Imagining a Safe and Dignified Life for All

Deborah Buffton

presented to the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship, La Crosse WI

25 October 2009

Good morning and thank you for inviting me to share UN Sunday with you this morning as we celebrate the ideals and work of  this organization that seeks to create a more just and peaceful world.  As I was working on these comments, a verse from the Hebrew book of Proverbs kept popping into my head—“Where there is no vision, the people perish.” (29:18)  And it seems to me that the work of the UN and our own work for justice requires vision and imagination.

Yesterday I went on the internet and simply typed “UN Conventions” into my search engine and the results that came up are a marvelous indicator of the breadth of the UN’s vision and its understanding that we have to address these problems together to be able to resolve them in any meaningful way.  I found, for example, the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the UN Convention on Genocide, the Convention on the Rights of the Child, the Convention against Torture, on Conventional Weapons, on the Rights of Migrant Workers and their Families, on the Status of Refugees, and on Climate Change, to name just a few.  And it seems to me that this broad approach is absolutely necessary.  For we will never have a world free of genocide if we don’t care for the rights of migrant workers and child laborers; we will never reduce or eliminate war as long as we view the natural resources of the world as ours for the taking.  We will continue to have population growth that exceeds our planet’s ability to sustain it as long as women and girls are devalued and denied education and control over their own bodies.  We will continue to struggle with racism, sexism, homophobia and other forms of discrimination until we come to accept that there are basic human rights to which we are all entitled.

As I think about the founding of the UN back in the 1940s, and especially about the promotion of various ideals embodied in documents like the Declaration of Human Rights, I am struck by how this work was at once both stunningly visionary and the only possible response to the events of the day.  Coming out of the horrors of the first half of the 20^th century—the total, global wars, the use of weapons of mass destruction in Nagasaki and Hiroshima, the deliberate attacks on civilians in Tokyo, Dresden, Coventry, London, and countless other nameless places, the attempts at genocide, and the general brutality that marked and marred the world—the work of the UN was both a courageous and audacious rejection of the ways of the world and a vision of a better way to live.

Each time I think about it, I am awed by the ideas behind the formation of the UN and especially the Declaration of Human Rights, which I believe gets to the heart of the United Nations’ work.  How astonishing it was to try to create a document that states the rights that all people should have; but on the other hand, was there really any other reasonable response in the late 1940s if our species were to survive?

Recently I was reading an article about Eleanor Roosevelt and her participation in the commission that developed the Declaration of Human Rights. (Allida M. Black, “Eleanor Roosevelt and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights” OAH Magazine of History (April 2008), 34-37.) The commission was international in its makeup, including members from 18 countries in Europe, Asia, Africa and the Americas. At the first meeting of that commission in 1946, Dr. C. L. Hsia from China nominated her to be the chair of the commission and the other delegates quickly endorsed this.  Having served on a number of committees, I suspect that partly this reflected respect for Roosevelt herself, but there was probably also a little relief on the part of others not to have that burden placed upon them.  Roosevelt hadn’t expected to be given this task, but agreed nonetheless, saying she would “do my best, although my knowledge of parliamentary law is somewhat limited.” (qtd 34)

I really like her spirit of saying, well, I may not be perfect for the job, but I will do what I can.  How often do we use our perceived inadequacy as a convenient excuse not to take on a hard task?  While I would not advocate my going down to St. Francis or Gunderson Lutheran Hospital and offering to perform surgery having no training in it, but I do find that I sometimes am reluctant to take something on, saying that, “well, I’m not really an expert at this, so I’ll let someone else do it.  They will do a better job”  So I find her willingness to take on the task of chairing this very important commission, notwithstanding her failure to have memorized Robert’s Rules of Order, to be inspiring  She took this on because she recognized the importance of the work to be done.  She realized “that we are all conscious of the great responsibility which rests upon us…to help the UN achieve its primary objective of keeping the peace of the world by helping human beings to live together happily and contentedly.”(qtd. 34)

The work of the Commission was not easy.  It was charged with drafting an international declaration, a convention, and provisions for implementing the convention.  It had to develop a vision and protocols acceptable to all member states and to structure an International Court of Human Rights.  This was a struggle as Cold War politics intervened.  “American conservatives charged any human rights document crafted by the United Nations would bring socialism to America while delegates from the Soviet block argued that racial segregation proved that the western democracies gave only lip service to civil and political rights.” (p. 34)  It would have been easy to give up, saying, ‘this is simply not possible.” But through the next 2 ½ years through 85 working sessions, many of which lasted until well past midnight, and 7 different drafts, Roosevelt and the rest of the Commission worked on this with fierce patience and determination, trying to navigate the tricky waters of international politics.  Roosevelt saw this as a way to continue addressing issues she had championed as first lady—poverty, education, conflict resolution, civil rights.  She saw this as real political work, not just an intellectual exercise.  In Foreign Affairs magazine she said that  “Many of us thought that lack of standards for human rights the world over was one of the greatest causes of friction among the nations and that recognition of human rights might become one of the cornerstones on which peace could eventually be  based.”  She saw the crafting of the declaration as “a very grave responsibility.”  She believed that the peoples of the world, especially those whose lives were upended by the violence of the Second World War, “look upon us, regardless of the governments we spring from, as their representatives, the representatives of the people of the world,…” (qtd. 34)  It is striking to me that she saw her constituents to be not simply the people in the US, but all the vulnerable people around the world.  Such a vision is essential to creating a better world and it would be good for us to see ourselves as advocates for the marginalized and vulnerable people of the world.

