Sep 9, 2006 11:30:00 AM cite

Simon Retallack: Well, their human dignities include the need for food, for water, for a roof over their heads, clothing, respect, power over their lives. I think it includes a right for self-expression, a basic level of freedom. And it’s true that many people do go without those basic dignities. And it is a source of disbelief, I think, that so many of us that do have these benefits, that are accorded these basic dignities aren’t more outraged by the vast numbers of people that live without them, that have absolutely no support, that live without enough water, without enough food, that live without the health care that they need, that die in vast numbers from preventable diseases, that have no control over their lives because they live in dictatorships that far too often our governments have supported. And I can only think that we turn our eyes away from those that don’t have these basic dignities because we prefer to immunize ourselves from it. We prefer to live in denial. It’s far easier for us not to see. The pain would be too great if we were truly to internalize the suffering that exists, I think, on a permanent basis. And, so, we avert our gaze.

by Simon Retallack

Sep 9, 2006 11:30:00 AM cite

Sohrab Mahdavi: In the Declaration of Human Rights propounds some of this dignities and many people have tried to lay them down on paper and it has amassed in books and literature that constantly call for human dignities of various kind, and by dignities, I mean here values that humans should be able to fully hold. I think that this values and these dignities are in conflict with others, other human dignities, and as such, some may prevent other dignities from materializing.

by Sohrab Mahdavi

Sep 9, 2006 11:30:00 AM cite

Song Kosal: The basic dignities that each human being deserve, to be loved, and to be respected, to be treated fairly. So many people go without them, of course, of the ignorance of the leader.

by Song Kosal

Sep 9, 2006 11:30:00 AM cite

Stephanie Robinson: I think that the basic dignities would include adequate food, adequate shelter, as well as the ability for one to have control over his or her own body. I mean these are basic dignities and basic rights that all humans should have. Why we let so many people go without these I think really is a question that goes to time in the moral. People consider the lives of others, people who they are a less familiar with, people who don’t look like them not to be of equal value to their own lives in fact. The world would be a much more peaceful place if we saw people for what they are and didn’t distinguish them as being something different and therefore something less valuable than people who are more familiar to what we are able to see. To answer the question, however, more directly it appears that from history what people really did is they separated themselves into groups. Whether it was families, whether is was tribes, whether it was certain communities, whether is was villages, whether they were nations, but there was some people separated in to some sort of predetermined, prededicated sort of biogenetic differences and people began to ascribe values to these differences, to these separations. It became the old idea of my clan versus your clan; my clan is better than your clan. And when you see certain groups being less valuable, less important, less familiar, able to identify more clearly with those groups then it is much easier to say that those people don’t deserve the basic rights that other people in fact do deserve. In fact I would say that what happens often times is that those people are really seen as them and not us and there is not much attention paid to or much concern for the basic rights and dignities of those people. Whether people feel that they are affirmatively not entitled to them or whether merely there is apathy towards a certain population of people that are different than your clan.

by Stephanie Robinson

Sep 9, 2006 11:30:00 AM cite

Steve Earle: Food, shelter, and an education--the means to better themselves. In my opinion education may be number one to me. It may be that one of the ways we have traditionally restricted the upward movement of people within our society is to deny them education. People join an all-volunteer army in a time of war in my country right now for one reason: it gives them a shot at some semblance of an education that will get them a job if they survive. I don't know. Why do we deny them? We deny other people those basic dignities because we think it may ensure those things for our own children. Unfortunately, that's probably the answer.

by Steve Earle

Sep 9, 2006 11:30:00 AM cite

Sulak Sivaraksa: Basic dignities mean how to live appropriately. Basic necessity, of course, is enough food to eat, shelter, medicine, clothing. But that, of course, is basic necessity. But beside that human being need to be treated with respect, despite their birth, despite their wealth, despite their gender, despite the political, social, economic circumstances. I think if you bear this in mind that it is essential for all of us to respect each other, to learn from each other. The present culture is that one group of people know everything, the other groups know nothing. So, they are being exploited. Exploitation is the root causes that produce indignities. I think we should be concerned. Without this concern, I think it is very sad for humanity, not only for those who deprive our dignities, but even those who exploit them. It really is not good, bad for exploiters, too. So I think we should really change these basic attitudes. Only with respect, then everyone will have dignities. In the Buddhist culture it is said that respect not what you respect, and those what you respect not only human beings, but even animals, nature. If you respect properly the one who respects those worthy of respect, you indeed have good life, happiness, strengths.

