (sadly, history have a bitter tendencies in repeating itself, look for example the Rwanda Case, The Serbian Massacre in Kosovo, and even modern days War Crimes that occurred in Rakhine States and Xin Jiang Province).
All was well, several UN member countries ratified many of UN covenants, conventions, and declaration to prevent any more atrocities, and protect individual and communal rights under international standards. Indonesia was one of said countries. We have ratified ICCPR, ICESCR, CEDAW, CAT to name a few of the international human rights documents. Without being said, all those convention were ratified into our national law, so that the country would ensure that no punitive action were made.
You might think that Indonesia is quite progressive in its political stance due to its’ ratification of many international standard documents. In a De Jure sense, our countries’ legislations were bound to those covenants and conventions; but De Facto, human rights is far from the public acceptance. It might comes to no one surprise that Indonesia’s limited political education have made its reasonable for some “irresponsible individuals who hold powers” to preach negative connotation towards the Human Rights’ concept. If you are foreigner or an Indonesian who spent most of your time in a foreign country, don’t be surprise to hear that some people might say that Human Rights is a “Western Ideologies”.
Human Rights is far from being a Western Ideologies. For those who spent their times devoting their live and work in this particular field (me being one of them for a brief while), they knew that the reality is far from what the general populous called as a Western Ideologies. Then, comes an important question : If Human Rights is not a Western Concept or Ideologies that some Indonesian claimed it to be, why is so important? Well, it goes to say that we are alive because of our rights, so I think that it would be an understatement if some people believe that Human Rights is a “Western Concept”. We could thank human rights, that have been inserted into our common laws, to keep us safe and alive.
A more detailed explanation derived from my personal experience interning at Amnesty International Indonesia. Now, we have agreed on the term that Human Rights is for everyone, and all were not exempted from Human Rights on my previous paragraph. Sadly, that is not the case for Indonesian people. Some, if not several, people who were considered to be “minorities” in many areas throughout the world, including Indonesia, are an easy target for Human Rights’ Violation. This isn’t a confounding surprise actually, many people have been the victims of their right suppression.
The story of which I am about to tell you did occur and solely based on my experience working first hand with this issue (although I did not directly participate in the field action). In this narration, I do not particularly chose a minority human rights’ violation, instead I took an experiences that applied to almost all Indonesian society. Imagine if you used your fundamental rights of assembly and speech to voice your concerns about a particularly damaging bill that could affect your probability in having a job were being met with tear gas, water canons, and tantamount of violence's as if you are rioting and looting, while you do not have such intention. This was exactly occurred during some of the peaceful Omnibus Bill’s assembly between laborer's, college students, and many other affected groups. The peaceful assembly were met with fully equipped security apparatuses, complete with security equipment that I have already mentioned. Some horrendous reports of people being beaten, tortured, and even ridiculed were received. This event does not occur in a singular provinces, but a plethora of provinces and towns throughout Indonesia.
Some might politicize this events and still claimed that Human Rights is a Western Ideology; however, let us not forget, without human rights or any legal instruments, the Omnibus Bill protesters wouldn’t only sustain bodily damages, some of the protesters could end up losing their lives. It goes to say, human right is not a “Western Ideologies” like some people frequently mentioned. We need human rights, as much as it needs us.
What I learn is a personal journey throughout my interning periods. Though I am not so sure whether or not I would be continuing my career in any Human Rights Organization, I can firmly believe that the work of promoting, respecting, and protecting human rights’ does not fall exclusively towards activist, human rights defenders, or victims, but it is a mutual work for everyone. One thing that I am both frightened and made to realize during my internship was the fact that everyone could be a human rights’ violation victim, no matter how privilege you might be. To end this long passage, I would like to conclude that we all have a part to play in preserving our rights and everyone else’s. If it is not human who protect their own rights, then who will?