Chapter 19 Chapter 4 It's not us who should be speechless

If you read the history written by Westerners in the past, you will find that the entire modern history of the world is a history of Western discourse power, which reflects the centuries-old strong position of the West in the world's political, economic and cultural fields.The French philosopher Foucault said sarcastically: What you talk about is not important, the key is who is talking, the strength of the words is determined by the strength of the speaker.Since the West has been in a strong position for hundreds of years, its discourse position naturally dominates.When Europeans tried to exterminate the American Indians, the explanation was that they had to do so; when Europeans sold black slaves, the explanation was that everyone did it at that time; when colonialism and imperialism were greedy and plundered, the explanation was to spread modern times. Civilization; later racism and apartheid have also undergone detailed and rational scientific demonstrations.After all, it is the 21st century now, the world has changed, China has changed, and the West has changed a lot. Although Western discourse still dominates the issue of discourse power, more and more different voices are emerging. This is a good thing. matter.

Concepts such as "freedom, democracy, and human rights" originated in the West, as long as they are not abused, they are all good things.In the past, the Chinese resisted the bullying of Western powers, and they insisted on these concepts, and in the process, they enriched their connotations.These concepts have become the common spiritual wealth of people all over the world today, and they can play a greater role in China's process of becoming prosperous and powerful.As the common wealth of the people of the world, its power of interpretation also belongs to the people of all countries, not a few countries.Otherwise, various absurdities may arise. For example, China’s reform and opening up has lifted more than 400 million people out of poverty in the past 30 years, which will be regarded as having nothing to do with the progress of human rights, while the US’s large-scale invasion of Iraq and the loss of countless lives are regarded as defending human rights.The world is progressing, China is rising, and the era when whoever has the power has the right to speak is gone forever.

Here we must first correct a historical deviation.The current mainstream discourse in the West says that the West has always been committed to promoting the universal values ​​of "freedom, democracy, and human rights."Many people also think that the European Enlightenment Movement, the American Declaration of Independence, and the French Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen established the universal values ​​of "freedom, democracy, and human rights." This is contrary to historical facts. The French "Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen" in 1789 is called Declaration des Droits de l'Homme et du Citoyen in French. The "man" and "citizen" (l'Homme and Citoyen) in French refer to men and Male citizens, more specifically male whites, exclude women, exclude people of color, exclude Chinese, and exclude poor people.In 1791, two years after the adoption of the "Declaration", a great French woman named Olympe de Gouges (Olympe de Gouges) drafted a "Declaration of the Rights of Women and Female Citizens" (Declaration des Droits de la Femme et de la Citoyenne), but she was guillotined, and the suffrage she wanted for women did not come to France until a century and a half after her death.

The same goes for the US Declaration of Independence in 1776.The founding fathers of the United States were indeed a group of very respected people, but they were also rich men of European descent, and many of them also owned black slaves."All men are created equal" in the United States "Declaration of Independence" refers to the equality among white men with status, and "everyone" does not include women, slaves, Chinese, or the poor among whites. Slavery was also a debated choice made by the founding fathers of the United States.In the two centuries starting from the 17th century, racism and colonialism were the "universal values" advocated by the West. For a long time, the freedom they talked about included the freedom to trade slaves, including the torture of Indians. Freedom from genocide includes freedom to dump opium into China.The American Civil War (1861-1865) abolished slavery, which is worthy of recognition, but after the war, the two sides still made a political compromise, believing that the value of American "unity" was higher than the value of "freedom" for blacks.The United States soon promulgated laws and established a system of racial segregation.This system of human rights abuses continued in the United States for another century.

