Category Archives: Human Right

Are Human Rights alright? Part 4

by CreatingReciprocity

Imagine what might happen if the results of the Human Genome Project really rocked the world.

People would stop each other in the streets.

“Hey, cousin!” they’d exclaim.

“I just found out we’re related! How are you?  Good to meet you! We must get together soon…”

Imagine then, if the realization that we are physiologically part of the same family, prompted us to begin acting like a family?

We’d be a sensible family.  One that knew it had problems but was confident that by working together we’d sort them out.

Problems like the issues surrounding human rights.

Our first step in tackling these problems, might be to make sure everybody feels part of our family. This in itself is a complicated process. We’d already know, from our smaller family units, that true belonging is only possible when both rights and responsibilities are in place.  It’s necessary for everyone in a healthy family to both give and take. This is justice and creates not only basic well-being but dignity and independence.

However, our ‘family’ might pause at this point to examine its conscience, just to make sure that there really is a place for everyone. It’d be in our own interest to do this because, as the African proverb goes,

If the young are not initiated into the village, they will burn it down just to feel its warmth.

This proverb wasn’t written about the London riots but there’s no denying how well it fits them both literally and metaphorically.

Instinctively we all know that alienation is an extreme of ‘otherness’.  None of us have any loyalty, responsibility or affection for a society – or a family – we feel doesn’t want us. This alienation can sometimes be self-imposed but even so, the ‘family’ needs to be careful that we don’t create structures that perpetuate alienation and disaffection.

OK – so now we have our global family structure. Everyone is welcome and needed – so, what happens next?

Well, obviously, we’re going to ensure that everyone is fed, clothed, housed and safe within our family. Basic life prerequisites.

But this doesn’t mean that some people should do the providing and others should just get to consume the resources – far from it. A good family will always help out in emergencies and will gladly provide for children and anybody vulnerable. But a really good family will also create an environment where everybody can stand on their own feet and live a dignified, productive and independent life.

So, in very simplistic terms, a ‘family’ approach would ensure that everybody had the basics necessary to sustain life and access to the ‘tools’ necessary to allow independence, dignity and the opportunity to contribute to the overall well-being of the family.

How then might our family gathering approach unpleasant issues like the abuse of the ‘rights’ accorded to everyone within our system?

Well, we all know that this behaviour doesn’t have a place in a functional family. Everybody is absolutely expected to respect everybody else and no abuse can be tolerated. We do make mistakes in this regard – even in our smaller families – but overall, guided by the principles of justice – not revenge – our wise family would take whatever steps it needed to take to secure the well-being of the entire family.

And so we might continue, looking at global problems through a lens we understand – the family.

The world is knotted in deep and terrible disorder and no one simple solution is the answer to all of it’s problems. However, sometimes when things are hard to understand and manage it’s helpful to return to first principles.  To things we already know and understand. Like families. We all know about families.

In a family we’d expect love, mutual assistance, support, forbearance and concern with each other’s welfare. This isn’t considered ridiculously idealistic as a goal for a family.

Now that we know that ‘our family’ includes all sorts of people – children who are being sold for sex and slavery, men, women and children struggling and needlessly starving to death, minorities who are persecuted for their ethnicity or beliefs – maybe we won’t only feel concern for them but also responsibility, and a certain entitlement to have a say in their welfare, just as we might with members of our known family?

In the words of Article 28 0f the Universal Declaration of Human Rights –

Everyone is entitled to a social and international order in which the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration can be fully realized.

The corollary of that is that all of us also have a responsibility to ensure that this happens.

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Photograph – UNICEF – Pakistan, 2010: A boy flies a kite in a camp for people displaced by flooding that began in late July 2010, affecting 18 million people, half of them children.


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Are Human Rights alright? Part 3

by CreatingReciprocity

Animation of the structure of a section of DNA...

Animation of the structure of a section of DNA

The human race is a marvel of diversity. The endless variety brings with it great beauty, energy and possibility but it also brings with it some issues that need tackling. As individuals we are immensely different from one another – we look, think and act in our own unique ways and yet – as is now indisputably established by the Human Genome Project – we are one human race.

Our DNA tells the story of both our absolute individuality and also proves our connection to each other.  No matter how different we may appear, underneath we are all part of the same family.

So what does this have to do with human rights?  Well, before it is possible to define exactly what these rights are, and how they might work, it is first necessary to have a clear overview of why they should exist in the first place.

As we are physiologically all one family and as most of us have experience – for better or worse – of living in families, it might be helpful to look at these massive global issues in a context we can understand – namely the family. Very few of us have experience of international – or even national – politics and diplomacy  – but most of us have an idea of family life.

Interestingly, even though there are plenty of dysfunctional families, the fact that we even use this term would suggest that we have – in our unconscious – a shared notion of what a ‘functional’ family should be like. A functional family includes all the most noble and important aspects of human nature and has at its core the idea of oneness and cooperation.  Within a family is a microcosmic picture of a functioning social unit. A functional family is a good example of how humanity as a whole could operate cohesively and progressively.

So what would you do if a member of your family was starving, beaten, raped, jailed, intimidated, homeless, persecuted or exploited?

This might seem simplistic but if we look at everyone as part of our family it can help to dismantle the idea of ‘others’ .  It also helps to creates the conceptual framework within which we need to work if we are to begin to tease out the many, many issues that surround the application of universal human rights.

So?  What would you do?

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Are Human Rights alright? Part I

by CreatingReciprocity

The recent riots in the UK have started a debate about the nature and scope of human rights. What exactly are they? Where did they come from? Who has them? Who doesn’t have them?  Should everyone have them? And – last but not least – what are the main problems surrounding them? It’s a tricky question but one so fundamental to functional human societies that we can’t afford to ignore it.

So, OK – what exactly are human rights?

Most of us believe that there are basic rights – sometimes called natural rights – that exist above and beyond culture or legal structures. Technically speaking a right is (amongst other things):

  • Inalienable – it can’t be taken away or given away.
  • Immutable – it doesn’t change.
  • Inviolable – it shouldn’t be broken, infringed or dishonoured.

Down through the ages all religious scripture, and many philosophers, have sought to define moral codes of conduct to promote this idea of natural rights. Some ancient cultures attempted to enshrine a notion of human rights in their constitutions and governments and, from time to time, ordinary people rose up and demanded to be given ‘rights’.

From the 17th century onwards, the idea of rights gained popular acceptance in various revolutions such as the Glorious Revolution in England (1688), the American Revolution (1776) and, most famously of all in terms of the idea of rights, the French Revolution in 1789.

All of these popular movements demanded rights, however, these rights were not universal – these were rights for some of the population not all of the population, as was demonstrated most obviously by the fact that women were excluded and slavery was allowed.

In the wake of WWII, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was drafted by nine people from around the world. On December 10, 1948, the the General Assembly adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights with eight nations abstaining from the vote but none dissenting.

Hernán Santa Cruz of Chile, a member of the drafting sub-Committee, wrote about this occasion:

“I perceived clearly that I was participating in a truly significant historic event in which a consensus had been reached as to the supreme value of the human person, a value that did not originate in the decision of a worldly power, but rather in the fact of existing—which gave rise to the inalienable right to live free from want and oppression and to fully develop one’s personality.  In the Great Hall…there was an atmosphere of genuine solidarity and brotherhood among men and women from all latitudes, the like of which I have not seen again in any international setting.”

This is the first time in human history that we all officially agreed – at least in theory – that universal human rights exist for everybody, everywhere, all of the time.

It was a start.

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The Universal Declaration of Human Rights – read it here – http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/index.shtml
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