As I sat through the mainly tepid proceedings of the forum organised by Suhakam in commemoration of World Human Rights Day two weeks ago, my thoughts began to veer off to my trip to Strasbourg, the regional capital of Alsace last June to present a couple of papers at the Association for European Paediatric Cardiology Annual Scientific Session.

Much as I was delighted to participate in the conference, I also looked forward to visiting this historic city. Having changed hands between France and Germany five times over 200 years, finally returning to France in 1944 as the tide began to turn against Hitler's Nazi Germany in the 2nd World War, it is today, along with Brussels, the capital of Europe, a symbol of European unity and integration.

In this city are located three important institutions, the Council of Europe, the European Parliament and the European Court of Human Rights. Ah, I learnt something new too, that Gutenberg lived in this city in the 15th century and a square near the cathedral is named after him.

Just in case those who were born in the computer era do not know, he was the man who invented the printing press. A few weeks before the trip I was told by an expat friend about a tourism venture called 'Colmar Tropicale' at Bukit Tinggi.

We vaguely understood it then that it aimed to recreate this town not far from Strasbourg on Malaysia's tropical highlands. I thought that this was a ridiculous, if not ludicrous idea, but made a point to visit the real Colmar and see for myself what it is that had so charmed the project owner.

Old city

A major tourist attraction in Alsace is Route du vin (the wine road), a vineyard region on the foothills of the Southern Vosges mountains. Nestled among the vineyards are many picturesque medieval villages with their tall church spires, belfries and half timbered buildings along narrow winding lanes and cobblestoned squares.

Colmar lies near the southern tip of this region. Personally, after nearly a week absorbing the charms of Strasbourg and seeing numerous pretty Alsatian villages along the way, I failed to see what is the big deal about creating a copy of Colmar in Malaysia.

To me the most beautiful building is a former Dominican convent which has been converted into a museum ( Muse d'Unterlinden ) but this of course does not feature at Bukit Tinggi as far as I could judge from the pictures.

Besides, getting to the old city, one has to drive through the congested, featureless modern part of the town that has sprawled around it. In contrast, Strasbourg is almost entirely an old city and is easily manageable on foot.

Its city centre is concentrated on a small island encircled by the River Ill, dominated by its magnificent cathedral. Many of the narrow streets were intended for horse carriages and are today pedesterianised.

Opening lines

Have I whetted the appetites of armchair travellers? Well, that is not exactly what I had set out to do actually. I wish to go back to where I started, i.e. to reflect on the question of human rights in Malaysia as an ordinary citizen.

One evening, taking a break from European food, we decided to have dinner at a Kashmiri restaurant. As the Pakistani waiter began taking our orders he asked us whether we were in Strasbourg for a human rights conference.

That is one of his opening lines with his diners I guess. The city frequently receives many visitors. Apart from the European deputies when the EU parliament is in session, there are participants to the many conferences and small workshops organised there and human rights is one of the more common themes.

Some may cynically say that the westerners' zeal in the cause of human rights after the Cold War has developed into an industry but I could see the seriousness of purpose among the Europeans. The opening ceremony of our scientific session took place at the Council of Europe (the EU parliament rented this venue for their sessions before they had their own building next door).

This was officiated by a representative of the secretary general of the Council who spoke at length about human rights and democracy, subjects remotely relevant to the medical conference. As we formed a very small minority of the audience, the speech was obviously not intended to condescendingly impress the non-Europeans.

Frozen

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights on Dec 10, 1948 at the Palais Chaillot in Paris raised the hopes of a universal system affording some minimum protection for everyone, everywhere.

"Millions of men, women and children, all over the world, many miles from Paris and New York will turn for help, guidance and inspiration to this document," said the president of the General Assembly. These hopes were however short-lived.

They remained frozen by the cold war for four decades. "The power blocs did not deny the idea of universal human rights, with shameless hypocrisy they signed convention after convention so long as no meaningful enforcement action could ever be taken.

