To mark Human Rights Day, Frieder Otto Wolf, President of the Humanist Association of Germany, called yesterday evening in Berlin for the principles of the UN Declaration of Human Rights to be consistently understood as human minima: “We should remind ourselves today that making claims on the basis of universal human rights is not a positive ideal of human cultivation, but should secure its foundation.”
Wolf made clear his deep sadness that, despite all cultural evolution up to the present day, it has not been possible to give the declarations of human rights the weight in international law, global society and national reality that would be necessary for a real humanization of societies.
“From my perspective, developments at a scientific, technological or economic level have at best helped to limit barbaric relapses in cultures. In some cases, these developments have even exacerbated grievances or caused them in the first place. Planned social progress, which is unreservedly welcome from a humanist point of view, is still only an isolated case today,” Wolf continues.
The claim to validity of universal human rights, as formulated and declared by the international community after the multiple and unforgettable horrors of the last hundred years, is still repeatedly negated, fundamentally doubted or simply declared to be negotiable at will. Politically, economically and religiously motivated interests regularly and often play a decisive role here, said Wolf.
“The consequences are not only evident in the crimes of individuals or small groups that are widely publicized in the media, but also in the everyday misery in the cities of our countries. Our entire planet bears witness to the terrible indifference to human minima.”
Yesterday, he therefore pleaded with all humanistically-minded people to keep reminding themselves of the fundamental importance of universal human rights. This is the only way to master the enormous task of enforcing and safeguarding them, which small communities of committed human rights defenders around the world dedicate themselves to every day.
Frieder Otto Wolf: “We must not only inform ourselves and our neighbors about the countless abuses in securing the minimum standards of a humane existence. We must finally understand the rejection of and indifference to human rights once again in all clarity and present it for what it is: a radical and dangerous ignorance, if not an attack on the central principles of our civilization. This must be resisted in an appropriate manner.”
