Asian Values

I have seen some discussion about Asian values and their relationship to human rights.   The essence of the argument seems to be that in Asia the good of the group has to be given more weight and so the individual cannot be given so much freedom, for example in expressing dissent.  It is a handy argument for governments that want to hang on to power.

I can see that different places have different cultures as well as different languages and that there has to be some adaption to local cultures.  Maybe Asian values are different but not that different.  There are many rights that are very widely recognised around the world and the UN's Universal Declaration of Human Rights, although maybe not perfect, is a very good expression of that.