I was supposed to publish this post last July 17 as my activity pledge for ‘Bloggers Unite For Human Rights’, but as you can see, I’m almost 2-week late here. I just can’t clearly explain what made the fuss of not complying with the deadline. I was too busy, perhaps. Or it’s just that I’m an expert procrastinator, as ever, and I was just exercising my master skill for the last two weeks. [Possibly the latter one.]So without any further yadda yadda’s, here is my statement…
A Penning For Human Rights
I really can’t find any specific piece of stored knowledge in my brain that directly speaks of human rights. But as I contemplate its definition - (law) any basic right or freedom to which all human beings are entitled – I immediately thought of circles; on how these circles draw innumerable consequences in the issue of human rights.
Recalling what I’ve read years ago, there exists a lot of attachments or sentiments that bombards every individual in the society. Geo-sentiment and socio-sentiment comprises the major kind of these sentiments in the roster.
Geo-sentiment is born from love for the indigenous land. Originating from this geo-sentiment, many other sentiments arise, such as geo-patriotism, geo-politics, geo-economy and many other geo-centered sentiments, including geo-religion. This geo-sentiment tries to confine humanity to a limited part of the world. It says, “This is my land and I will give my life for its development, for the happiness of all who live within its borders.” This sentiment is very dangerous in that it leads to being unconcerned with the lives of people in other lands.
Socio-sentiment differs from geo-sentiment in such a way that it does not confine people to a particular territory, but rather it extends to an entire community. This means that instead of thinking of the well-being of a geographical area, people think more of the well-being of a particular community, even excluding all other communities in this process. Thus, while they worry about the interest of a certain community, they do not hesitate to violate the interests and the natural growth of other communities.
And so, from these sentiments appears the construct of circles. We draw narrow circles around those and ourselves who are similar to us with their configuration of existence and lower minds. We separate ourselves to the totality of our fellow human beings and create social barriers to demarcate our sense of social separation – walls of sentiments that supposed to be aimed for the common good. We say to others: “Get out! You do not belong to our circle! You do not belong to our family, gender circle, religion, land, church, social status, etc.!”.
This false sense of identification with our lower selves has created endless conflicts in the history of the earth. And so had incurred significant damage in the aspect of human rights. If we will not be able to recognize the approach of these sentiments and let them grow to their destructive stage and devour our sense of goodness, directly or indirectly, consciously or unconsciously, we ourselves may deprive others of their entitled rights. A human society that we pursue to establish with peace and harmony may not be able to take its final form.
Uhhh, I was really sad while writing this post. Sigh.
Taong-gubat says:
It is not enough to just seek justice for the abused and find cure for the deprivations. In the fight for human rights, we must contemplate the factors – the dangerous sentiments – that manifest its cause and how they can be managed. Else, we might not be able to reach the finish line.
