Creative co-existence, the only way forward

We must defend not only our own freedom of expression but also that of those we disagree with, believes human rights campaigner Benedict Rogers.

Benedict Rogers is Senior Director at Fortify Rights, a charity which works to promote human rights for all, particularly across Asia. He has previously worked for Christian Solidarity Worldwide and he founded and chairs Hong Kong Watch. He is a specialist in human rights throughout Asia, most particularly China, Myanmar and North Korea. He spoke to Adamah Media earlier this month.

Can you tell us a bit more about yourself and the projects you are involved in?

I have spent most of my life defending rights where they are most violated, in places like China, Hong Kong, Tibet, North Korea, Myanmar, Pakistan, Indonesia and, when I first began my human rights work, in East Timor. But my most recent activity has focussed on China and Hong Kong.

In my book The China Nexus, published in 2022, I look at the human rights crisis across the whole of China: in Hong Kong, Tibet, the Uyghurs, the persecution of Christians and the crackdown on freedom of expression across the country. I also focus on the role of China in the world: its threat to Taiwan, and its influence in keeping alive the tyrannies in North Korea and Myanmar.

Are you worried about China?

Definitely. Not the country or the people – both of whom I love and have devoted much of my life to. But specifically, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) regime and its repression of its own people and the threat it poses to free societies around the world.

The world needs to wake up and take much more seriously the challenge China’s regime poses.

But what can ordinary people do in practice?
We could reduce our over-dependency on Chinese supply chains and imports. We could be more strategic about prohibiting Chinese investment in our critical infrastructure. We could do more to prevent transnational repression, espionage and protect our national security. And we could speak out more robustly.

Aren’t you a bit prejudiced against China? They certainly don’t seem to like you.

As I said above, I am very pro-China as a country, a culture and a people.

It is precisely because I love China that I speak out for the rights and dignity of its people. But yes, I am profoundly anti the CCP regime, because of its character, conduct, ideology, and the dangers it presents to its own people and to the wider world.

And it’s true they don’t seem to like me. In the indictment against Jimmy Lai, I was mentioned some 95 times! Jimmy is a personal friend of mine who has spoken up for freedom in Hong Kong and is now paying the price for having done so. He has already spent the past five years in solitary confinement, and at 78 years old his health is deteriorating. He is also a British citizen.

We are waiting to hear what his sentence will be but in starting his own newspaper in Hong Kong, Apple Daily, which the authorities closed down, he has effectively been charged with the crime of conspiracy to commit journalism, conspiracy to talk about politics with politicians, and conspiracy to raise human rights concerns with human rights organisations. These are not crimes, these are part of any functioning democracy, which China, and now Hong Kong within it, isn’t. His arrest and continued imprisonment are among the great injustices of our time.

He has also been charged with collusion with ‘foreign forces’.

Yes. That simply means talking with people like me. Our conversations were cited as evidence against him. It’s absurd to think that I am considered a ‘foreign force’, but it appears that the dictatorship in Beijing is so paranoid and fragile that it considers communications between Jimmy and me to be a crime.

What would you say are your great passions as a human rights worker?

I believe passionately in co-existence, based on genuine respect for the other and not just grudging tolerance. It’s what the former Chief Rabbi of the Commonwealth, the late and much-respected Lord Jonathan Sacks, described in his book of that name as ‘the dignity of difference’. This requires recognising the innate dignity of every human person. We don’t have to agree but we should learn to disagree with civility.

Doesn’t that lead to relativism, the idea that everything is fine, everything is true?

You can have profound differences with someone but still respect their human dignity and their right to freedom of expression and freedom of conscience, without necessarily endorsing their ideas. You can – and should – listen to the other side of the argument, without having to agree with it. But you give them space to believe what they believe.

Indeed, I would say that it is only within a context of mutual respect that one can truly disagree because only then can you properly engage with and assess their idea. Not giving someone the space to express their argument isn’t really disagreeing; you just refuse to listen to them at all.

But there are certain systems, like some forms of Islam, which merely use freedom of expression to foster their own agenda. Were they to achieve power, they would suppress all other arguments. Isn’t giving space to these merely acting as a ‘useful idiot’, to borrow a term from the Soviet era?

I think first of all one has to recognise that there are numerous traditions and interpretations within Islam itself, and the better one is informed of its diversity, the more one appreciates this.

