In a new essay, NEIL JORDANresponds to Article 2 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, as part of a continuing series in association with Amnesty International to mark the 60th anniversary of the declaration
I WAS ASKED by the Amnesty man to write a piece to celebrate the anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. I agreed, immediately, because not to agree would seem churlish, and would typecast me as the "kind of person who doesn't do this kind of thing". In a romantic comedy, someone who smokes and steps on the tails of pets is not the kind of person who you want to get the girl in the end. Neither, probably, is someone who doesn't want to write 1,500 words to celebrate the anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. So I naturally said yes. But the first problem was, I had never read the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
The only acquaintance I had with the document was when it was projected on a large screen at a U2 concert in Toronto. The idea of projecting the Universal Declaration of Human Rights to a group of 80,000 people who had probably never read it either was a good one, but the idea of making them pay for the privilege bordered on genius. It was a far better idea than Tom Sawyer's one of getting his friends to pay for the privilege of painting his auntie's fence. Tom Sawyer was paid in apple cores and lollipop sticks and rusty bolts and things, but those concert-goers in Toronto didn't pay with apple cores, they paid with serious money, around $100 a ticket.
Anyway, I was so overwhelmed by the brilliance of the idea that I didn't pay any attention to the specific articles in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, so now, several years later, I turned on my computer, downloaded the document for free and read it properly. Each of the articles seemed admirable, in their intent and their definition of what rights a person on this planet should have, but the immediate problem was that most of them were taken, by other writers who had been asked to write their 1,500 words on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. I had met a very nice and troubled man once who had been tortured in an Iranian prison and thought I might write about that, but was told that Article 5 was taken, so Roddy Doyle or Colm Tóibín or Anne Enright or some other writer would be writing about torture, which excluded me. Damn.
I then thought I could write about Article 9, which states "no one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention or exile", and called up to say I would write about that, but was told that Tom Humphries was writing about Article 9. I did not know Tom Humphries as a writer, then remembered he was the guy who wrote colourful articles about sport for The Irish Times and thought, good luck to him, he would probably write a good article about arbitrary arrest, imprisonment and exile.
In fact, articles 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 9, 12, 15, 18, 23, 24, 25, 26 were all taken. All that remained to me were the less interesting articles, about the rights to social security and participation in government directly or through freely chosen representatives. So I settled on Article 2, which reads: "Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or status. Furthermore, no distinction shall be made on the basis of the political, jurisdictional or international status of the country or territory to which the person belongs, whether it be independent, trust, non-self-governing or any other limitations of sovereignty."
It wasn't great, but it was one of the only ones left. It seemed to say that the entire declaration applies to everyone, regardless of etc. The basic proposition, that the articles should apply to all of us who match the definition human, seemed good, true and unarguable. But my problems then multiplied. What could I write about a proposition that seemed so self-evident? A piece of fiction, perhaps, about a being to whom it should, but didn't, apply? A benign and maybe well-intentioned alien who had in all innocence travelled across the wastes of space and time to our beautiful planet, that was having its inner organs examined by Nasa types? I could picture its eyes like reflective saucers and its mouth, in the shape of a red cross, saying NGYLOUPPRUDDER, which when translated means, please get them to stop doing that.
But then such a piece of fiction would itself seem churlish, against the spirit of the project and somebody who wrote that would have even less chance of getting the girl in the romantic comedy. I was getting depressed. I began to wonder was it possible that a simple request to write 1,500 words about the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and their inability to do it could induce a spiritual crisis in a person, leading to depression, suicide or even random murder, much the way Heinrich von Kleist realised the pointlessness of life by studying a Romanesque arch and realising it was only held in place by its instinct to collapse, and subsequently killed himself. Kleist's unique insight, the austere brilliance of it and the bald, brutal courage of the outcome, both seemed beyond me at this point. And I got further depressed, realising that I was the kind of person who doesn't even have the courage to top himself because he can't write the required 1,500 words. Then I thought, maybe I'll write a romantic comedy about a man trying to win the love, admiration and respect of a girl by writing 1,500 words about the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. I didn't know how it would begin, how it would develop, how all those delightful confusions, red herrings and blind alleys are transformed etc, but I had a very clear idea as to how it should end . . .
* * *
EXT. CAFE. BOULEVARD DES CAPUCHINS. EVENING.
Evening, because we can have that beautifully pearly light that is appropriate to the emotion we want to invoke, which is misty-eyed, tearful, but also reassures us that we have not spent the last two hours in vain, instead have ingested, while being teased, amused, delighted, moved, a cunningly disguised moral lesson . . .
He, smoking a cigarette, squishing it beneath his white trainers (he wears trainers, but with a rather elegant pin-striped overcoat dangling right to the edge of his turned-up jeans, the kind of couture that Mick Jagger wore when he accepted his knighthood) opens the glass cafe door.
INT. CAFE. BOULEVARD DES CAPUCHINS. EVENING.
A cat squeals. That furred thing by the carpet was its tail. Damn. Anyway, he walks through the cosmopolitan crowd to get a view of -
JUSTINE.
She has a scarf wrapped round her neck, wearing one of those negligee bustier things over a pair of jeans. (You know the time when underwear became outerwear and you weren't supposed to comment on it, but something seismic had changed? Anyway . . . ) Justine is beautiful, of course, she is an intern with the UN, has worked in the past for Médecins Sans Frontières and helped arrange Madonna's adoption. Anyway, she is very desirable, has a very large flat overlooking the etc. And she is reading two typed pages, 1,500 words, to be exact.
He comes behind her. But she doesn't raise her head. She is so absorbed. He touches her cheek.
She absently nibbles at his forefinger. Then takes a drag from the lighted cigarette by the ashtray. (she can smoke even though he can't, something to do with our foreknowledge of the fact that she'll give it up the minute she finds out she's pregnant. That is, if she keeps the baby, which in a romantic comedy she has to - if she doesn't keep it, it becomes what a friend of mine used to call a "searing indictment", in other words, a movie about the real world and its issues.)
Anyway, she absently nibbles at his forefinger.
BERNARD (his name)
What do you think?
JUSTINE
It's good, it's good . . . maybe even better than good . . . Let me finish . . .
* * *
And then I thought, no, you can't conclude a romantic comedy with the girl nibbling at the guy's forefinger. She has to be running through an airport, or leaping at the last possible moment through the sliding doors of a subway into his arms, the pages containing the 1,500 words about Article 2 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights blowing around them like leaves or confetti, she apologising, scrambling to pick them up while concluding that interrupted kiss, forefingers and nibblings have nothing to do with the business of romantic comedies, nor with the business of the anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It is time to get serious here. And I took out the declaration again and re-read Article 2: "Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property birth or other status.
"Furthermore, no distinction shall be made on the basis of the political, jurisdictional or international status of the country or territory to which a person belongs, whether it be independent, trust, non-self-governing or under any other limitation of sovereignty."
And I remembered a quote, something I had recently read, which illuminated the problem. It wasn't that the proposition was self-evident. It was something else entirely.
Tertullian, a Carthaginian theologian, around AD 200 AD, on Christianity: Certum est, quia impossible. Because it is impossible, it must be true.
ARTICLE 2
Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status. Furthermore, no distinction shall be made on the basis of the political, jurisdictional or international status of the country or territory to which a person belongs, whether it be independent, trust, non-self-governing or under any other limitation of sovereignty.
• This is one in a series of 30 stories and essays by leading Irish writers marking the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The series was created by Sean Love for Amnesty Ireland and continues next Saturday. www.amnesty.ie