UKH

70 years ago today, the United Nations General Assembly adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, based on the principle that the "recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world." 

https://www.ohchr.org/EN/UDHR/Documents/UDHR_Translations/eng.pdf

"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." 

We've come a long way in 70 years; but not nearly as far as we might have done, had we - collectively - paid a bit more attention to Article 1 and remembered, too, that the flipside of rights is responsibilities.

I wonder what Thomas Paine would make of our present-day interpretation of "Rights of Man", which met with such outrage in Britain 217 years ago? I am increasingly reminded now - even while we're all shouting about our inalienable rights - of the reaction of The People to the very idea of democracy when Paine first launched it: Burn the witch!

Is it time for some reason, conscience and spirit of brotherhood?

I think a lot of people, need to stop paying lip service to the UN and to back and push through a number of resolutions. Also, instead of abstaining o many votes countries should be pinning their colours to the mast.

Our own (Britain's) record is shameful in relation to a number of countries, our failure to vote in favour of the recognition of the state of Palestine was particularly galling, considering we were the one's that gave part of it away!.

We certainly owe the Palestinians our best efforts to give them democratic rights in their own homeland. As a teenager, years ago, I spent time with a group of Palestinians sent by their people to Britain to be trained as engineers, doctors, lawyers, so that they could pass on their skills back home. Each introduced himself as "a Palestinian from Jordan/Lebanon/Abu Dhabi/etc" and when I asked them to explain why, they told me, pointing out that Britain had caused most of their problems. I had no idea how that could be the case, so I went home and started reading, and I found that they were tragically right. TE Lawrence's story of how he had been told he could promise the Arabs independence if they helped us conquer their Turkish overlords had me weeping with fury. As if it was ours to give away in the first place! 

Exactly, and we don't even have the fortitude to help them when we have the chance.