Some of these interpretations and traditions we can absolutely work alongside and collaborate with, as I have done for example in Indonesia and Myanmar, while there are other interpretations of Islam – more radical, extreme, jihadi and radical Islamist ideologies -which of course are profoundly dangerous, pose a threat to our values and way of life – and, incidentally, to the lives of ordinary Muslims –  and which all of us, of whatever religious or belief tradition, should oppose.

Certainly, there are forms of radical Islamism with a political agenda which do seek to impose their system on the rest of us. There is little hope of any meaningful engagement with these and we must resolutely counter them.

If we are to co-exist well with others we have to listen well to them, to defend not only our own rights but the rights of the other too, also – perhaps especially – when we disagree with them.

And freedom of expression is very linked to freedom of belief: if you don’t have the freedom to think and believe what you want and to change your belief, and express those beliefs, then you don’t have freedom at all.

How have you tried to live this out yourself?

An especially precious experience I have had is my dealings with Alexander Aan, a young Indonesian who was jailed not for his religious beliefs but his lack of them. He was imprisoned for writing on Facebook that he doesn’t believe in God. He is an atheist. I heard about this and went to visit him in prison. This involved a two-hour flight from Jakarta and then a four-hour drive to the jail where he was being held.

When I arrived and told him I was Christian, he was very surprised that I had come to visit him, but I told him my convictions about the importance of respecting the beliefs of others and defending freedom of conscience and expression for all.

We then had a wonderful conversation in which I told him about the famous British-American atheist Christopher Hitchens whose ideas I don’t agree with but whose intellect I admire, and he told me how he had read the Bible and found a lot of wisdom there. We laughed together when we considered that I, a Christian, was recommending an atheist author, and he, an atheist, was recommending the Bible!

Later, when he was released, we were both involved in an event involving Christians, Buddhists, Muslims and others. It was a beautiful occasion. He told me he had never been made to feel more welcome. That for me is co-existence.

What is good listening?

A significant influence in my life has been the great human rights campaigner Baroness Cox.

She has a wonderful expression: she says she always approaches an issue with open ears, open eyes and an open mind before having an open mouth.

One has to be really prepared to listen, to digest, to understand, what the other is saying and what might be valid and valuable in it, before responding to it.

In saying that, are you not thinking in a Western, even a Christian way? Isn’t respecting the ideas of others very much from the Western rational tradition, with its Judaeo-Christian roots and its respect for the dignity of the person?

There are plenty of Chinese, Hong Kongers, people of Myanmar, and others who very much want freedom of expression. We are seeing this now also in Iran where the people, particularly the young, are ready to suffer and even die for this. And in Taiwan, just to give one other example, freedom and freedom of expression are very much valued.

Indeed, Taiwan is one of Asia’s most vibrant democracies and, together with Japan, South Korea and other countries in the region, it shows that the idea that democracy and freedom is not conducive to Asian culture is an absolute lie. It is a lie used by dictators in the region to justify their repression. There is nothing cultural about the whack of the police baton, the pain of torture in a prison cell, or the fear of the midnight knock on the door.

I don’t think this is just a Western, Christian-inspired vision. It is simply asking these countries what their own people want. Crucially, international human rights advocacy must be about speaking up for and in support of the people of the countries affected, not imposing anything on them.

So, in Myanmar the opposition won the election in 2020 but there was a coup in 2021. We are only supporting the people of Myanmar in their desire to have the government they voted for and to enjoy the freedoms they deserve.

There has been no democratic election in China so assessing the will of the people is more difficult. But many people, such as dissidents, civil rights campaigners, and the Tibetans, Hong Kongers and Uyghurs are raising their voice for freedom.

Specifically regarding Hong Kong, we are only asking China to uphold the promises it made under an international agreement, the Sino-British Joint Declaration of 1984.

Instead of just saying how bad China is or Myanmar or so many other governments, would it not be better to consider if there are ways to engage with them, to help them see how accepting divergent views could actually enhance them and contribute to their greatness? Can we bring them on board in any way or are they totally corrupted by power and greed? Must we simply accept that the devil doesn’t play fair? And perhaps events like the recent US intervention in Venezuela might suggest these countries are right to suspect Western powers.

I am always in favour of engagement in the right circumstances. I have, for example, been involved in efforts, together with Lord Alton and Baroness Cox, to try to talk to the regime in North Korea. It is important to keep a door open to dialogue, as long as these attempts are not hijacked by the regime to legitimise its rule or misused for propaganda purposes. We can’t not engage.