From around 1870, with the rise of nation-states and the plundering of wealth worldwide, major European countries experienced rapid economic development, but also laid the groundwork for failure.At that time, European countries were superstitious about nationalism and nationalism, repaying evil for evil, which eventually led to two world wars, which severely damaged European civilization.Especially the Second World War almost destroyed European civilization. A more civilized Europe as we see it today was actually preserved by fluke.This kind of luck includes that Hitler's Nazi Germany has not yet invented the atomic bomb, and includes the great national sacrifices made by the Russian nation and the Chinese nation for the World Anti-Fascist War.During the arduous eight-year war of resistance, the Chinese people defended their independence with huge national sacrifices of 30 million casualties, and at the same time helped to defend European civilization.If the Chinese government at that time had surrendered in the face of fascist attacks like some European "democratic" countries, the Japanese fascists could have easily taken China, and then joined forces with Germany to take down the Soviet Union. With resources as the backing to dominate the world, how much European civilization can retain?The huge national sacrifice China has made for the world's anti-fascist cause is far from being recognized in the West.When British Prime Minister Winston Churchill talked with Western leaders in 1945, he dismissed China at all. When referring to "Chinese", he still used the word "Chinaman", which was a serious racial discrimination against Chinese.

But to be fair, after experiencing these disasters, some people of insight in the West finally began to reflect deeply, and re-evaluated and screened many mainstream values ​​in Europe, eliminating the bad ones and keeping the good ones. And work together with other representatives of the international community to make the good parts into universal values. This is the "Universal Declaration of Human Rights" adopted by the United Nations in 1948.This Declaration affirms the principle that all human beings should enjoy human rights "without distinction as to race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion".Only at this point can we say that the international community has truly started the great process of making "freedom, democracy, and human rights" universal values.

However, the development of history has not been smooth sailing. After the birth of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, racist ideas continued to dominate the domestic and foreign policies of the West.For example, in order to maintain its colonial rule, France launched the extremely brutal Vietnam War and the Algeria War. It was very reluctant to give up these colonies until it couldn't fight anymore.Similarly, African-Americans could no longer endure racial discrimination and set off a raging civil rights movement in the 1960s. Martin Luther King Jr. declared in 1963: "I dream that one day my four children will live in a family that is not based on the shade of skin color, It is a country that is judged by its merits and demerits.” It has been 187 years since the United States passed the Declaration of Independence, which stated that “all men are created equal.”

Tracing these histories is not to belittle the key role played by some important Western documents in history, nor does it intend to belittle the progress that Western civilization itself has made, but to accurately find out the ins and outs of today's universal values ​​and clarify certain cognitions. The blind spots in the world, and the process of confirming that "freedom, democracy, and human rights" have become universal values ​​is not the voluntary process of the West, but the long-term heroic struggle of all nations enslaved by the West, and the joint efforts of people of insight in the West. It was only then that these privileges that belonged to the few in the world were gradually transformed into universal values ​​that Western countries had to accept, and their connotations were greatly enriched in the process of interaction between different civilizations.

From the above description of the ins and outs of universal values, at least two points of inspiration can be drawn: First, the concept of so-called universal values ​​has not been truly recognized in the West for a long time, and there are more problems in practice.If the United States began to legally allow blacks and whites to enjoy the same "freedom, democracy, and human rights" in 1965, it would have only been more than 40 years, only a decade longer than our reform and opening up.Therefore, universal values ​​are still a new thing that needs our joint care, and it is the right time for China to make its own contribution to it.

Second, the West has adopted a dichotomous attitude towards its own political and cultural traditions, abandoning the dross and inheriting the good.For example, the West has been forced to abandon the "universal values" that were once very popular in the West, such as colonialism and racism, and explained "freedom, democracy, and human rights" in its own favor. Although it is not perfect, it is still Contains commendable progress.In contrast, many of us Chinese still hold a negative attitude towards China's own traditions, and believe that the entire history of China for thousands of years is a history of autocracy, and everything must be overthrown and restarted.In fact, few scholars in the West today deny that in the past 2,000 years of history, China has been ahead of the West in terms of politics, economy, culture, and technology for at least 1,500 years.The entire civil service system in the West was also borrowed from China.One of the main sources of thought in the European Enlightenment is the interpretation of Chinese culture by the French thinker Voltaire.Voltaire especially appreciated the Chinese people's views on religion: there were almost no religious wars in Chinese history, while religious wars had been fought for thousands of years in European history.

Today, we can fully understand and explore our long-standing cultural and traditional resources with today's perspective on the basis of a benign interaction with the world. This is a huge treasure trove of wisdom that has not yet been fully developed. Many challenges facing the world will have a huge impact on the formation of new universal values.