Shame is a motivation

Today’s Post has a front page OpEd about what is seen as the Alice in Wonderland world of the United Nations.

The story notes that a vote expected today in the UN General Assembly will place Saudi Arabia and Iran on the board that runs a new UN Women agency. Iran stones women to death for adultery and values a woman’s testimony at half that of a man. In Saudi Arabia, women are forbidden to drive and cannot take major decisions without the permission of a male relative. How can that make their membership on the UN Women agency anything other than a joke?

It depends on how you look at things.

Clearly, Saudi is a brutal misogynistic regime worthy of no respect at all (except perhaps for the power, economic or otherwise, it can project).

But the fact that Saudi (and Iran and Libya and North Korea and Myanmar) want to be on committees at the UN dealing with human rights shows that they realize human rights matter and that they are (at some level) ashamed of their records. Does that help someone like Aung San Suu Kyi in Burma? Not directly or immediately but eventually it may make a difference.

Shame is a significant human motivator.

Read more:

http://news.nationalpost.com/2010/11/09/goodspeed-analysis-libya-praised-on-rights-despite-damning-report/