by Sulak Sivaraksa

Sep 9, 2006 11:30:00 AM cite

Susan George: Well, here again, there is a lot of questions that have “we” in the title, and I just want to know who is “we” because the fact that many people are going without the basic dignities that each human beings deserves, it's not “we,” if you mean the people around this table or people of goodwill everywhere that are preventing this. It is certain structures of power and certain elites, I would say. There is a quote that I like very much, which is “all for ourselves, and nothing for other people,” seems to have been in every age of the world, the vile maxim of the masters of mankind, “all for ourselves, nothing for other people.” It's Adam Smith who said that. Adam Smith, the father of Capitalism, the big -- the great theorist in the 18th century of Capitalism. And he knew that that was the tendency, “all for ourselves and nothing for other people.” So, we are indeed allowing people to go without the basic necessities; and it's the basic necessities that include dignity because if you don't have enough to eat, if you have to beg, if you have -- if you don't have decent housing, you lose very quickly your dignity. You cannot achieve a decent life. And “we” do allow that because we have put the accumulation of wealth and the “all for ourselves and nothing for other people” principle at the top of our societies. And as -- so, I think we have to think in terms not just of the codified human rights, but we need basic material rights, basic human rights, but also let’s say the right to work, the right to a family, the right to time for ourselves, not entirely consumed by survival.

by Susan George

Sep 9, 2006 11:30:00 AM cite

Swami Pragyapad: Answertext will be available soon.

by Swami Pragyapad

Sep 9, 2006 11:30:00 AM cite

Sydney Possuelo: We have already mentioned the values. The charta of the human rights of the United Nations has already been signed. They are principles of the liberty, equality, of the liberty of each free human being etc. The big question is why do we accept these values for us but not for equal beings? I think again that the process of education of our children is a very important process. We will only know its amplitude and importance when the period of it begins to think about these rights, when it turns into fighting. That’s why education is so important in this process. It is intolerable that other human beings are not respected concerning their fundamental and basic rights. This is intolerable. Because we accept them for us. The question of a principle that is that important has to be thought. And for you it means that they are very extensive because you are not different from the others, you are a human being equal to the others. How do we get these rights and this vision only for us? That’s egoism.

by Sydney Possuelo

Sep 9, 2006 11:30:00 AM cite

Takashi Kiuchi: The answer is: right to live. All right? And maybe I can put the right to have a decent life. That's what I call the basic dignities.

by Takashi Kiuchi

Sep 9, 2006 11:30:00 AM cite

Tamas St. Auby: The will of any being deserves acceptance except the excluding will in cases when it is against the will of the excluded one. This law is unknown for the oniomaniac and the pleonexiac. We should not accept this ignorance. We should teach and cure them by our withdrawal from acceptance, by disobedience, by strike. Anyway, disobedience and strike is also fun, basic tools of hedonism. It is rather effective and enjoyable. Disobedience and strike, they are great fun.

by Tamas St. Auby

Sep 9, 2006 11:30:00 AM cite

Tania Bruguera: I think that one of the rights, one of the things that the human being need to [inaudible] to me it seems that [inaudible] one of the most basic and fundamental rights in order that the human beings live with dignity and can be happy [inaudible], [is to have a space][inaudible]. It seems to me that many people are left alone without this value and without living with dignity, because I think the governments and the [authorities]are not interested in hearing what is in conflict with their own identities [inaudible]. I think, the best would be to have a space where everybody can hear and is being heard.

by Tania Bruguera

Sep 9, 2006 11:30:00 AM cite

Tavis Smiley: What are the basic dignities that each human being deserves? I think, and I’ve thought a great deal about this, I think there are really three things that every human being wants: to be loved, to be respected, and to be paid attention to. To be loved, respected, and paid attention to. I think fundamentally if we were to honor every human being with those three things, the world would be a lot better place to live and to work and to play in. It all starts with love. The respect is terribly important, respect for life, respect for their values, respect for their mores, respect for their belief systems, but respect human beings—respect for human beings. And finally, to be paid attention to. Every one of us, no matter what our work is, no matter what our mission is, wants to know that someone is paying attention to the kind of contribution that we are attempting to make. And so again, to be loved, to be respected, and to be paid attention to are the basic things, I find, that most human beings want and need.

