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Throwing Water at The Sun
C O N C L U S I O N
Parekh (2000) suggests a human rights framework, which responds to the moral and ideological diversity in the world, which he calls 'non-ethnocentric universalism'. This universalism, he claims, negotiates the divide between moral or cultural relativism on the one hand, and the foundation claim that there is a 'knowable' humanity on which to build universal human rights norms on the other 64. He argues that as human moral life can be and is lived in different ways across the globe we must tend away from normative hierarchical constructions of good/ better/ best values, towards an approach, which accommodates diverse moral codes. How do we do this? He doesn't quite know, but, he argues, it starts with dialogue. He writes that "(i)f universal values are to enjoy widespread support and democratic validation and be free of ethnocentric biases, they should arise out of an open and uncoerced cross-cultural dialogue" 65. I hope that this paper is, in some way, a contribution to this dialogue.
Parekh's notion of 'cross-cultural dialogue on human rights' must occur both within and without the UN Committee system. In this construction, human rights treaties can be thought of as an importance space for dialogue between survivors of human rights abuses and states. In this paper, I have already examined, although in a small way for want of appropriate time and space, some aspects of this cross-cultural dialogue, which have occurred both within and outside of the UN system. In concluding, what notion remains? As Booth (2000) argues, the people who must be heard in debates about human rights are not governments or international organisations, but the victims of human rights abuses themselves 66. But, in the case of Burma, giving voice to human rights violations requires Burmese people to fix their experience within the established international human rights frameworks. If we acknowledge the role of the United Nations Human Rights Commission as the narrator of Burmese people's human rights stories, we should equally commit and adhere to an ongoing process of critique of human rights language, which is both dialectical and relational. This surely, sets out a clear academic project for future discussions of human rights change in Burma.