On 10th December of 1948 the United Nations presented the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights, which is a document, with thirty articles, that includs
a common standard of achievement for all people and nations, so every
individual and every organ of society must struggle for education to promote
respect for these rights and freedoms and progressive measures, national and
international.
In this post we will
approach the articles that discuss freedom, the different kinds of freedom (transcript in the next column).
The first article of this document relates
to human freedom and claims that each and everyone of us is free from
the moment one is born. This freedom can be conditioned by
our acts and / or the society in which we insert.
Any society suffers changes over
time and such changes may lead to better or worse, depending on
the associated factors.
But this freedom that characterizes
us at birth does not make us for itself in free beings. In such
freedom must be associated with many others, such as freedom
of thought, opinion, expression, conscience, choice, etc., without
which beings would be "vegetables" without any
opportunity to voice their opinions about the life and the future of
each one. So the first article in this statement is
complemented by articles 17 and 18 from the same declaration.
Looking back, we see several times in
the world history that these articles were absurdly defaulted.
Starting with the basics
(Article 1), is an example of violation of this Article any
situation in which a person is born with their fate already determined,
as an example:
> The period of slavery, in
which the black people would have to serve Caucasians necessarily;
> Or even still in our
time, in India, which operates a very rigorous caste system, in
which there is exists even a group of people who, according to this social
division, does not belong to any caste and is considered as powder
(Dalit), this system requires that people from one caste only marry people
of the same, and if not, anyone who marries a lower caste is
replaced by the same variety being disinherited from their
family. In this system no one goes "up", if there is any
change, just "down."
The article 18 refers
mainly to the free choice of what we believe - religious
freedom. The violation of article is part of our books in two great
moments of history:
> The Inquisition (XVI
and XVIII, in Portugal) - during this period all those who were
not Catholic Christians were sentenced to death if one didn't convert (to New Christians), it is needless to say that there was a mass
murder, since many people refused to subjugate their faith to
something they did not believe;
> During the second World
War, the Nazis were responsible for the Holocaust, the killing of approximately six
million Jews as well as two million Polish and four million
others who were deemed "unworthy of living" (including the
disabled and mentally ill, Soviet war prisoners, homosexuals, Masonic,
Jehovah's Witnesses and Gypsies) as part of a program of deliberate
extermination.
In Article 19 the right to freedom of opinion and expression are listed. An
example of this violation is easy to identify for all of us (Portuguese
people). Until a few years ago, Portugal was subject (30
years) to a dictatorial regime, which functioned with a rigorous
machine of censureship and an oppressive police, which didn't allowed individual thoughts, and those who exposed their thoughts out
loud were imprisoned for years. This way of government was overthrown by
force of will of freedom exercised on 25th April 1974, in the Carnation
Revolution. However, today we still find dictatorial regimes that exercise the
force of oppression on individual freedoms [for instance, in Libya, until recently, was in effect a dictatorial regime, which was overthrown with a great revolution; in Equatorial Guinea, Angola, North Korea and Cuba there are a dictatorial regime also - these are just some examples of the vast number of dictatorial regimes that still exist (there are 22 nations under the dictatorial power)].
With the Allied victory in WW2 it possible the formation of the United Nations was and, therefore,
it was possible the realization of this Declaration which has
been signed by most of the countries of the world.
Now remains that, over
time, there is a greater individual and social awareness for
this cause so that situations of violation of these articles, such
as those listed, can be avoided and overcome without astronomical
damages.
To this end, it is crucial that we all learn to live in society and before that, we all know that there is a society beyond ourselves!
To this end, it is crucial that we all learn to live in society and before that, we all know that there is a society beyond ourselves!
Text written by the
authors of the Blog
Cristiana & Margarida
