The Killing Ground: A Journey to Rwanda

Human Rights

"There is in every man that divine spark that makes him reach upward for something higher and better than anything he has ever known."

- Clarence Darrow

Fifty years ago last week Allied Forces liberated Auschwitz and the world was forced to face the unspeakable horrors of which human beings are capable. The Nazi atrocities against Gypsies, homosexuals and certain other groups deemed "undesirable," but mostly the incomprehensible, systematic, genocidal onslaught against the Jews, awakened the civilized world to a need for clarity and mutual responsibility and generated the vow, "Never again!"

The creation and adoption of a Genocide Convention condemning and outlawing this specific type of barbarism followed.

In 1948, leaders of the civilized world gathered at the United Nations and authored the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, a document intended to assure the recognition of the value and dignity of every individual human being on earth and to establish a standard of behavior in that regard to which nations and their leaders are bound.

Sadly, the political stalemate created by the Cold War for all intents and purposes neutered the UN as regards the effective condemnation of human rights violations, leaving it to struggle for credibility in a world hewn by bipolar power contests in the context of which massive abuses, including genocidal campaigns, took place.

In today's New World Order, as designated by former President George Bush upon the collapse of the Soviet Union, the United States finds itself the sole "superpower," the presumptive inheritor and arbiter of authority. That position offers an unprecedented opportunity for the realization of those dreams defined by the events of fifty years ago and articulated by those who continue to believe in the value of human life.

Where is that leadership? Where is the willingness to assert authority for the good of all, rather than for the political, economic or national interest of the few? It cannot be found in the finger-in-the-air, poll-following style that has passed for practicing politics in America in recent years, nor is it visible in the manipulation of the public's emotions that has seen an alarming degree of success in recent U.S. elections.

The simple truths that fought their way to the surface after Auschwitz laid bare the evil that lives among us provide an understanding that is the basis for hope. Human beings matter. Political systems, charismatic leaders and seductive styles of leadership, no matter how apparently promising, must bend to that immutable reality.

Human rights, the right of every living being, regardless of race, creed, nationality or station to live without fear, to strive for betterment and to hold close the knowledge that such is his or her own by birthright, must be writ large in every society, by every person of authority. The failure to honor these basic rights must be seen as an abdication of responsibility and should lead directly to a loss of power by that person or party.

As the world's leader of today, the U.S. Government has the authority, if it has the will, to confer on the international community, through the good offices of the United Nations, the role of arbiter in this pursuit. Whether it has the courage to do so remains to be seen.

The End

 

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