The human rights

Citizenship and Multiculturalism: The Human Rights

Index

1.Introduction..............................................................................................................................1

1.The Human Rights.....................................................................................................................3

1.The Universal Declaration of the Human Rights........................................................................5

2.Significant Personalities ............................................................................................................6

2.1.Nelson Mandela.................................................................................................................6

2.2.Adolf Hitler ........................................................................................................................8

3.Conclusion...............................................................................................................................10

4.Bibliography ............................................................................................................................12

1. Introduction

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The Human Rights. If we look for the definition of this expression in an ordinary
encyclopedia, we often find that the human rights are rights and freedoms to which all
humans are entitled. Proponents of the concept usually assert that everyone is
endowed with certain entitlements merely by reason of being human. Such
entitlements can exist as shared norms of actual human moralities, as justified moral
norms or natural rights supported by strong reasons, or as legal rights either at a
national level or within international law. However, the concept of Human Rights it’s
slightly abstract and that has been a subject of discussion in the past few years.
For a while we have been studying citizenship and multiculturalism in class.
However, it isn’t a theme that we all haven’t heard about before. More than the
general information of the theme itself, the questions that it raises are much more
relevant, those being problems like racism, segregation, slavery and disrespect for the
human race in general.
The human rights movement emerged in the 1970s and many of the basic ideas
that animated the movement developed in the aftermath of the Second World War,
culminating in its adoption by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights by the United
Nations General Assembly in 1948, as we will get to know better later in this
assignment.
However, and that is also one of the most important points that we will be
discussing, the Universal Declaration of the Human Rights isn’t quite respected
sometimes. We say sometimes referring to cases of slavery and racism that we are
aware of, although, it is quite obvious that there are lots of people who are
discriminated without that action being named racism or any other word that pops
out. Millions of women throughout the world live in conditions of abject deprivation
of, and attacks against, their fundamental human rights for no other reason than they
are women. In business men often have advantage over women, and that also
happens when it comes to paychecks and so on, basic things and basic rights that we
should be all entitled to. Furthermore, some children and young people are also
disrespected and looked down as inferiors. We are well aware that there are many
children all over the world who don’t have a standard of living adequate for their
intellectual, physical, moral, and spiritual development. Some of them don’t even get
access to adequate food, shelter and clothing.
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So this is it. We are all Human beings, we also have a Declaration that should
and must preserve our rights and dignity. This is one of those matters that has gone
down in history. We are now ahead, we have accomplished a lot struggling with
prejudice, inequality, racism, slavery and so on, but we also haven’t ended it. There are
many ways of discriminating a person, there are lot’s of names for it, but there are also
ways of finally putting an end to it. One by one we must realize our foolish “we” have
been by disrespecting our own race, our own kind.
We will be mentioning personalities that have fought precisely for the things
that we have already referred, people who didn’t understand the purpose and the
foundation of the word discrimination and the actions that such a word often
originated. Furthermore, we will also emphasize a person who did the exact opposite
of what we are trying to defend here, that being Adolf Hitler. There’s many more
unfortunately, however, any paper or time is unlikely to describe the huge amount of
bad, cruel and slightly ignorant people that live and have lived amongst us all.

1. The Human Rights

Human rights are rights inherent to all human beings, whatever nationality,
place of residence, sex, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, language, or any
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other status they have or choose. We are all equally entitled to our human rights
without discrimination. These rights are all interrelated, interdependent and
indivisible.
Universal human rights are often expressed and guaranteed by law, in the
forms of treaties, customary international law, general principles and other sources of
international law. International human rights law lays down obligations of
Governments to act in certain ways or to refrain from certain acts, in order to promote
and protect human rights and fundamental freedoms of individuals or groups.
Non-discrimination is a cross-cutting principle in international human rights
law. The principle is present in all the major human rights treaties and provides the
central theme of some of international human rights conventions such as the
International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination and
the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women.
The principle applies to everyone in relation to all human rights and freedoms
and it prohibits discrimination on the basis of a list of non-exhaustive categories such
as sex, race, colour and so on. The principle of non-discrimination is complemented by
the principle of equality.
For a very significant amount of time now, people have been discriminated and
have discriminated others. However, there are some parts of the world’s population
who are much more attacked than others. We can begin with the difference, the
difference that naturally exists between us all and which is a very important point
when it comes to discrimination. A different colour, religion, sex orientation or even
background can often create a divide between people. Although, women and children
are often disrespect as well, and looked down as inferiors.
Prejudice is a common word in society nowadays. However, we can not accept
something just because it is becoming ordinary, and that is something that we should
be careful with. We can’t start looking at discrimination with a condescending face.
Human rights exist for a reason and they are named Human rights, not some people of
the world rights. Let’s face it, it isn’t race, orientation or religion that defines a
character; attitudes are the ones that do that. Therefore, those who discriminate,
those selfish, cruel, egocentric people, are much more worthy of discrimination than
anyone else.
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1. The Universal Declaration of the Human Rights

