Sep 9, 2006 11:25:00 AM cite

Mahsa Shekarloo: Well, whether we like it or not, there are people who have issues with the idea that there is something called universality. What we call universal is very often certain people, sectors, in society, in the world, who tend to have more power, who tend to have more voice, who declare something as being universal. Now, this is debatable, and some people who challenge universality have, of course, various motivations, at its most negative, one motivation being to violate human rights. Nevertheless, there are people who launch this challenge and question the idea of universality, and that’s a challenge that needs to be addressed. And we can’t unquestioningly use words like “universal.” At the same time, one of the problems with the application of human rights today is the way it’s used politically, and the way it’s used selectively. And this has hampered the legitimacy of human rights in many areas throughout the world. When it is used for political purposes, when it is used selectively, on certain peoples, on certain regimes, then the legitimacy of such rights are de-legitimized. And, again, these issues must, must, must be addressed. I don’t think that human rights necessarily conflict with traditional or religious values, but I think we need to re-look traditional values, we need to re-look religious values and we need to re-look human rights, perhaps not make human rights so individually based, perhaps bring in the notion of collective rights just [audio ends]

by Mahsa Shekarloo

Sep 9, 2006 11:25:00 AM cite

Mark Benecke: Universal human rights are defined by a very, very, very long evolutionary process. I guess what everybody would agree upon is that a certain degree of freedom, a certain degree of wealth and a certain degree of health is a universal human right. But this has developed. You cannot dictatorially tell people how much freedom and how much wealth and how much health is good. Because we are all interconnected economically, socially, culturally, and if a society is not ready for a certain degree of freedom, health and wealth, then it needs a long stage of negotiations and maybe even a little bit of violence. I mean, I don't like that, and maybe I wouldn't take part in the violent part, but you always have to ask yourself how much do people do who don't have freedom and wealth and health to gain it and how much do people who do have it, who want to share it with the other people? So in the end, it boils down to the question: how much do people individually want to give for this? Those who want to receive more freedom, wealth and health and those who have it and want to spread it. If we really, really want to spread universal values, if they exist, then it needs a lot of negotiation and talking and discussing and maybe also laughing and drinking, because maybe the best way to negotiate values is to find a level on which we can communicate them. So, I think it's a very individual thing and it won't be done from top to the bottom but from bottom to the top, if people want it. If !

by Mark Benecke

Sep 9, 2006 11:25:00 AM cite

Martin Almada: Where fanaticism prevails, be it political or religious, it is impossible to reconcile it with universal human rights. Sadly we talk from the occidental point of view when we talk about universal human rights. The Orient has a different view in case of politics and religion. We have to respect both points of view. But I would like to finish saying that where fanaticism prevails, it is impossible to reconcile human rights or cultural values with the universal human rights.

by Martin Almada

Sep 9, 2006 11:25:00 AM cite

Masami Saionji: It can be surely done. We say that religious confrontation, but we have misunderstood the religion. The religion is not bad. I think whichever the religion, it exists with the truth. Human being's way of life, dignity of human's life, love, share, forgiveness and gratitude. So the religion is not bad, but a religious people are bad. But it is misunderstood that the religion is bad. If religious people lead in right way, then there are no religious conflict or bad thinkgs of religion. The religion preach love of the god, forgiveness, freedom, creativity, and wonderful capacity which no one can violate them. The most important thing is respect for human's life and dignity. Human race's right doesn't conflict with religious value. So if a religious person shows the oberved truth, then it is possible to harmonize human race's way of life and religious way of life

by Masami Saionji

Sep 9, 2006 11:25:00 AM cite

Masuma Bibi Russel: I think that it’s so important we know -- we should know there are different part of the world, they have their tradition, they have their culture, they have their religions that value. And with respecting that, knowing the condition geographical, economical, religious, and cultural, I think if we respect these and you will understand the circumstances about the people, about their living condition and think. I think human rights, the basic rights of universal human rights should be, we should not take away any, any person their human dignity. Whatever, which part of the world they are, it’s so important, don’t take away their pride, don’t take away the -- respect their culture, respect their religion, respect their peacefulness. I think that if we know about that and respect all this, I think that there should be a universal human rights for one thing that we don’t take away any person’s human dignity pride, especially -- repeating again and again I come from Bangladesh, and it’s so sad when I see that people are taking away the human dignity or the pride. Pride is someone live for. I think that should be -- we should know that if the basic things, whichever part you are coming from, developed country, developing country, everyone should have their human dignity, pride, that is something should no one in any cost should be taken away.

