There's a lovely example of our government's priorities in Helen Clark's address at today's state luncheon for the visiting Prime Minister of Turkey: she gently chides Turkey on trade, noting that
[f]or us, Turkey’s high tariff barriers have limited the expansion of our traditional agricultural export trade in many fields – and we hope those barriers will lower in time.
But the closest Clark comes to raising human rights is to note that "Turkey has already made many changes to its legal framework to make negotiation [to enter the EU] possible". She could have said "we note that Turkey has made progress on human rights in the last decade, and we hope this proggress continues" - but she didn't.
It really makes you wonder whether human rights are even on the agenda for this visit, or if our government is only concerned about trade and is willing to turn a blind eye in order to get it.
Yeah, what resistantsoy said. The Greens seem to be the only political party prepared even to consider the possibility that human rights and social justice should trump trade or any other form of economic activity. But I'd be delighted to hear of others who can show otherwise.
ReplyDeleteOur form of democracy doesn't allow for such prioritising, not in the least because our polity is heavily influenced by our economic system, which puts profit above all else. Get out of line and not only do you face losing political funding but you're ultimately faced with the threat of investors pulling their money out of the country, causing a resession or worse. Welcome to "democracy" capitalist style.
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