The question is not whether to do so but how, on what terms and whose terms, and with what objectives. We have to try to find people in these oppressive regimes who might be willing to engage constructively, to help them see that their current behaviour does not help their world image, but any engagement must always be accompanied by a stick.

They must understand what the consequences could be if they fail to improve their behaviour. It is like disciplining a child – if a badly-behaved child does not understand that there may be consequences for their behaviour, no amount of nice talk and reasoning alone will persuade them to behave better.

And there can be situations where this could seem almost impossible. The regime in Myanmar is a case in point: it is so closed. But even here, something could be attempted. The key to changing a regime like this is changing China which has great leverage over it. Engagement here must always be coupled with meaningful forms of critical engagement with China, accompanied by punitive measures.

With regard to the United States and the Trump administration, let me say a few things. Firstly, I love the US, I have many American friends, I deeply value the close alliance the UK and the US have had for decades, and have always looked to the US as the biggest defender of democracy, human rights and freedom around the world. You won’t find a more pro-American Brit than me.

Secondly, I think Trump’s recent foreign policy actions are complex. No one will shed a tear for Nicolas Maduro, nor for the Ayatollahs in Iran if they go. Indeed, many will celebrate. And no power in the world has the ability to remove such dictatorships other than the US.

Nevertheless, the question of course is what replaces those regimes. Is it a home-grown democracy built by the people of those countries? Furthermore, the precedents being set and the challenge to the international rules-based and multilateral order are of course deeply concerning – and the rhetoric towards the US’ traditional allies in Europe is troubling.

The West – indeed the free world – needs clarity in the existential battle we face between democracy and autocracy, free open societies versus authoritarian, repressive, closed ones, and right now the hitherto leader of the free world is giving alarmingly mixed messages.

So the democratic world has many challenges to confront and a lot of work to do to adjust both to the new world order and to all the threats before us.

Returning to China, what do you think is the problem here? Why is it so tyrannical? Or is it tyrannical? Maybe it’s just a different, non-Western way of seeing the world.

The rulers in China are deeply tyrannical and have become more so. In the 1990s and early 2000s, when I spent a lot of time in China, there was more of a sense of hope that the country was moving in a better direction. To some extent it appeared to be opening up, of course within limits, and the hope was that as it liberalised economically, it might do so politically. There was some space for religious practice, media expression, civil society activity, for the work of human rights defenders and bloggers, albeit within certain red lines.

Now all of that space has disappeared – and many of the people who courageously worked within that space have disappeared too.

The repression has been accelerated and intensified by Xi Jinping. Around the time of the Beijing Olympics in 2008 there were various uprisings around the world: the so-called Arab Spring, the Orange Revolution in the Ukraine, and others. I think the regime in China became fearful of losing power and so was already beginning to crackdown. But when Xi Jinping took power, he took that crackdown which was already underway and turbo-charged it.

So, is it simply power corrupts?

Yes, I think so. Or rather, to use Lord Acton’s phrase, power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

How free is the West, with our practices like cancel culture and de-platforming? Do we have a right to talk to others about freedom?

I think we still have freedom but we must defend and strengthen what we have. Freedom needs to be defended from internal and external threats, such as those posed by Russia, China and radical Islam, and from an extremist secular wokeism that results in cancel culture and a desire to shut down any opinion that makes the listener uncomfortable. That is totally antithetical to the principles of freedom of expression, freedom of conscience, freedom of religion and academic freedom.

Social media has in many ways been a tremendous platform for the free flow of information and freedom of expression. I am a great user of social media platforms and use them both to gather ideas, opinion and information, and to disseminate my own.

But one of the dangers of social media, if we don’t learn to engage with it properly, is that people close themselves off in silos, engage only with the ideas they agree with, react vociferously against those they dislike, and with this comes also cancel culture.

I was struck by what Pope Leo said earlier this month in his speech to the ambassadors accredited to the Holy See:

“It is painful to see how, especially in the West, the space for genuine freedom of expression is rapidly shrinking. 

At the same time, a new Orwellian-style language is developing which, in an attempt to be increasingly inclusive, ends up excluding those who do not conform to the ideologies that are fuelling it.”

Another thing has troubled me recently, particularly since the Hamas attacks, is the rise of anti-Semitism. Given the horrors this led to 80 or so years ago – and I have visited Auschwitz-Birkenau and written about it – have we really not learned from, or actually forgotten, our history? Attacks on Jews and synagogues are for me a truly horrifying alarm bell of what is wrong with the world. Of course, alongside this are rising attacks on Christians and Muslims around the world too.

