OPINION:The Universal Declaration of Human Rights can be summarised in a simple message: you are your brother's keeper, writes Byran Mukandi.
I WONDER how many people know what the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) is, or what it says. I wonder how many feel that human rights are just some fluffy idea concocted by lefties who live beyond the realms of reality. I'm not just talking about the Scrooges who will publicly cry "Humbug!" at any mention of human rights, but also ordinary folk who would not dare publicise their low estimation of the concept.
To be honest, before I came across the document in a class, I had never read the declaration, nor did I think I needed to. I knew as much about human rights as the next person, if not more. I knew that human rights violations occurred in places like Burma, parts of China, Guantánamo, and of course, Zimbabwe. Like most people, I imagine, I did not think that I needed to read the UDHR to know what it contained. When I did, my opinion changed. The 60th anniversary of the signing of the document - tomorrow - is probably a good time to share some thoughts on it.
The UDHR is an incredibly beautiful, but also irritatingly frustrating work. I am never sure whether the ideals expressed in it are utopian, or are a basic minimum that I have just ceased to recognise because of the reality of the environment in which they exist. Sometimes, considering reality, I wonder how anyone could have penned such a work.
The core of the declaration is expressed in the first line of the first article, which states that "all human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights". There have been times when I have read the whole declaration and been moved, almost to the point of tears. More often than not, however, I get stuck at the first article because of the frustration and anger that overcome me when I think about the discrepancy between it and the real world.
For starters, the UDHR was signed in 1948. The way the story is commonly told, its drafting and signing was an international affair and people from all over the world were involved. And while there may have been an Egyptian here and an Indian there during the process, the population of the world that lives south of the equator was at best an afterthought.
Europe, for example, still owned Africa, and India had only just ceased to be British property. The United States was still a segregated nation, a generation away from the protests and strife that would lead to the signing of the Civil Rights Bill. The only way that Europe or the US, for example, could claim to support the tenets of the UDHR at that time would be if they decided that certain groups were not really human beings. That, or the entire process was a sham.
The past, important as it is in helping us make sense of both the present and the future, is past. It would be wrong to throw out an idea as important as the universality of human rights because of the manner in which it was introduced.
Yet, even if we move on from that past and look at the world today, I cannot be the only person who does not believe that all people, irrespective of nationality, gender, religion and ethnicity, are either "born free" or are "equal in dignity and rights".
It is just not true. It is not true in the obviously rotten parts of the world, but it isn't even true in places like Ireland.
There is no way that the asylum seeker who is not allowed the dignity of work has equal rights to the rest of society. That person, potentially fleeing far worse violations, will in all likelihood have to endure years in limbo.
He or she will have to endure not knowing what tomorrow may bring, fully aware that their future may ultimately rest on which side of the bed some bureaucrat wakes up. In response to their plight, one could totally ignore the spirit of the UDHR and argue that a state can only guarantee the rights of her citizens.
Even if that were the case, there are plenty of Irish citizens who feel that they are less equal than others, and with good reason. I have heard people speak openly about the Traveller community in ways that they would not dare speak of black or Asian people.
Beyond minorities, a friend who comes from a poor, rural family in the west of Ireland is adamant that he is no more "equal in dignity and rights" to people from south Dublin as the asylum seeker is equal to the economic migrant with a well-paying job. They may look alike, but the options they have available to them, and the manner in which society and the State relates to them, is very different.
Don't get me wrong - this is in no way an attempt to portray Ireland in the same light as states that clearly treat people and their rights with contempt. I would far rather live in the one country than the others. But even as I revel in the civil liberties we all enjoy in this country, the UDHR demands more of society than freedom from arbitrary arrest and the freedom to choose one's government.
Mary Robinson once said: "Human rights are the business of everyone." I think she was right. The strength of a document like the UDHR is not in how extensively it is quoted in nations' constitutions, but how well it is known by ordinary people and how they interpret it. As important as it is to have such a bold statement in the public domain, the real strength of the declaration is the way in which it challenges us all to think about our obligations to each other.
For those who have not read the document and have no intention of doing so, I offer my summary: I am my brother's keeper.