It is not a perfect document, but it is nonetheless an extraordinary attempt to show us a new vision of the world, one in which not only political and civil rights, but also social and economic and cultural rights are guaranteed.

When I consider the work of the Commission, I am struck by the sincerity and hope and seriousness with which they took up their task.  I think that it is too easy in our own time to succumb to cynicism about the possibility of improving the world.  In fact, I think it is one of the greatest dangers in the world—to believe that things can never change no matter what we do; or to believe that because all human rights violations and all wars have not been stopped, therefore the work of the UN is pointless and worthless.   “Where there is no vision, the people perish.” And it seems to me that viewing the world cynically, believing that nothing we do can make a difference, is a manifestation of  a loss of vision.  If we cannot envision a world that is better than the one in which we currently live, then we truly will perish.

So what does this mean for us today?  It’s all very well to celebrate work done over 60 years ago, but how do we relate this to the challenges of our own time?  There are several things for us to take from this little history lesson.  First, while having a vision of the future is important, it is not enough to have any old vision.  What we choose to imagine matters in terms of the kind of world we will help create.  If I imagine “a safe and dignified life for me,” I will make very different choices than if I imagine “a safe and dignified life for all.”  Our choice of vision is a key sticking point for those of us who live in the richest countries in the world.  We are quite concerned that our lives be safe and dignified, but fail to see how the choices we make create instability, injustice and indignity for others.  And the ironic part of this—and here is another lesson from the work of the HRC—is that when we create injustice and instability for others, it ultimately comes back to haunt us and create instability for us.

To see how this works within our own country, let us consider recent news reports that have discussed the huge compensation packages that the heads of some leading banks are receiving despite the fact that these banks have received unbelievable amounts of tax payer money to keep them from failing.  Meanwhile, housing foreclosures have reached epidemic proportions and the number of poor in this country has increased.   In 2008, the number of Americans living in poverty increased by nearly 2.6 million to a total of 37 million or about 13.2 % of the population. The number of American children living in poverty is expected to rise from 19 % in 2008 to 25 % in 2009.  Thirty-seven percent of US households headed by women with children present in the home lived in poverty in 2007. (U.S. Census Bureau, 2008)

Here is another way to look at the economic disparity in our country: in 2006, the top 1/10 of 1% of tax payers (about 140,000 people) reported as much income as the bottom 50% (67.4 million people).  In 1970, the top 100 corporate CEOs earned $40 for every $1 earned by the average worker.  By 2007 the top 100 CEOs earned $1,723 for every $1 the average worker earned.  In 1970 the top 1% received 8% of the national income.  By 2007 it was gobbling up 23% of the national income. (Les Leopold, “Wall Street’s Gall” The Progressive (September 2009) 27).

How long can we sustain this kind of inequality and maintain a stable society?  Actually, we are not doing such a great job of creating stability.   A recent news report (“Chicago’s Violence Caused by Drugs and Joblessness” Aug. 20, 2009, CNN IReport www.ireport.com) indicated that violent crime, and especially gang activity in Chicago had increased in 2008 largely as a result of two factors—the economic downturn and easy access to weapons.  Our response to this, however, is not to fix the economic disparity in the country, nor to limit access to weapons, but instead to build more prisons.  This industry is two-fold: there is first the building of prisons, which is often seen as a boon to a local economies, providing short-term jobs in construction as well as longer-term jobs for prison guards and staff.  Second, prisons provide a population of up to 2 million people, mostly blacks and Hispanics, who work for various industries for a pittance and have no right to strike or seek higher wages.  It is the goose that laid the golden egg for the wealthy who invest in prison industries, but in the eyes of human rights organizations, it is a form of forced slave labor.  But further, what this means is that the wealthy have a vested economic interest in keeping prisons full.  According to California Prison Focus, "no other society in human history has imprisoned so many of its own citizens." The United States has locked up more people than any other country: a half million more than China, which has a population five times greater than the U.S. The United States holds 25% of the world's prison population, but only 5% of the world's people. In 2008 over 1 in every 100 adults in the US was in prison— most for nonviolent offenses.  As a result, despite building more prisons, our prisons are seriously overcrowded.  For example, in California there are 155,000 inmates in 33 prisons, many of which are housing twice the number of inmates they were built to hold.  This leads to prison riots that are blamed on “racial” tension, when the real issue is overcrowding.  At the same time we know that racism is a key component of our prison system.  Black males comprise a disproportionate percentage of our prison population; they are far more likely to be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death than whites or other people of color, though Hispanics are also targeted. 

