Today’s topic is a heavy one, so I appreciate you taking the time to read it.
All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.
So begins the United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which was adopted by the UN General Assembly in December 1948, after World War II. The international community vowed never again to allow atrocities like the Holocaust happen again.
How generous of them. It was too little, too late for the 6 million plus people who died or for the tortured souls who survived, but that is a blog post for another day.
Forgive the sarcasm here, but really?
Are all human beings born free and equal? They most certainly are not. It all depends on where you are born as well as perhaps your gender, race, religion, or your family’s financial status.
Are all human beings endowed with reason and conscience? Hardly.
Should all human beings act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood? Well, of course, but that does not mean it actually happens.
Change does not happen because someone has declared it so, even if those making the declaration are the leaders of the free world. Atrocities against people are happening daily, around the world and right here in our own backyards.
Today is Blog Action Day, a day when bloggers across the world are writing on behalf of human rights. While the United Nations may have had good intentions when the declaration was written, its words ring true in too few regions of the world. They do not even ring true here in the United States.
Though I can help to draw attention to the issue of human rights, I do not claim to have all the answers on how to make it better. What I do know is this. We can all extend a hand to someone else now and then. We can do a better job of extending ourselves to others and being kind to one another. We can also stop tolerating injustices when we see them happening. We can find ways to get involved. We can lift each other up rather than trying to lift ourselves up by pushing someone else down.
Perhaps we can make it better simply by doing better. If so, what will you do?
For more information about Blog Action Day, go to BlogActionDay.org.