But on this topic, can we not distinguish between revulsion at what the Israeli authorities are doing and respect for ordinary Jewish people? Surely, rejecting the actions of the Israeli government is not anti-Semitism?

Of course we must absolutely be free to speak out against wrong actions by the Israeli government, and to express our opinions freely and peacefully – and to express solidarity with the Palestinian people, who deserve human rights, human dignity and freedom just as much as any other group of people.

At the same time, we ought to be able to express the view that the October 7 attacks were an abomination and that Hamas is a terrorist group that should be destroyed. Israel, as the region’s only well-established democracy, has every right to defend itself, although of course it must uphold the values of human rights, democracy and international norms.

But we ought to be able to distinguish between legitimate expression of criticism of the actions of the Israeli government, legitimate concern and compassion for the humanitarian suffering of the people of Gaza, and the equally legitimate right of ordinary Jews in Manchester or Bondi Beach to go about their daily lives without fear.  

We can speak out against the deeply disturbing increase in anti-Semitism, as well as the rise in anti-Muslim hatred, while at the same time retaining a critical mind about the actions of the Israeli government and an unequivocal condemnation of Hamas.

And how do you maintain hope as a civil rights campaigner? Can we be hopeful still?

It is essential to retain hope because if you lose hope you give up. We are living in particularly dark and turbulent times – but if we do not hold on to hope, if we don’t keep shining a light in the darkness, then that light goes out and the darkness overcomes us – and we must not let that happen.

But how do you maintain hope?

Examples from history help. In my lifetime, we did not expect to see the collapse of the Soviet Union, or the end of apartheid, or the peace processes in Northern Ireland and the independence of East Timor – which I personally witnessed.

And then there are many examples of people in countries in the front line of the fight for freedom who themselves have not lost hope.  In the course of my work over more than three decades, in some of the darkest corners of the world, places of immense persecution, repression and war, I have met so many extraordinary people – priests, pastors, nuns, dissidents, human rights defenders, refugees, exiled activists – who even in the deepest moments of turmoil and tragedy have not given up.

Two of my friends have been assassinated, many of my friends have been or remain in jail and many more are in exile.

I myself have been deported twice from Myanmar, blacklisted and threatened with arrest in Hong Kong, chased by police in China, and missed a bomb by five minutes in Pakistan. The fact that I have survived these incidents and that, more importantly, I have friends who have survived far far worse, and that we can meet, laugh and keep going together, gives me hope.

How does your Christian faith inspire your work?

It is the core of my calling to do what I do, it inspires me. All of us have a soul and a spirit, and if these are not strengthened and nourished, we are diminished. My soul and spirit are nourished through prayer, the Sacrament of the Eucharist, music, meditation and reflection, poetry and reading.

As a Christian I look at the work I do with refugees, with people displaced by conflict, or who are imprisoned and even possibly facing execution. And it helps me to consider that Christ has been through all these situations, and he overcame them all through the Resurrection. And that for me is the greatest source of hope.

I follow Emmanuel,  “God with us”. I follow a God who isn’t simply up in the clouds, but is right here among us, in the most dangerous, dirty, bloody, heart-breaking and excruciating moments. And he overcame such injustices himself personally, yet remains among us. That gives me hope.

How do you see your future? Campaigning as an old man, till you die?

Yes, I know this is for me a life-long calling. The CCP’s agents sent a letter to my mother in England a few years ago telling her to tell me to ‘shut up’. My mother phoned me and said “Ben, I just want to tell you I gave up many years ago trying to tell you to shut up.” So the CCP, and not even my mother, won’t shut me up.

Do you ever feel tormented by all you cannot do?

I quite often encounter “what about-ism”? In other words, what about this cause, or that campaign? What about Gaza, for instance? But I realise that while my values are definitely universal and what I am doing can also help others, I am only one person and I simply cannot take on everything.

What I have to do is listen to the still small voice of God in my conscience, heart and soul, know what parts of the world, which people, are on my heart, and do my part, my duty. If all of us listen to our hearts and do our duty, the world would be a better place. I trust in God to inspire others to help all those whom I cannot reach.

Baroness Cox used to say (though I think she was quoting someone else), I cannot do everything but I must not do nothing. Knowing what you yourself are called to is very important. We must do what we can, and leave the rest to others and to God.

I know that when I go to bed at night, if I have done something I should not have done or have not done what I should have done, I cannot sleep easy.  But if I know I have done my part, then I can sleep peacefully and awake the next morning to do my part once more.

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