Dignity of individuals about the integrity of societies

Author : asaduz

Publish Date : 2021-01-09 19:14:43

Dignity of individuals about the integrity of societies

That is the truth, the bare truth that will be pointless to try explaining. And yet there can be no stepping away from all those fine sentiments that go into the making of human rights. It is, of course, another question whether the rights we speak of every year go through the process of implementation. Simply stated, what are human rights not about? Let’s pause a while, take a deep breath and then move on.

It is not human rights when governments go out on a limb to decree that walls be built to keep out men and women wishing to seek a happier future in a land economically well off than their own.

It is not human rights when the nouveau riche undertake a crass mission to evict indigenous people from their ancestral land because they need to build a five-star hotel there and add to their wealth.

It is not human rights when power-hungry men, incensed over a coup attempt, employ the power of the state to lock up journalists and academics and others and then organize sham trials to punish these individuals in order to perpetuate their hold on power.

It is not human rights when entire societies are compelled into conditions where they are confined in their homes, when they are informed in no uncertain terms that the internet is closed off to them, that their political rights are not there, no questions asked.

It is not human rights when journalists are handcuffed and put away for the reports they write, reports that are not investigated, when those they cite for corruption in those reports remain free and not obliged to answer to the law.

It is not human rights when primary school teachers go hungry because the coronavirus has shut down their schools, because they cannot have their salaries in hand. Human rights are fugitive when these teachers, poor as they are, take their own lives because they have lost the sense of purpose that defines life.

It is not human rights when fringe elements of the right refuse to acknowledge the results of a legitimate election, when a president does not have the grace and the decency to know that he has lost the trust of his nation.

It is not human rights when other fringe elements in other countries whip up communal frenzy through deliberately confusing aesthetics with idol worship, through being audacious enough to challenge the fundamental truths that underpin a state. It is not human rights when temples are vandalized, mosques are reduced to rubble, and prophets are mocked in the name of free speech.

It is not human rights when a poverty-stricken woman is falsely accused of blasphemy and must be given safe sanctuary in a strange land she is not familiar with. It is not human rights when an internationally acclaimed scientist is brushed out of history because his faith deviates from that of the majoritarian faith in his country.

It is not human rights when rogue states assassinate military officers and politicians and scientists of other states and get away with their criminality. It is not human rights when a state occupies foreign land and then goes about building illegal housing settlements on that land and feels no shame.

It is not human rights when soldiers shoot down nationalists struggling for their political identities to be respected and ensured. It is not human rights when villages are wiped out for modern cities to replace them. It is not human rights when states disown their own citizens, push them into neighbouring countries, and then raze their villages to burnt earth, oblivious to global opinion.

It is not human rights when long-serving presidents, unwilling to call it a day, unleash their police to silence would-be challengers through some of the more crude methods employed in a brutish exercise of power.

It is not human rights when dissent is deliberately painted as treason, when opposition to government is interpreted as disloyalty to the state. It is not human rights when contrary opinions are considered by authoritarian governments as sedition.

It is not human rights when misogyny underpins the working of the mind in men, when medievalism gets the upper hand over modernity.

It is not human rights when books are proscribed and burnt, when writers are hounded into silence and out of their countries.

It is not human rights when powerful nations invade, occupy, and destroy weaker nations but richer civilizations with impunity, when the powerful men leading these powerful nations are not hauled before the global court to answer for their crimes.

It is not human rights when refugees, exhausted by deprivation and braving perilous sea journeys on rickety boats, are told they cannot enter the countries where they have made landfall.

It is not human rights when governments go after the faiths of people, tell them they must forgo their beliefs, and herd them away to camps to re-educate them.

It is not human rights when children go to bed hungry, when schools do not have places for the poor, when medicare does not reach the underprivileged. It is not human rights when industry owners holiday abroad but refuse to pay honourable wages to their workers at home.

It is not human rights when the affluence of the few blights the future of the many, when the mansions of the rich are islands amidst the ramshackle hovels of the poor.

Human rights are about the dignity of individuals, about the integrity of societies.

They are about moral leadership, about the exercise of power in a promotion of the public wealth.

They are about building dreams and improving on those dreams.

They are about connecting the world through a single, gleaming, multi-coloured thread of collective hope.

Category : news