Friday, May 16, 2008

Of human rights

A cyclone devastates a South Asian country. Thousands are dead and hundreds of thousands are missing, presumed dead. The world pitches in to help but the regime that governs the country holds the supplies and then distributes the supplies to its trauma stricken citizens as propaganda. They then hold a referendum among the people to make sure they stay in power.

An African country is ripped apart by civil war. A refugee crisis of unthinkable magnitude originates. Rape, murder and other acts of genocide take place on a daily basis. The refugee's are starving and wake up every day knowing that they will either die of starvation or will be killed by a state sponsored militia. What does the world do ? The world debates on whether or not it's genocide and whether or not they should interfere.

A man in an Islamic country is harassed because he put up some offensive materials on his website. The website is hacked and a death threat pasted on the front page. The man is told that he will face charges but nothing is done about the death threats.

A woman and her lover are killed in a remote village in India. The killers are her own father and brother. They wanted to restore the honour to their family which the woman lost when she decided to live in with her lover after divorcing her husband. The family drags her and the lover out of their house and beats them to death in broad daylight. The villagers watch and applaud.

March 15th 2008. Human Rights Day. Are you kidding me ?

Have you heard of the Geneva Convention ? It was supposed to make war civilized. We've had a lot of wars since the convention ... has anyone of you witnessed a civilized war ?

Have you heard of the UN ? It was supposed to protect human rights. That was it's basic objective. "Never again" was the catchphrase used during the Armenian genocide. The Jewish Holoucast occured after that but there was no UN to stop that from happening right ? What about after the UN was formed ? Rwanda, Serebrenica, Darfur ... to name a few. And please dont tell me that the perpetrators were caught and put on trial. We're supposed to stop such things before they happen, not swear that we won't allow it to happen ever again.

"Never again" is what everyone says. I say what the f**k were we doing when it happened the first time ?

You know what's ironic ? The cavemen that we thought were dumb and stupid according to our standards are the one's who enjoyed human rights. The advanced and civilized us have none.

So stop kidding yourselves. You have no rights and never will earn it ... until the day you're fellow human has it.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

That of course is why me must demand human rights become a fact and not an idealist dream.

Each and every person in this world is entitled to each and every one of the points in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Regardless of what government action, terrorism or whatever takes place.

We must support those who take action to safeguard people's rights and expose those who are destroying human rights.

Incognito said...

Amen to that...
and the U.N.... a truly useless, worthless organizatio.

Alex Mcone said...

@ ppederson - we must do a lot more than support. The last fifty years has taught us that just supporting wont do.

@ incognito - when I was a kid I always pictured the UN as a kind of world police. Boy, was I wrong.