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Chapter 3 - From the New WorldsIt wasn't difficult to recognize Ushi's involvement in the deep recesses of China. At first we didn't know what to expect from her in terms of her special interests. Ushi had so many interests. All that I knew about them, was that her interests all came together into one focus in her respect for humanity. Her whole life seemed to have been devoted towards honoring the dignity of the human being and the vast potential of humanity as a discoverer and creator, with a focus oriented towards universal good. Her affection for humanity had been evident in her writings about the struggles that people endured, and the victories they achieved. In respect to China, Ross had suggested from the beginning, this meant that we would find her at some leading edge position in China's struggle to respect the real human rights of society to the fullest extend possible. This assessment seemed to be correct. I had seen a picture of her once in one of the Chinese papers that I had found at our embassy in Iran. Someone who could read Chinese told me that she was reporting on the progress of the Eurasian Land-Bridge development project and the benefits it would bring to all of humanity. She was speaking about human rights in a new context that the West didn't understand, the context that makes it every human being's right to have the means to live and to develop its potential to the full for the advancement of civilization and the welfare of all people. It seemed to me that only someone like Ushi could have written an article like that, so totally unpolitical, yet so totally in line with the real political objectives of China as far as we were aware of them. "The human rights issue has a broad front," said Heather whenever we talked about this dimension in connection with Ushi's work. "Do we really know what it means? Sure, it means providing enough food for people to eat, and decent housing in which people can develop spiritually, and universally, and have access to advanced education that enables them to live up to their potential. But there is more to it than that. It should also include freedom from fear, freedom of expression without having to worry about legal, judicial, and political persecution. Our own nation should be free of these things, all nations should be free," said Heather. I agreed with her. We all did. Even Fred did, who came visiting us at Ross' rock virtually from the moment on that we set foot on the property. He liked to come down to us just to get away from Washington, which he said, was fast becoming a madhouse. Heather had reminded us in those days that she had referred to only the most basic human rights, in connection with China. She said we should add the concept of unity to the list, and freedom from isolation, but Ross didn't think then that it was appropriate to go quite that far. Obviously, he hadn't recognized what Heather had meant, or didn't want to. Maybe she had foreseen the isolation that would soon engulf ourselves, that none of us had been prepared to deal with until we had become quite isolated from one-another. Personally, I felt that Ross hadn't understood what Heather had been driving at in this regard. It had created a paradox for him that he hadn't been prepared to deal with. He hadn't made the connection yet, between us and those principle-oriented human rights that are an issue only at the higher levels. Whenever the subject came up, of gaining freedom from isolation, he steered the conversation back to the political realm where the concept had been narrowed down to mean nothing more than freedom from unjust incarcerations or persecutions. Heather had often pointed out to him that in this narrow focus the cry for human rights didn't even include the right of society to protect itself from destructive financial speculation. Speculative looting was becoming increasingly more destructive around the world. That was something that Ross had been aware of as a form of imposed isolation. This, all by itself, seemed to create another conflict for him. It made him a hypocrite in a sense. Some of that hypocrisy was for personal reasons, concerning Heather. He didn't like Heather to talk about freedom in this context. He was evidently, fully aware that once one opens Pandora's box to deal with isolation and freedom, one has to address every aspect of it, which he wasn't prepared to do. || - page index - || - chapter index - || - Exit - ||
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