by Tavis Smiley

Sep 9, 2006 11:30:00 AM cite

Tegla Loroupe: Answertext will be available soon.

by Tegla Loroupe

Sep 9, 2006 11:30:00 AM cite

Thenmozhi Soundararajan: I think that the rights that every human being is better stated in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It’s much better than I can state right now. But what I think when we’re looking at self-determination and for every human to be able to have the right to culture, the right to food, the right to communicate and the right to have political and social self-determination, I think one of the big questions that comes up for me is the notion of rights means that there’s a body or an agency which is usually primarily a state that grants people rights. I think one of the things that we see under corporate globalization is that more and more we see a great deal of people who have no formal relationship to the state. So if you are state-less, if you are a refugee, if you are an immigrant without papers, if you’re someone who has been criminalized or incarcerated, you no longer have an agency that guarantees you those rights. So, I think that we have to look at some place where we allow these intrinsic values to be guaranteed to someone, that super state, that super - and I’m not sure what that body would be. I’m not an expert in that field. But this is the thing that I see with the people around me is that human rights are really only spoken about for certain people. I think if you’re a country in the North, if you are a citizen and you’re of wealth, you can talk about human rights and you have access to human rights. But if you’re any of these populations that don’t have a relationship to the state, then the question of rights is off the table. And so, that’s where I feel like there’s a critical gap. I think there’s a place where we need to have political will to recognize it. If we want to have a place in human history where we recognize every human being has the dignity and the right, all of these rights for self-determination, that we need to be able to guarantee them in a way that is not conditional to punitive states that they live in.

by Thenmozhi Soundararajan

Sep 9, 2006 11:30:00 AM cite

Tu Weiming: This may very well be rooted in the conception of so-called universal values. We do believe human rights are universal values, particularly political values, but we have not taken in to serious consideration of economic rights such as the right to fresh water, the rights to food and shelter and so forth. And the dignity of the person is rested upon the minimum economic condition for human survival. For example, if we recognize that the political rights of a person are in alienable, and yet we do not care whether the person has a job, has access to fresh water, has a minimal condition for survival. We may have cherished political rights in such a way that we abdicate our responsibility for helping people to certainly not just preserve but to develop their personal dignity. So the idea of a personal dignity has to be linked to economic conditions, not just political conditions. And this is also the question, can the person find his own dignity if he is isolated from his own culture. If his own culture has been undermined by forces from the outside and his sense of ideality is being threatened by various kinds of conditions beyond his or her control. It is in this sense that the dignity of the individual is a multidimensional issue to be realized in a multidimensional way. And of course, we need to develop a sense for priority. The major debate right now is between political rights and economic rights, how to consider political rights as essential as economic rights.

by Tu Weiming

Sep 9, 2006 11:30:00 AM cite

Udi Aloni:

by Udi Aloni

Sep 9, 2006 11:30:00 AM cite

Valentina Melnikova: In my opinion human dignity is the possibility of a human being to remain himself and live in a way which he considers the most comfortable and right way that permit him to live in normal comfortable human conditions. It’s substantial that the whole world realizes that the most important thing for a human being is freedom and only free man has human dignity. We should learn to protect human dignity of individual people like soldier’s mothers in Russia do as well as dignity of human community in general. Authorities, criminal groups, corporations, punishment systems in many countries try to attempt this human dignity. The task how to protect one's self and to make so that the law of human dignity will be not broken is the problem of organization of human rights protection “Soldiers' Mothers”. Day by day seventeen years long we protect Russian youth, Russian soldiers who suffer from officer’s violence in the army. We protect human dignity of Russian families who are neglected and disregarded by the military system, politicians and authorities of Russia. We have learned to protect some people, but unfortunately the system of military service and state continues yet to transgress dignity of person.

by Valentina Melnikova

Sep 9, 2006 11:30:00 AM cite

Vesna Pesic: Answertext will be available soon.

by Vesna Pesic