Fears of violent crime cause people to put their faith in building more prisons.  Yet, violent crimes go up in times of economic downturn and easy access to weapons.  Because we see only a violent act and not all the related issues that led to it, our vision is limited and we wind up exacerbating the very problems we are trying to solve.

Let us turn to a global picture--about 25,000 people die every day of hunger or hunger-related causes, according to the United Nations. This is one person every three and a half seconds.  About 350 will have died in the time it takes me to deliver these remarks.  And it is children who die most often. The lack of food, of course, leads to health problems, which are also affected by environmental degradation which results in a lack of clean water and safe environments in which to live.  Warfare is one of the greatest causes of environmental degradation as countries use, for example, depleted uranium and Agent Orange to create a toxic wasteland in previously habitable regions.  These substances have terrible consequences for everyone in the region--combatants and noncombatants, enemies and allies alike. This is ironic because very often it is disagreements over resources that cause countries to go to war, usually against indigenous peoples—oil in the Middle East, Nigeria and Columbia, water in Israel/Palestine, land and lumber in Argentina and West Papua, metallic sulfides in northern Wisconsin, and the list goes on.

It seems perhaps a bit simplistic, to say that these problems would be resolved if we simply recognized people’s human rights.  And yet, the solution may very well be that simple—simple, but not easy.  What would it take for us to recognize the human rights of others?  While I’m sure few people in this room today would say that they did not recognize others’ human rights, there is a difference between saying that and acting on that belief.  Because what it might require of us is both more and less.  More in the form of action and less in the form of consumption.  More in the form of compassion and awareness and less in the form of apathy and self-absorbtion.

What are the things we need to take on to work for human rights?

One thing that would help would be to publicly support the UN and its initiatives in the sometimes hostile atmosphere of criticism.  We must educate ourselves on the very real achievements of the UN and counter those who argue that it is a pointless or even dangerous organization.  In my world history class that focuses on human rights, most students have never read and many have never heard of the Declaration of Human Rights.

Further, we need to work to identify the issues and actions that require our attention and that will help to bring a more just world.  There are so many of these, so I would encourage you to find one or two about which you are passionate—whether it be the environment, peace, economic justice, racism, prison reform or whatever--and direct your energies to them.  Read up on them and then begin to act.  This may include writing to heads of state or corporations or editors of newspapers or friends to educate them on issues.

Third, reach out to and learn from those who suffer from the excesses of our lifestyle—the poor, the homeless, the imprisoned, the marginalized.  A few weeks ago I heard Sr. Helen Prejean and she spoke of her shock the first time her work brought her to live in a neighborhood in which most of the people were economically poor and what an incredible education that was for someone like herself who came from privilege.  In that poor neighborhood she saw a completely different vision of the world than she had known before.  And received a completely different understanding of what was required of her if she were to be a creator of peace and justice in the world.

We might need to take part in demonstrations and vigils, even to the point of risking serving time in prison in order to resist unjust laws and practices.

This is just a small list to get you started thinking; there are many more things we can do.  But also, and this might be even harder for us, we are called to give up some things—to consider carefully our use of resources and the effects of our lifestyles on the environment—where our food comes from and what kind of food we eat, what is our relationship to the rest of creation—to the animals and the plants of the world; what effect driving our cars has on the environment; how much waste we create and what we do with it; how much of our income we hoard or spend on unnecessary things and how much of it we give to help those around the world achieve a safe and dignified life. How much of it goes to support our military through taxes.  Whether we can really justify buying that new electronic gadget that will use up batteries and electricity and contribute to greater toxic waste in 2 or 3 years when it has become obsolete.  We may need to pass on cheap goods that were made by children in sweatshops half a world away from us.  This will require work on our part as we pay attention to where our stuff comes from and under what circumstances.

In short, what is required is a complete revolution in our values and ways of living.  It is not at all surprising to me that the UN and its initiatives spark controversy and fear among many in our society.  The thought of a world in which all people live happily and contentedly is, on the surface, a very nice idea, but in practice a hugely difficult thing to achieve for those of us who are accustomed to live with privilege.  And yet, if we are willing to revise our vision, we will see giving up that privilege, if it leads to a more peaceful world, might just be worth it. On this UN Sunday, I would encourage us to follow the model of Eleanor Roosevelt, roll up our sleeves and support the radical work of the UN.