"Human rights became a phrase incorporated into insults traded between the great powers as they secretly vied for the support of dictatorships which comprehensively violated them. The four decades between 1948 and the collapse of communism may be characterised - and stigmatised - as the lip service era for human rights.

"There were times - the early days of Jimmy Carter's presidency, for example, when the idea resonated before succumbing to realpolitik " writes Geoffrey Robertson QC in his book Crimes against humanity, the struggle for global justice (Penguin Books 1999).

He added further that "the only progress in this regard was regional and confined to Western Europe where a human rights court at Strasbourg gradually made guarantees of fundamental freedoms more meaningful to citizens across a dozen harmonious continental borders.

"With the collapse of communism the European convention and its Strasbourg court were sufficiently impressive for newly liberated nations of Eastern Europe to sign up for membership and by the time of the UN's triumph alist talkfest at Vienna in 1993 there was much more genuine desire to put human rights at the centre of the New World order It seemed possible to extrapolate the Strasbourg experiment to a global level "

Pathetic

I find it difficult to share the optimism contained in that last sentence. Not yet anyway. The Western European nations that made up the EU before the end of the Cold War are mature democracies who did not have appalling human rights records and therefore have no problems accepting jurisdiction from a supranational institution.

And for aspiring new members from the ex-socialist bloc, the economic benefits, enhanced respectability on the world stage and the overwhelming desire of their people to be integrated with the civilised world make complying with the European convention seem the logical thing to do.

But outside their geo political boundaries, one could see the pathetic contradictions between their professed faith and their actions when faced with genocide perpetrated by the Serbs in Bosnia-Herzegovina, although they did better in Kosovo last year.

For much of Asia and Africa, notwithstanding the pockets of democratic transition, lip service to the human rights cause remains the order of the day. More than a year after Suhakam was established by an act of Parliament, there are those who still harbour doubts and misgivings about the real intentions of the government in setting up this commission.

Was it out of a genuine desire to raise awareness on human rights and ensure the protection of citizens' civil liberties as enshrined in the constitution or simply to placate the mounting pressure from civil society groups and the political opposition to respect the people's democratic space apart from a desire for respectability among community of nations?

Such skepticism is not entirely unfounded. An NGO at the forefront of the human rights struggle has stated that Suhakam has not been able to make any significant impact in the vital areas of human rights.

In its report, it criticised the commissioners in Suhakam "who have little or no experience in the field of human rights" and there is no representation from existing human rights activist organisations. Too strongly worded and prematurely unfair I thought, but they echo the opinions that one encounters on website discussions.

Barbaric

Suhakam's choice of the theme - Rights with responsibility - for its forum that Sunday did not help either. That responsibility comes with freedom is a given. The foreign minister's keynote address recycled the stale ideas of "Asian values" slant to human rights, which we all know are veiled justification for suppression of civil liberties in the name of political stability which in turn brings the promise economic prosperity.

Posed with the thorny questions of draconian laws that stifle legitimate dissent that rob citizens who choose to disagree with the government of the day of their rights and dignity, especially that one particular barbaric Act, the same cautions answer was given that "we will study them and make our recommendations to the government".

This was what we heard when soon after Suhakam was established. In truth, Malaysian citizens, even when clamouring for more openness and repeal of unjust laws, have shown remarkably that to raise the question of "responsibility" time and again is quite simply, irresponsible.

But there may be a silver lining, even if a very faint one. Suhakam's on-going open inquiry into alleged police brutality during the Nov 5 gathering of 100,000 people at the Kesas highway surprisingly receives wide coverage in some mainstream newspapers.

The police and the Attorney-General's chambers have so far spurned invitations to observe but let us see if they will come and give their testimony when the inquiry reconvenes after the new year.

Even if Suhakam is powerless to go beyond this, the mere embarrassment caused to the police, and by extension, the Barisan Nasional government, especially in the aftermath of their narrow Lunas defeat, may just take us one step further in the human rights cause.

Suhakam may find itself playing a bigger role than it is intended or allowed to do. The credit should go to the brave citizens who dare stand up.

DR MAZENI ALWI is a medical practitioner who takes care of sick children.