by Masuma Bibi Russel

Sep 9, 2006 11:25:00 AM cite

Mayank Mehta: Very hard question. Since it’s very hard, I’ll give an easy answer and that easy answer is not going to be practical, but that’s what we have to go towards. If there is a conflict between universal human rights and so called traditional or religious beliefs or values and also the human rights take the first precedents and the other things have to step back, that’s the way it should be. And of course that’s not answering the question. The question is how can, how can we generate situations that does happen? Once again, instead of thinking of large systems, let’s think of individuals which make up the large system and will change, we can generate in the individuals that make up the large system. So let me imagine that, there’s a person whose individual human right belief is that, it’s good for the other person to have the same rights that he or she has. But in religion or tradition says that the other person has either different gender, different cast, different religion, and hence, the other person is inferior or less deserving. And hence, it’s easier for me to impinged upon their, or impinge their right and maximize my rights and beliefs. So the source of trouble lies within the individual. And the only way to solve the problem is actually not by saying the religious cast base or gender base, many other ways of discrimination and to stop in making laws, we have plenty of them and which we have more of them, but still, that’s not going to stop it. The only way that it s going to stop is for individual to feel, that what you do is indeed is hurting them. To see that just like they can make up a decision that the other person is less deserving, the other person can make similar decisions too, and they can be at the receiving end. So, by showing people, really by education, has people become more and more aware, that justice today, I can then be the other person to visually based on some differences between me and the other person, by on skin, color, religion, gender, cast and so on, the other person has done it to me as well.

by Mayank Mehta

Sep 9, 2006 11:25:00 AM cite

Michael E. Tigar: Mr. Davis, the question you pose is a perennial one. You know, in 1608 or so, Hugo Grotius in his monumental treatise wrote about what he proclaimed to be universal human rights; and among the universal human rights was slavery, under certain carefully limited circumstances. Now by the early 1800's, slavery of course was the law in the United States and it was affirmed as a just part of our constitutional system, even though many of the most influential countries in the world had rejected it. By 1841, Justice Story was able to say for our Supreme Court that slavery violated universal laws of justice. So you see traditional values have always acted as a break on the recognition of so called universal rights. I think the problem lies in our easy acceptance of some idea of universality, which after all if we take the example of Grotius, simply means as far as I can see right now. Our struggle, yours and mine, is to work within the context of existing social orders, to improve our own perception of what is and is not universal, and then to seek to establish and maintain institutions of justice that permit the progressive realization of an increasingly broad and shared view of what universal human rights might consist of. And in that process, we ought to be listening as well as trying to teach, because cultures that may very well have principles that you or I would regard as inconsistent with our vision of human rights may have a great deal to teach us about areas of human striving to which we may not have paid sufficient attention.

by Michael E. Tigar

Sep 9, 2006 11:25:00 AM cite

Michael Laitman: All people are different by nature. We cannot demand the same efforts from a person who is lazy by nature and from one who is hard-working by nature. We cannot demand the same thing from a person who is intelligent by nature and from one who is not so smart, from a person who is drawn to technology and from a person who is drawn to education, to culture, to a different development. People are completely not like one another, and therefore it is impossible to demand equality from everyone. We are also unable to recognize and measure the natural qualities of every person, their direction and size. By demanding the same results from everyone, we are trying to squeeze everyone into the Procrustean Bed. In other words, we want to "shorten" or "stretch" every person, so that everyone will fit exactly one size. This situation is completely incorrect. Besides this, there exist differences in culture, education, religion and the development of the nations. Not all nations relate to the same level and the same place in the human society. Each one has its own place, and each one must be respected on it place. After all, each person is unique in his own way. This is why the international law must take into consideration all of the limitations and all of the distinctive characteristics of each person. If we will preserve this equality, the equality of each person's opportunity to correctly express himself in the most effective way relative to humanity, by this we will abolish the egoistic interrelationships and bring everyone to altruistic, equal, relationships, where each person will give his part—that which no one can give instead of him. Every person will be unique in this regard. Then we will really come to the fact that every individual will preserve himself and will develop in the most favorable way.

