Pedro Innecco

I have always been puzzled about one aspect of society and politics. How is that people can get away with the defilement of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) by vindicating the same declaration themselves?

It seems that for those acting in their own disposition forget that the UDHR has 30 articles, and not 29. The 30th Article of the UDHR is perfectly clear:

Nothing in this Declaration may be interpreted as implying for any State, group or person any right to engage in any activity or to perform any act aimed at the destruction of any of the rights and freedoms set forth herein

So how is it that sovereign states that adopt and recognise the UDHR accept the engagement of organisations, parties and other sort of entities that disregard the 30th Article?

Don’t get me wrong. I agree that instead of having extremist political groups or militants operating in the underground, is better to have them out in the open as it is easier to monitor their activities, and to expose their views. Concerning the recent decision of BBC to invite a far-right activist to a television debate, UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown said that he believes it is a duty to expose racist and sectarian politics – which I agree – and that “anybody who listens to what they are really about will find that what they are saying is unacceptable.” Well is this last bit that I am not so sure about. Mr Brown is parting from the principle that everyone has the same opinion. And unfortunately, this is not the case. If that was the case, there wouldn’t be any racism. Particularly, the political party in question wouldn’t have its supporters – which it does, no matter how minimum they are. This is a false consensus bias.

My concern is the use of democracy and the UDHR to destroy these same principles, or to deny these principles to others. An example that is often cited as the use of democracy for the destruction of democracy is the rise of the NAZI party in Germany.

After being elected through democratic means, the NAZI party started to impose authoritarianism and ideologies that destroyed democracy and oppressed minorities, to say the least. Following the defeat of the NAZI regime and the revelation of their atrocities to the whole world, it was the overall consensus that something had to be done to prevent the same to happen in the future. With this in mind, the UDHR was adopted in 1948.

Yet we don’t need to go that far in history to see events of democracy being used to destroy democracy or to thwart the UDHR. You can see clear examples in recent events where state leaders, once elected through democratic means, are violating constitutions to impose their authority, perpetuate their rule and oppress any sort of opposition.
So I think about what Mr Brown said:

“Anybody who listens to what they are really about will find that what they are saying is unacceptable.”

And I wonder: Is there anybody listening? If so, who is listening?

There is some frenzy going on in the international media about whether the city of Rio de Janeiro in Brazil will be able to protect the public in the 2016 Olympic Games.
According to several international publications, there are new levels of violence in the city, which has been demonstrated in the recent clashes between the police and drug lords where 14 people died, and a police helicopter was shot-down.

Let me just make one brief point here: The reason we are seeing this escalation of violence is because the police is acting to tackle crime and pacify areas controlled by crime – and the criminals are fighting back. Rio is facing a now-or-never situation, where the government is aware that a change must be made, particularly for the 2014 World Cup and for the 2016 Olympic Games, which are serving as a major catalyst for such changes.

Let’s not forget that one day after being elected the city to host the 2012 Olympic Games, London was hit by a coordinated terrorist attack on its public transport. Since the UK government is under constant threat of international terrorism, one could argue that the public in general would be more vulnerable to violence in the 2012 games rather than in 2016 games. Drug-lords want to sell drugs; international terrorists want to kill people in the name of their ideology.