By Anna Gaskell Observer Staff Writer Imagine the dedication of the men and women who wrote the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It was 1948. Memories of the barbarity of war were still clear in their minds. They knew the depths into which human cruelty could crawl. The nation-on-nation and man-on-man fighting of the World Wars had shown how easy it was to forget the humanity of one’s enemies. The 20th century was ashamed to have witnessed the pointless murder of 6 million Jewish people in the Holocaust. And the successful explosion of the first atomic bombs marked a new potential for human slaughter, although it was masked as technological progress. Think of all those lives that ended, so abruptly, in Hiroshima and Nagasaki on those summer days. It was in this post-war world that the authors of the Declaration – John Peters Humphrey, Ren” Cassin, and Eleanor Roosevelt, among others – had to create something that would re-affirm the right of every single person to a decent chance at life. They wrote about their faith in ‘the dignity and worth of the human person.” Their Declaration lays out in simple terms the rights which belong equally to every person. They hoped that the Declaration would be seen as a “common standard of achievement for all peoples and nations.” On Wednesday the 10th of December, 2008, their words became exactly 60 years old. On this the 60th anniversary of their bold Declaration, a Declaration which began with the assertion that “all human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights”, I wonder if we have proved ourselves worthy of the hope that was put in us that day. The hope that we could be trusted with our freedom.” I”m not talking about the kind of “freedom” that George Bush wants to bring to Iraq and Afghanistan. That freedom is a meaningless charade. I”m talking about the freedom we are each born with – to smile or scowl, to respond to other people openly or with suspicion, to act in peace or in violence.” It is what we do with that freedom that is important. The Declaration trusts that humans are “endowed with reason and conscience.” Without these, none of the other principles of the Declaration can be expected to work. But where were reason and conscience on the 22 occasions when someone was murdered this year in the Federation? Where were reason and conscience each time someone was raped, or each time a husband beat up his wife?” And if we look beyond the Federation, we are confronted by a shameful tally of cases in which people are killed and tortured and exploited by other people. People are locked up without a trial; their families can’t find out why they disappeared or where they were sent to. It frightens me to know that a person can look into the eyes of another person, can hear the sounds of another human voice, and still decide that that person’s life is worthless.” The Declaration states that “No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.” And also, that “everyone has the right to recognition everywhere as a person before the law.” People still need to know about this Declaration. They need to understand why it was written, and why it is still important today. It is the world’s most translated document; it exists in 360 languages. But often the most vulnerable people don’t know how to use it for their protection. And often the most powerful people know only too well how to ignore it. Get to know your rights: http://www.un.org/Overview/rights.html
