The Wrong Rights

WHEN Michael Fay bent over last May to take four strokes of the cane in Singapore’s Queenstown Remedial Prison, he probably did not realize that his gluteus maximus had become the focal point of Samuel Huntington’s “clash of civilizations.” It was all over in a few minutes, and Fay was released shortly thereafter. Back home in the U.S., he has been far more modest about his ordeal than many of his champions. “I mean, let’s not exaggerate,” he told Larry King. “It was like a bloody nose.”

At his high point, Michael Fay talked about possibly working for Amnesty International and speaking to Congress on human rights. The intervening months, however, have seen him pushed off the front page into the “people” column, where his butane sniffing and brush with local police have been gleefully chronicled. Yet though Fay himself has receded, the underlying frictions his case brought to the fore—especially those involving U.S. human-rights agitation abroad— continue to irritate and will doubtless become an occasion for further ill will in Jakarta this month at the annual meeting of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum.

WM

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William McGurn

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WHEN Michael Fay bent over last May to take four strokes of the cane in Singapore’s Queenstown Remedial Prison, he probably did not realize that his gluteus maximus had become the focal point of Samuel Huntington’s “clash of civilizations.” It was all over in a few minutes, and Fay was released shortly thereafter. Back home in the U.S., he has been far more modest about his ordeal than many of his champions. “I mean, let’s not exaggerate,” he told Larry King. “It was like a bloody nose.”

At his high point, Michael Fay talked about possibly working for Amnesty International and speaking to Congress on human rights. The intervening months, however, have seen him pushed off the front page into the “people” column, where his butane sniffing and brush with local police have been gleefully chronicled. Yet though Fay himself has receded, the underlying frictions his case brought to the fore—especially those involving U.S. human-rights agitation abroad— continue to irritate and will doubtless become an occasion for further ill will in Jakarta this month at the annual meeting of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum.