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| Re: Ethical: receiving assistance from, & lending credibility to brutal regime?
Posted by carl   on 2/5/2009, 12:41 am, in reply to "Re: Ethical: receiving assistance from, & lending credibility to brutal regime?"
VIP Poster
Hi,
In my hurried response, I didn't make clear that one of the great offenders of human rights in Gandhi's time was America, rather than the American Press. But, then, we might ask a black woman reporter about her career in that period.
I'm not saying that any silence is justified.
There's an old saying that goes, "love me, love my dog." If your pro-people health organization takes the money of the Chinese or any other embassy, then it would seem the organization owes the embassy at the very least the courtesy of not humiliating the embassy in public during the event when speaking out would seem to be an (easy) opportunity.
We then come to whether the health organization makes itself an accomplice by taking the money in the first place. Taking the sponsorship serves the organization's constituency. Not taking or, even better, returning the sponsorship makes a louder statement against the repression of the government then speaking out at the event or refusing to have one's picture taken.
I know of an organization that refused a large donation because the money was coming from known organized criminals. They didn't take the money and decry the plight of drug users, gamblers, and those who take loans on the streets. They simply said, "thanks, but no thanks."
In this economy, it would not seem that the CEO of your organization had such a choice. Were I in his place, I would not want to advise my board to turn down a major gift because it came from a government known for human rights violations. On the other hand, the students of Brown University forced the school to change investment policies and divest itself of South African holdings when anti-apartheid sentiments were strong. No one mentions the many, many previous years of torture, humiliation, and repression that occurred before it became cool to be anti-apartheid.
So, when do we start speaking out? And, where? And, under what conditions? Do we disengage ourselves from China until it corrects it's egregious practices? Do we say to American companies, do not look to China to bail us out of the recession because they are hideous human rights violators? And, when do we get to engage China on the world stage where speaking out really matters?
These questions are far too complex for me. But, I know this, I would not say to my governing board, "Yeah, we had a chance at a quarter of a million dollar sponsorship from the Chinese embassy but they lock people up without habeas corpus so I turned them down." I'm not the one who would want that conversation.
Carl
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