EDITORIAL: 60 YEAR LATER, A CHERISHED DOCUMENT IS FURTHER DISCARDED
Asbarez
Dec 10th, 2009
UN Assembly session that approved Universal Declaration of Human Rights
(UDHR) in 1984.
Today is the 60th anniversary of the signing of the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights.
As we look back on the past six decades, it is evident that the
signatory nations have not fully adhered to the declaration, nor have
they respected the impetus for drafting this important document.
We see more human rights abuses today around the world that go
unpunished and even unnoticed. Yet world leaders regularly invoke
the Declaration to paint themselves as arbiters of justice and
responsible citizens of a world currently marred by war, genocide,
poverty and corruption
"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," reads Article I of the
Declaration.
Using the Declaration as a blueprint for advancing a civilized world
is nowhere more appropriate than the current Armenian reality.
After almost 95 years, Turkey not only continues to deny the Armenian
Genocide but has set in motion a series of events that aim to forever
bury the fact that its predecessors systematically murdered a race
and attempted to wipe an entire nation off the face of this earth. The
US’s continued collusion in this matter, makes it-a so-called bastion
of human rights-complicit in the crime because of the state-sponsored
and adamant denial of this historic fact.
On the Karabakh front, this very declaration is being thrown out in
the internationally-sponsored peace talks, which all but ignores the
Azeri aggression that started the war in the first place and calls on
Armenians to make severe concessions in order to appease gratuitous and
unreasonable international interests that, at the core, trample upon
the 30 articles that make up the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Domestically, the Armenian authorities have gradually tightened the
noose around their citizens by pillaging the country’s national wealth
for personal gain, and this year, through their reckless disregard,
have steered the entire nation toward a dangerous path that all but
jeopardizes the future of its very existence.
To enumerate the daily breaches of the Declaration in every-day life
would require a Web portal quadruple the size of Google.
The utopian nature of the Declaration has given rise to the
proliferation of organizations whose mission to preserve the essence
of the document has earned them the reputation of watchdog in the
international arena. Unfortunately, these groups have also been
tarnished, to a certain extent, by personal and political gains and
their arbitrations often contradict their stated purpose. By becoming
the pawns of political power[broker]s, they have diminished their
role and have become servants to narrow political interests.
To preserve and protect the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is a
crucial imperative now, more than ever. Politics, greed and the wanton
desire for domination have blurred the lines of acceptable behavior
and expectations and heinous violations of basic human rights have
become tolerable in this global society.
On this anniversary, each individual-citizen of the world-must pledge
to not merely work to preserve but to vigorously fight to uphold
and protect human rights in order to ensure that humankind can be
differentiated from savage beasts.