The second world war was in a way the defeat of the very humanity. The Enlightenment belief that humanity was leaving behind barbarity and definitely, and fast, was progressing towards rational self betterment was shattered due to the carnage carried on in the concentration camps. As if the ethnic cleansing during the holocaust was not vicious enough, the atomic bombing of Hiroshima-Nagasaki wiped out two living cities. Both these blots on human history were warning bells that had to heard. In 1945, on this very day, the U.N. General Assembly floated the proposal of the Universal Human Rights. Desperately needed, these were clearly enunciated by 1948.
Actually a project forever in the making, given the emergent contexts constantly shifting, these international laws grant a human(e) treatment to each and every person without any reference whatsoever to any issues such as race, gender, nationality, region, religion, class or caste.
A clarion call to the basic rights of/to life and liberty, the charter grants freedom of opinion and expression. No power, however mighty, can take away the right to dignity and equality, maintains this charter. It grants the right to education and to work, too. Ethical and normative principles, their efficacy and need have often be tested in the last seventy five odd years. Despite all sorts of violations by the vested interests, these laws, however toothless the U.N. may appear, have managed to maintain a semblance of sensibility in a world otherwise gone wild, drunk especially on the AI and the AR, and powered by their digital cousins. In a world dreaming to inhabit the moon and the mars, they are the hope that life on earth can be a heaven!
Pratima@ ethical empowering and betterment of self, and others!
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