My hypothesis is and will
remain: “Everyone working in Human Rights sector is and would be (at least) a
good human being.[1]”
I have build my assumptions
around this with a very positive frame of mind, that most humans are nurtured by
their parents to grow up as good human being, especially when dealing with
others- its notations are – do not hurt anyone by thought, word and/or action.
These are the basic values all good parents teach their children apart from
giving ample amount of love.
In
Bangkok, I asked a group of young people, mostly below 30 years barring a few,
working in a regional human rights organisation – “What is a single most important prerequisite of a person working for
human rights issues?”
From
what I can recollect and remember, the replies were: commitment, passion, standing up, resistance, faith and being human.
This
is top of the mind response, and I consider it very close to the exactness of a
person’s core values. I know it may not
represent a well thought out intelligent answer which may anyways be far from
the truth and actual reality. I attempted to understand and dissect those terms
in simple ways.
Commitment: a strong habit of placing trust in an idea –
in this case the idea of human rights
Passion: a powerful emotion – probably towards human rights
Standing up: rise to an upright position
for defending one’s/someone’s human
rights
Resistance: to remain firm against
anything that disregards human rights
Faith: confident belief in values of human rights
Being human: show sympathies towards
human nature – here sympathetic towards other
human being
All
definitions seem quite okay - fair and fine. Yet to understand which one is the
closest to concept of human rights, let us understand the most basic definition
of human rights in simplest terms.
Human rights: Act of showing/giving basic
importance to a person because they are part of nature. All the other rights follow this basic right.
So
the closest quality and prerequisite one can have that matches basic human
rights definition is being human. Still
- it is close but not the exactly a matching prerequisite. The perfect
matching pre-requisite still remains eluded - which is, I quote Upendra Baxi[2]
here:
“At least one core value seems to command consensus
in all definitions of human rights globally. Respect towards others as co-human. It is the basic foundation of
all ethics to follow in human rights discourse.[3]”
That
is the prerequisite quality every person working for human rights should have.
One
of the old religious scripture reflecting human rights values is mentioned in
the New Testament of the Bible – the most eternal commandment said by Jesus
Christ: “Love thy neighbor as thyself![4]”
If
that quality is missing, it’s a long way to go before someone can even think or
says: “I am a human rights activist. I work for defending human rights issues!”
*********
In
the due course of that month I got on an online chat several times with my
German clinical psychologist friend Gert and inquired about the frame of mind
of a person/ persons who do/es not show respect and ignores fellow colleagues
and co-workers. Gert’s first reply was: “Psychologist believes that respected
children tend to become civil and respectful adults, similar to the case of – Only a loved child can show love easily and unconditionally.”
We
had rich discussions on varied issues around this topic – but I will just add
another portion that I found interesting to share:
People who ignore or try to
exclude others[5] from
regular personal/ professional contact incur serious psychological costs. It
damages their self-esteem, personal motivation and degrades their own ‘personality projection’ to outer society.
Those who ignore people tend to graduate to becoming perpetrators of crimes -
aggressors and bullies in their later stages of life within their personal or
professional relationships. Their growth in developing skills and competencies is
marred by lack of self-confidence. Controlled group studies suggest that if
left alone these people cannot face their own guilt and shame, thus they tend
to genus in their own kind. According to
leading psychologists the effective costs of doing these acts are much worse -
than those who suffer being excluded or ignored. They not only hurt another
person, but since they have no immunity, by inflicting social pain on another
human, they thwart their own psychological needs and damage themselves too. These
people tend to grow as unhappy human beings in life and sway towards one or the
other vices without their realization – be it - greed, jealously, power, envy,
sloth, arrogance, pride or ego.
I will
not forget what Gert ended his discussion with – In psychology respect has been called “the single most powerful ingredient in
nourishing relationships and creating a just and humane society[6]”
*********
If
anyone has come till end of reading this article might wonder - Does the null hypothesis on which this
article was written remained answered with qualitatively significance?
The
purpose of this article is epiplexis, in response to influence this group of young
people - who might pursue leadership roles within human rights / development
sector in near future – because some of them showed the qualities of inadvertent
pseudomutuality.
And
I wish them all the luck and hope they have enough courage to become humane[7]
today for becoming professionals and leaders
tomorrow!
*********
rajdoctor
© September 2013
Disclaimer: The
views expressed here are solely those of the author in his private capacity and
do not in any way represent the views of any person/s or organization/s. It
should be well understood that at the time of sharing this article for the
first time, no person/s or organization/s has approved, funded, endorsed,
embraced, friended, liked, tweeted or authorized this article.
[1] The emerging null hypothesis is:
Everyone working in Human Rights sector
is not and would not necessarily be (at least) a good human being!
[2] Upendra Baxi has emerged as
the most renowned and prominent thinker on human rights since millennium
[3] Baxi Upendra, The Future of Human Rights, Chapter 2 –
The Age of Human Rights, page 15. Oxford Publications 2007.
[4] Mark 12:31, New Testament –
Bible.
[5] ostracize
[6] Lawrence-Lightfoot, S.
Respect: An Exploration. Cambridge, Mass.: Perseus, 2000. Lickona, T. Character
Matters. New York: Touchstone, 2004.
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