Rights more universal over time
When you think about the times - just after World War II with communications among people and nations exponentially rarer and more difficult than today - calling anything "universal" was rather bold. Culture, language, and perspectives varied even more widely than they do now, because we had less cross-border interaction with each other on every level. Next week's anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights may seem a non-event today, but its signing on Dec. 10, 1948, was monumental.
The war with its inhuman atrocities was over. A new body of international cooperation was born, its chief goal to prevent such atrocities from every happening again. The United Nations' first order of business, drafting a bill of (universal human) rights applicable to all people, was to become "a road map to guarantee the rights of every individual everywhere." It took two years, limitless discussions, and hundreds of people representing 50 nation-states. Even then, it had its naysayers.
I was one. As a new graduate with a freshly minted degree in international studies, like many 21-year-olds I had that annoying blend of too much information and too little maturity. At a Houston seminar and later, representing a human rights foundation at a celebratory conference at UNESCO in France for the Declaration's 40th anniversary, I argued that a few of the Declaration's 30 articles were not truly universal, because they didn't allow for certain cultural interpretations of "rights," such as arranged marriages (Article 16).
I know better now, but one point still potently applies, to this document and to all cross-cultural interactions: Our different experiences, beliefs, and perspectives make "universal" something which requires sensitivity, open minds, and patient understanding. We'll get there, if slowly.
Most of the delineated rights are very basic - rights to life, liberty, and property; to vote and participate in government; to equal treatment without regard to race, sex, language, religion, or political opinion; fair hearings and freedom from torture or "degrading punishment." Others are more specific, such as freedom to marry, travel, and to have and change one's nationality.
Less usual, but no less precious, is Article 18:
"Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance."
When this was drafted the world was separated into Eastern and Western blocks of both geography and philosophy, making common ground a colossal challenge. Yet as the years roll by, technological innovation gives cross-cultural communication an increasingly universal ease, blurring old divisions with their associated fears and oppression-permitting isolation, into, hopefully, someday-oblivion against the backdrop of human compassion.
With luck, perhaps by the Declaration's centennial.
Sholeh Patrick, J. D. is a columnist for the Hagadone News Network. Contact her at [email protected].