by Michael Laitman

Sep 9, 2006 11:25:00 AM cite

Michael P. Totten: All human beings that come into this life have a right to pursue freedom and happiness and development as any other human being. I also would expand that to include creation of those species who, whether it’s orangutans or elephants or whales, or the whole range of millions of species on this planet, also are part of that magnificent creation that comes out of nothing, and this is something, and should give us a life time of awe and wonder as to how all this diversity of life is possible. We obviously in our societal structures have failed to enable the rights of all people that [inaudible] the American constitution of Life, Liberty, and Pursuit of Happiness or the universal declaration of human rights, and it goes to again conscious recognition. How do we awaken ourselves and others from our dogmatic slumber that fails to give to others what we expect for ourselves? This is a daily renewal of our consciousness that’s required. We have filled our lives with such trivia of activity, whether it’s going after more money than we possibly need to have a happy and extensive well-being, that we lose that time that could allow us the reflection of how to change our own lives and the lives or the policies that we allow our elected officials to set up that would promote rather than prevent these rights for others.

by Michael P. Totten

Sep 9, 2006 11:25:00 AM cite

Mohammed Arkoun: This question poses the problem of our very deficit, very imperfect, and very mythological knowledge of religions in general even in countries where this knowledge has been the object of numerous and various scientific researches since the nineteenth century but that doesn't concern the general public opinion and a culture shared by all citizens. We can note for example even in a much civilized country, rich in all point of view like the United States, a deterioration of the religion as a human experience of the divine and as spiritual experience of a man recognizing the other man, the other in general as having a vocation to spiritual and intellectual life and well we can see the domination of a superstitious religiosity, a religiosity that is a matter for mythology that even becomes, alas, the political ideology to the point that it inspires a general policy in an as important and as evidently respectable country in many point of view like America, the American society. In Europe, it is a little less maybe than in America but there is also a separation, one, that I will call the culture of the religious unbelief. That is to say, a kind of aggressiveness regarding what survives from religion in favour of an attitude that is called in French "laique" but that is secular, that is to say, systematic in relation to the status that should be recognized to the religion. Therefore, the culture of human rights is a culture that is founded on a modern conception of the rights; which is completely detached from all reference to religion. I don't say that it is necessary to reintroduce religion in the definition of human rights. It is necessary to reconsider the conditions of the expansion and application of human rights as they are defined in the modern declaration of human rights but at the same time to think about what is happening with religions today.

by Mohammed Arkoun

Sep 9, 2006 11:25:00 AM cite

Mohau Pheko: I think that the discourse on human rights is flawed because when we look at the way and historically how the rights discourse was created, it is really not based on many universals, it's based on one universal. And for me, that works against and contradicts the whole question of diversity and the diversity of spirit, the diversity of culture, the diversity of restorative -- what restorative justice means in the world today. So, I think that there is a need actually in the world today to transform what we mean by human rights and to create a rights framework and a rights agenda that is based on the new universals. I always find it very strange that, for example, when we look at the United Nations today, and we look at how the rights of certain countries can be violated with impunity in Palestine, in Iraq, in Afghanistan, for example, and they are assuming silence because somehow their rights become less or become subsumed under somebody else's perspective of what rights are. So, I think that we have a tremendous challenge in the 21st century to renew the discourse on what rights are, to renew our discourse on what equality is because when we look at rights today, it is rights based on the market, it is equality based on the market, it is rights based on dominant, I think, discourses and dominant sources of power and not really on rights that are based on different universals, different political imaginaries.

by Mohau Pheko

Sep 9, 2006 11:25:00 AM cite

Monira Rahman: I think the values which is promoting the humanity is important and whatever the traditions and religious values is in contradiction, in conflict with this universal human rights, will not be able to realize this universal human rights. Obviously, this traditional and religious values in many aspects are contradicted with universal human rights, especially I should say about this religious values, is dividing and marginalizing and making the divisions between the different groups, the minority, and also in accordance with gender inequality and discrimination among the ethnic group and religion. [More in another language] [Translation in the works]

by Monira Rahman

Sep 9, 2006 11:25:00 AM cite

Nadja Halilbegovich:

by Nadja Halilbegovich

Sep 9, 2006 11:25:00 AM cite

Neela Marikkar: I think it's difficult, it's a challenge, because especially when these are very ingrained in societies, and I think, especially, when it comes to things like gender, it’s very difficult to try to find a balance where it doesn't conflict with what is being taught, and culturally it has been something that you have practiced and accepted for centuries. But, it is only through education, and balanced policies, and may be in some cases you almost have to legislate to change this, that you can actually change the way that people think. I mean one has to introduce it in a manner that -- or frame it in a manner that people can see the logic to it, because some times it’s blindly followed, just because it's tradition, it is something that you have accepted, and your former generations have accepted, and you don’t question these. So, I think a lot of it is that how -- how my friend said, how you do it is by educating people, by framing it in a way that is relevant and meaningful, that will make people willing to listen. So, I think that today the world is evolved, and you are seeing people going back in time also and holding on to some of their traditions when they feel threatened, and you see a revival of fundamentalism across the board as well, which might -- some might consider a violation of human rights in terms of some of the pressures and rules that are imposed on communities. So, I think it's a challenge. I think that those who are able to influence change through policy, through education, has to start looking at that.

by Neela Marikkar

Sep 9, 2006 11:25:00 AM cite

Oliviero Toscani: I am for the elimination of the religion. Until we’ll have religion we will have these conflicts, so we can’t reconcile. The respect of human rights when they are in – when those rights are in conflict with religious and traditional values because those traditional and religious values they are at – they are at dogma and they are a – they can be just in conflict. So we have to overcome the need of religion. It will take time but the fact that the religion as is doesn’t mean that they can’t mean that it could be – it could disappear.

by Oliviero Toscani

Sep 9, 2006 11:25:00 AM cite

Oscar Olivera: We should decide which rights are universal human rights and which are religious or traditional rights belonging to a certain nation or community. Basically I think that first it should be defined whether the universal right is the equivalent to the right to life, to the right to education and health, or to the right to develop the whole capabilities of people. I think that this exists everywhere in the world, and therefore we should establish the actual meaning of universal rights for humanity and also the importance of traditional and religious rights for each nation. Furthermore, I think that each nation has its own culture, its own traditions, its own values and this is something we are obliged to accept. But I think that among all the different rights there is one fundamental universal right, which is the right to life. Not only persons, but also all that creatures that live on the planet. And that is precisely the right which is tried to be dispatched and eliminated, and therefore I think that we should all fight for a right that belongs to all the individuals.

by Oscar Olivera

Sep 9, 2006 11:25:00 AM cite

Paul Knight: I think to a large degree this is an issue question that you automatically will go to a point of your upbringing and your values to answer this question. And who’s to say that religion and human rights don’t mix? And it’s fairly easy for us in western Christian democratic countries to say well, what’s happening in other countries of other religions is an abuse of human rights. And that’s fairly easy. But who are we to construct that argument without understanding the basis of their belief systems and structures? What’s to say that some of these things haven’t been put in place over hundreds of years for a very reason in that society based on their culture and based on their values within that society? I think maybe there is a conflict there in so many cases but in reconciling these basically comes from reconciling with their own position, our own values and our own cultural beliefs about what should be happening without understanding those of others around us. We need to be considering the impact that this can have on those communities by saying no, we need to reconcile, we need to change the way they do it and the impact that has on the overall fabric of those societies. I’m not saying there wouldn’t go against human rights of the individual in some of these countries around the world but we need to be taking a position I think with consideration to what are those cultures and what are those values and what’s the role they play.

by Paul Knight

Sep 9, 2006 11:25:00 AM cite

Pauline Tangiora: This immediately brings me to the point that we have a gap here, because within indigenous peoples we are finding that governments of the world does not respect the community rights. It’s all right to have universal human rights, but when you have these the conflict is very much to the fore, because whilst indigenous peoples work together as communities, these community rights are very much entwined in their daily lives. The values of indigenous peoples and their communities must be accepted as a right. We cannot sit and talk about reconciling and respecting universal rights, when we will not accept community rights. So we need to re-look at the way, even within the United Nations, of how indigenous peoples as a community have rights since time immemorial, and that is where we have the conflict, it’s because the governments of the world have brought about The Charter For Universal Human Rights without taking in the values of the rights of communities, indigenous communities.

by Pauline Tangiora

Sep 9, 2006 11:25:00 AM cite

Pico Iyer: I love your question, and I think it may be the very brilliance of your question tells us that each of us can only take care of our own rights, our own sense of right or wrong and treat others as we must wish to be treated. But, universal human rights may perhaps be the sum of individual rights and something that can’t be located or restricted to any local or tradition or religion. Localism is the enemy of globalism in often good ways. But, localism can be the enemy of universalism, and I think the universal is in some ways about tolerance for each religion or tradition, but it has to trump the claims of a minority.

by Pico Iyer