“Neither great hope nor ignorance can justify the discrimination of people,” said Frieder Otto Wolf, President of the Humanist Association of Germany (HVD) yesterday with a view to International Human Rights Day. This will take place for the 63rd time on Saturday.
Wolf therefore pleaded with all humanistically-minded people to take a fresh look at the fundamental principles on which the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is based. He reminded the audience that the declaration and the agreements between nations and peoples that arose from it were shaped by an agreement that came about under the impression of the terrible consequences of human actions. “Therefore, we should never stop looking at the people around us who are disadvantaged because of the hopes, goals or ignorance of others. And we should also always openly and critically examine without hesitation where hope and ignorance develop into a grand illusion. For it is from such illusion that delusion grows and from it danger. And if we ignore the people around us here and let our respect slip, we could one day be the ones who are disadvantaged because of the ignorance or hope of others that has become a grand illusion,” Wolf continued. The rights set out in the UN Declaration of Human Rights speak a clear language and do not need an interpretation that denies and calls into question people’s ability to form democratic opinions and reach agreements on the basis of human reason. Wolf: “In any case, discrimination against the central ideas of the Declaration of Human Rights deserves neither tolerance nor respect.” Frieder Otto Wolf also referred to the speech that US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton gave to the United Nations on Tuesday to mark Human Rights Day. In her speech, she called for the global problem of social discrimination or violent persecution of homosexual and transgender people to be given the urgent attention it deserves. “We should also do everything we can to ensure that the principles of the UN Declaration of Human Rights and the ideas based on it are upheld,” said Wolf. Humanists should always work together with both non-denominational and religious people.