While the Second World War was still on, the Allies were to seek their four
basic war aims which consisted in Four Freedoms: freedom from fear, freedom of
speech, freedom from want and freedom of assembly. From that point on, those
freedoms became more than that, those freedoms were the turning point to a world
where equality was to reign. Changes were made and concerns and protests were
finally heard and attended, changes which reaffirmed the fundamental human rights,
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everyone is worth and everyone has dignity, it was time to act, to promote the human
rights and their freedoms. Those changes were extremely necessary after so many
years of abuse on some people(s) and so, in 1948 the Universal Declaration of Human
Rights was created and it states law. The name reflects the very first universal and
fundamental document which was made to express the rights that every person,
whether black or white, male or female, rich or poor, socialist or communist, member
of a minority or a majority, has and was born with; that means that for the first time
the rights owned by any individual were the same, so a standard was created. Any of
the previous Bills or Charters of Rights were “Universal” as they were created locally
adapted to the regions needs and beliefs and so, not always promoted equality.
Each paragraph of the preamble sets out a reason for the adoption of the
Declaration. It states everything that it’s written above. The recognition of human
dignity is the basis of justice and equality, the barbarous acts that dazed mankind, the
recognition of the four freedoms as the very aspiration of human race, the important
role of law in the control of the respect for the mankind and so on.
The articles in the Declaration simply proclaim the achievement of a common
standard of being and living in this world. Equality began to be normal and
discrimination is everyday smaller thanks to this document.

“Article 1: 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.”

2. Significant Personalities

2.1. Nelson Mandela

Nelson Mandela was born in a small
South African village to a local chief and his
third wife. No one in his family had ever
received a western educa tion but he was

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inspired to study law after witnessing the democracy of African tribal governance at an
early age. For defending black South Africans against the government extremely and
increasingly unfair treatment, he became a hunted lawyer in Johannesburg. He also
became one of the most important figures of the African National Congress, fighting to
unite all Africans and regain their rights and freedom. Mandela participated in several
boycotts, organized protests, and he was capable of mobilizing his people in a way that
had never seen before; therefore, he was labelled an enemy of the state, being
accused of treachery, banned from any political involvement, disbarred (To expel an
attorney from the practice of law by official action or procedure) and sentenced to life
imprisonment.
When he was incarcerated, a lot of attention was brought to the racial
injustices that the apartheid government in South Africa created; the “Free Nelson
Mandela” movement spread around the world.
Mandela served 27 years in prison before his release in 1990 (age: 72) and was elected
the first black President of South Africa in 1994. Although he retired from political life
in 1999, Mandela continues to lend his voice towards issues that affect his country and
the world at large, such as the AIDS epidemic, poverty, and human rights. He was also
influential in securing South Africa as the host of the 2010 Soccer World Cup.
Nelson Mandela is one of the world's greatest and most admired political
leaders and has been honoured with numerous awards including the Nobel Peace Prize
(in 1993) for he is a shining example of the incredible strength of the human spirit to
persevere in the face of adversity for the pursuit of freedom.

