DEMOCRACY & HUMAN RIGHTS
The whole world witnessed the fall of a dictator, Robert Mugabe, who ruled Zimbabwe with an iron fist for thirty-seven years until there was nothing left for the people of Zimbabwe. The newly inaugurated President Emmerson Mnangagwe has pledged to re-engage the country with the world. He promised a Democratic Zimbabwe to the rejoicing people, free at last.
HUMAN RIGHTS LOGO
The complex relationship between democracy and human rights shows the need for education in a democracy. Human Rights are now legally defined, has a legal framework and are enforceable. Human rights are a concrete reality and not an illusion. Human rights are a legal certainty in all parts of the world.
Thomas Jefferson on Democracy
Every human being needs to know about his or her rights. Human rights education is a 'must have' and not a'nice to have' in today's multicultural society. It enables us to live in peaceful harmonization with respect for human dignity, it teaches us to have tolerance across the boundaries of traditions, cultures, religions, opinions, and worldviews.
Mother Teresa
A case in Switzerland on 29 November 2009, where Swiss voters supported a suggestion by means of a referendum, to ban the building of minarets (towers, spires), more than 57% voted in favor of the ban. The Government said in an official statement that they accepted the decision of the voters. The statement reads as follows: "The Federal Council (government) respects this decision. Consequently, the construction of new minarets in Switzerland is no longer permitted" (SWI 2009). The result of a democratic decision-making and opinion-building process. This decision is violating human rights, in this case, the ban violates the freedom of religion and is above all discriminatory. Is there a democracy without human rights when the majority's decision discriminates against the minority? What happens when a democratic decision authorize a human right violation?
The debate about the reasons why every human being is a right-holder of human rights is of importance because human rights did not fall from heaven. Human rights are not an outright truth. The necessity to justify human rights is also motivated by the correlation between human rights and corresponding duties, thus, every human being is not only a right-holder but also needs to respect the human rights of others.
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948, can be understood as a reaction to the violation of essential elements and areas of human existence and to the attempt of denial of human dignity during the Holocaust. According to the argument of Johannes Morsink that most of the articles and rights in the Declaration were adopted as direct and immediate reactions to the horrors of the Holocaust, while today we cannot only just point to the Nazi massacres, but to the massacres in Cambodia, Rwanda, the Darfur and in Bosnia.
What about the bombings of innocent people the world over, the recent bombings in Egypt?. Christians and other minorities in Irak and Syria are suffering tremendously because of their faith.
The development of human rights happens in human history because experiences of injustices trigger a common feeling that humanity should stop these injustices, they must get rid of them and avoid them in future.
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The Heart of Democracy
Democracy is largely the view that there are extraordinary possibilities in ordinary people and that if we throw wide the doors of opportunity so that all can bring out the best that is in them, we will get amazing results from unlikely sources.
Franz Schubert
- Schubert's mother had been a housemaid for a Viennese family before marriage. His father, the son of a Moravian peasant, was a parish schoolmaster.
Michael Faraday
- Michael Faraday was one of the greatest scientific experimenters of all time, he was born in Newington, Surrey one of four children and his father was a blacksmith and was often too ill to earn a living. His mother was a country women who was very supportive of her son. She had great wisdom and calm and supported her son through a very difficult childhood. He only received the barebones of education, learning to read and write.
Ludwig Von Beethoven
- Beethoven was the son of a drinking mother, herself the daughter of a cook and drunken father. Ludwig van Beethoven was the eldest of three children. His father who was a musician liked to drink, he taught his son to play the violin and piano. Beethoven was often pulled out of bed by his drunken father, to perform for his farther's drinking companions and suffered beatings if he protested.
William Shakespeare
- Shakespeare, whose exact date of birth is not known, was the son of the chief magistrate of the town council. His father fell upon hard times for unclear reasons to history. When his son William was twelve, his father was prosecuted for unlicensed dealings in wool and overcharging. He pledged guilty and lost some lands he had obtained through his wife's inheritance.
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The teaching of these subjects even at a very young age is very important. Democracy should not be taken for granted, even in countries with long democratic traditions and Human Rights is necessary to build Democracies with strong and lasting foundations. Very interesting topics @frieda, really great article. Thank you very much for sharing! @originalworks
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