I raise my voice wherever I can for people to learn, know and, own human rights as a way of life, for women and men to use this holistic overarching knowledge to cross the bridges of change; assuring and sustaining a better future for humanity.
Being a Jewish, though not a religious one, born in Jerusalem to Polish parent who spoke Arabic fluently and had many Arab Muslim friends, I believe in a just, two-state solution. I have learned from my parents that all that really matters is social responsibility, the acceptance of the other as an equal human being. Knowing that the wrong, we often do, must be undone for the sake of learning to live together and not repeating the atrocities of the past.
Painful historic memory gives us no permission to undermine the future of the other. Doing so will boomerang into our lives, unfortunately as a self-fulfilled prophecy.
As a Middle Eastern woman in this voyage, I discovered the holistic, fully comprehensive framework for human rights that expresses and articulates in force the narrative of humanity’s hopes and expectations beyond religious affiliation and national aspirations.
I found the simple wish that people have to be treated as human beings in equality and without discrimination. The extraordinary promise of human rights, for which, there is no other option, twirls, twists and turns, where patriarchy is often encouraged by religion, all religions. Men use power, privilege and politics to subjugate others, refusing to accept women as full human beings. Women exchange their equality for survival, giving way and false validity to all kinds of ongoing discrimination imbedded in fear that kills the human spirit.
As pessimism and optimism mix with laughter and tears in Tunis, Egypt, Yemen, Syria, Bahrain and Libya, we know that a positive process has started that looks to transcend tribal and religious historic ‘differences’ – similar to those taking place in Europe for many generations with much sadness and death. We then believe that there is hope for sustained change. But it will take its time with many a tear to be shed and many a live to be lost.
The strife, however, may this time be shorter than it took place in Europe. Fast means of mass communication assist women and men to analyze and focus on ‘safety’ of the bridges they will choose to cross over into a democracy that is a delivery system of human rights. However, I believe that this ongoing process will assure freedom only if it moves forward by, with and for the people.
When women and men alike, learn to trust and respect the other, re-imagining a society that is guided by human rights as a way of life, democracy will flourish in North Africa and the Middle East. Human rights grew out of their historic memory, yearning to belong in community in dignity with others.
If everyone will know, own and internalize human rights as relevant to their daily struggles, the inclusivity and universality of human rights will have people participate proactively and positively in the decisions that determine their lives. They will join in breaking through the vicious cycle of humiliation and create a secure, nurturing place, to live in.
It is the responsibility of each one of us to recognize and capture these magical yet very painful moments and do all we can to inform people the meaning of human rights in their lives. (Imposed ignorance is a human rights violation.) And when they learn, they would reinvent their lives, adding a vibrant link to the chain of humanity's expectations for life free from fear and want, moving charity to dignity.
Many of us gaining this insight acknowledge spontaneously that our social responsibility takes control of the future to become agent of change. If the community knew human rights directly and without bias, the strife taking place now would have been moot. Sadly, most people do not know about the many important moral, political and legal benefits human rights hand them over to claim as inalienable ones. It is not socialism, it is not capitalism it is human rights. It is a framework that endows us with a vibrant political and moral way to conduct our lives with the protection of human rights laws. It makes so much sense.
And finally, as people move from slavery to freedom, it is not often that the interconnectedness and interrelatedness of human rights concerns become part of a genuine systemic analysis. Recognition of differences between symptoms and causes stands to avail us with the necessary compass for real human, economic and societal transformation.
Especially now, in view of the current uprising, an ongoing dialogue about human rights must be introduced step by step throughout all sectors of society. We, the human rights’ activists and trainers, must forge such a dialogue with caution. In 20 years of working around the world, the People's Movement for Human Rights Learning has witnessed how the vision and mission of human rights answers the dreams of humanity. Human rights are banks of the river in which life can flow freely.
The Universal Declaration of human rights stands to serve humanity, giving credibility to people’s longing for values that protect their dignity. The human rights framework guides humanity into a journey of hope that informs economic and social justice and the closing of the widening gap of dignity around the world.
This is not about utopia. This is about hope, a new understanding of human rights that can have people change the world. We have no other option but human rights as a way of life that all must know and own and transform their lives accordingly.
Share this page