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2.2. Adolf Hitler

Hitler was the leader of Nazi Germany,
son of an Austria n customs official. His
unsuccessful school days gave him a lifelong
hatred of academic people: the years spent in
Vienna trying to be an art student, saw the
genesis of his anti-Semitism, anti-socialism, and
his mastery of political techniques. This last was
gained through a close study of the political
parties that were undermining the failing
power of the Habsburg empire.
Shortly before the First World War he
served the Bavarian regiment, on the western
front; he was wounded twice and received the lron Cross. From these years on, he
added to his stock of basic ideas a contempt for democracy, a passionate belief in the
greatness of Germany, an equally firm belief in the heroic virtues of war, and a
determination that Germany should throw off the shame of the Versailles treaty.
Suddenly Hitler became national news when the Nazis, tried to overthrow the
state government in 1923. The attempt failed and Hitler was put on trial and then
sentenced to five years imprisonment, serving only eleven months. He used the time,
spent comfortably enough in prison, to write Mein Kumpf which later became the
bible of the Nazi movement. In 1925 the Nazis had 27.000 members, by 1929 178,000.
Support was organized by districts, so that Germany by 1929 had a form of unofficial
Nazi political and military hierarchy.
Hitler ultimately wanted to establish a New Order of absolute Nazi German
brutal hegemony in Europe. This included the rearmament of Germany, which
culminated in 1939 when the Wehrmacht invaded Poland. In response, the United
Kingdom and France declared war against Germany, leading to the outbreak of World
War II in Europe.

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By 1944 Nazi forces engaged in numerous violent acts during the war, including
the systematic murder of as many as an estimated six million Jews targeted in the
Holocaust and between 500,000 and 1,500,000, Soviet civilians, Soviet prisoners of
war, people with disabilities, homosexuals, Jehovah's Witnesses, and other political
and religious opponents; but it was about to be over, the Allies had taken care of it.
In the final days of the war, during the Battle of Berlin in 1945, Hitler married
his long-time mistress Eva Braun and, to avoid capture by Soviet forces, the two
committed suicide less than two days later on 30 April 1945.

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3. Conclusion

We have already established that all human beings are supposed to own the
same rights and to live with equality among each other. That’s a conclusion that we
already have reached way before this assignment. We also have known for a very long
time that there is a quite substantial amount of people who live in an inferior kind of
way, and inferior, in this case, includes discrimination, disrespect and all the actions
that generally come with it. However, we all realized that the information that we
thought being huge and that we owned about this subject was way too little. We can
now affirm that there are more ways of discriminating a person than to put a smile on
her face. We now know how hurtful can that be. We are also aware of the efforts that
some remarkable people have done to change a world that seemed incapable of
changing. And that’s the turning point; change. That is and will always be one of the
biggest challenges of the human kind.
We started by exploring the concept of human rights. It may seem basic and
ordinary, however, we thought that was important to fully understand not only the
expression, but the extension of its meaning. As we have already referred, we all are
entitled to the realization of all human rights and fundamental freedoms on equal
terms with others in society, without discrimination of any kind.
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights was proclaimed to make sure that
all human beings were treated as equal and to shut down all kinds of discrimination.
After years of unimaginable abuse on those who were in some way considered
different, this document was written to finally unite us all and establish order between
Men. However, even with the declaration and law, some people still suffer with it.
Either it is women that often come after man, children who aren’t respected or are
treated awfully bad, gay people who are constantly attacked, or different races that
aren’t accepted in some countries, the human race is still not free from prejudice.
We have accomplished a lot in this fight, we have come very far. However, it
isn’t enough. Nelson Mandela, who we referred, and others like Martin Luther king,
Dalai Lama and Rosa Parks are some of those remarkable personalities that we have
mentioned above and that we have been studying in class. They fought not only for
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their rights but for all humans. They fought for us, so that know most of us can walk
tall, free to speak, to have opinions, to breath. They fought for justice, so that people
like Adolf Hitler would never have power again and they left their advice so we can
learn and grow from it. That’s the example that we must follow, that’s the path that
we must walk on.

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4. Bibliography

• GONÇALVES, Maria Emília; TORRES, Angelina; DAVIS, David (consultor
linguístico). Inglês 12º ano níveis 6/8, New Aerial. Areal Editores, 2005.

• The New Caxton Encyclopedia, volumes 6, 10, 13. The edition copyright, 1969,
by Purnel and Sons Ltd; Paulton, Near Bristol; Somerset, England and by
Instituto Geografico de Agostini, Novara Italy.

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Declaration_of_Human_Rights

• http://www.equalitynow.org

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nelson_Mandela

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