EVERYDAY, we witness the danger of wielding human rights as a political tool, to silence the dissent voices. As we are approaching our 60th anniversary of independence, it is a day where we should reflect of our freedoms. It is timely for us to ponder how many freedoms that we get to enjoy and how many we are in danger of losing.

Once, a friend was asking me, “What is human rights, really?” Her question struck me but whomever working in the human rights field would know that it is a common question.

Here in Malaysia, people rarely have the chance to know or even to learn about human rights. That precisely the reason that brings to the misperception of what human rights is.

I myself have never heard of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) until much later. However, today if we are talking about moving towards sustainable development and social progress, in conjunction with the 60th anniversary of independence, this is the time for all of us to understand and to learn about human rights.

60 years on while the country vows to be on par with world standards, unfortunately, we continue to see the resistance in using the language of rights.

The idea of human rights is not Western or Eastern, it belongs to all of us and it is grounded in universal objective values, which are rooted in basic human needs. Basic human needs are matters as simple as, for instance, the right to food, the right to shelter and the right to safe water.

Having said that, human rights offer a language that speaks to the universal basic for a life in dignity, equality and freedom in all human beings.

Here in Malaysia, one of the key reasons of the misperception on the concept of human rights is that, most people think of human rights as merely civil and political rights. But, we have to realize that economic, social and cultural rights are equally important and both are mutually reinforcing.

Human rights are crosscutting issues. Human rights are indivisible; the improvement of one right facilitates advancement of the others. Likewise, the deprivation of one right adversely affects others.

As we talk about Transformasi Nasional 50 (TN50) and many other development priorities such as education, health, water and sanitation, decent shelter, environment, social protection and well-being of vulnerable groups and so on, we know these are not new issues but it is often challenging. We keep coming up with new plans surrounding with issues, but the issues remain unsolved and sometimes, the situation deteriorates.

What actually went wrong?

That’s exactly when human rights comes into place. We should address these issues through a human rights lens with the aim to strengthen the implementation of these initiatives. The idea is to mainstream human rights activities into the national development framework, to ensure that human rights and the development agenda are mutually reinforcing.

For example, if we talk about housing, we should be thinking about the right to shelter and housing. It is an obligation of the state to ensure its people enjoys the basic rights. The right to housing is considered as violated if a state engages in arbitrary forced evictions.

While the Malaysian government has only ratified three international human rights treaties on women, children and persons with disabilities, that should not be an excuse we can’t do anything to guarantee the rights of people, and for the people to enjoy the freedom that they deserve.

We should then break the myth on human rights.

It is crucial we remember that independence day is more than a celebration of us achieving independence from colonial power. As we pay tribute to those who sacrificed to build this country, we should come together to renew the call for respect for human rights amid the rising repression of our voices that threatens to rip us apart.

We have come far, but there’s a great deal left for us to do. I hope, one day, we get to celebrate independence day in the spirit of celebrating freedom and rights. – August 30, 2017.

* Khoo Ying Hooi (PhD) is a senior lecturer at the Department of International and Strategic Studies, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, Universiti Malaya.

* This is the opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of The Malaysian Insight. Article may be edited for brevity and clarity.