(1- The UN: Impotent and Ineffectual)
The
first question is whether the efforts made during the decades since the
Second World War in the name of human rights have been successful or
not. The addresses, the assemblies and the sessions held in the United
Nations, and the claims made regarding human rights: have they succeeded
in bringing man closer to his genuine rights, or to at least the major
portion of deprived humanity? The answer to this question is not so
difficult, for an observation of the present conditions is enough to
prove that these attempts have not been successful until now.A glance at the conditions of the underdeveloped societies of the world, who form the major part of the human population, is sufficient to reveal the fact that not only the major part of humanity could not achieve their true rights during the last fifty years, but the methods of encroaching upon the rights of the deprived nations have become more sophisticated and complex and more difficult to remedy.
We cannot accept the claims made by those who claim to be champions of human rights, while the bitter realities of the African and Asian nations and the millions of hungry human beings are before our eyes, and while we observe constant violation of the rights of many nations.
Those
who have been outspoken in advocating human rights during the last forty
years, have themselves grabbed the most fundamental of human rights
from the people of the Third World countries. It is with their support
that certain governments and regimes that deny people their most basic
rights have managed to survive. None of the dictators of today's world
and also the despots of the last fifty years in Asia, Africa and Latin
America could have established and preserved their dictatorships on
their own without reliance upon big powers. It is exactly these big
powers who have coined most of the slogans concerning human rights. It
is they who have brought into being the UNO, and even today the UN is at
their service.
The economic poverty, hunger and
loss of life in several countries of the world are of course the result
of intervention, repression, usurpation on the part of the big powers.
Who has caused Africa, the continent of vast resources to undergo the
present afflictions? Who has kept the people of Bangladesh and India for
years and years under exploitation, and, despite their natural
resources and great potentialities, has brought them to the point that
today we hear people die of hunger in those countries? Who has plundered
the wealth and resources of the Third World countries, and has brought
about hunger, poverty and misfortune for these nations, procuring
sophisticated technologies and immense wealth for themselves? We see
that the organizers of the United Nations and the principal drafters of
the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and those who even today
shamelessly claim to be the supporters of this declaration are the real
causes of those misfortunes. Otherwise there is no reason as to why
Africa, the continent of exuberance and bounties, Latin America with its
natural wealth, and the great India, and many other Third World
countries should have lagged behind and remained backward in spite of
sufficient manpower and natural resources.
Today,
the system of political domination of capital and power prevails in the
world, and there is no doubt that this system of dominance of capital
and power is controlled and steered by the same people who were the
fathers of the Declaration of Human Rights. Under the wheel of their
capital, power and technology we see the nations of the world being
crushed and struggling helplessly. The UN is the most outstanding
product of the efforts made for human rights, yet what has it done in
the past for the nations of the world, and what is it doing today? What
active role could the UN play in solving the basic problems of nations
and in relieving them of the calamities that befall them? In what
instance did the UN emerge as a deliverer of the oppressed from the
oppressor? At what point could the UN persuade the big tyrannical powers
to refrain from making unjust demands? The UN has even lagged behind
most of the nations in this regard.
Today,
despite all those claims, we are witness to the Apartheid regime in
South Africa and to many instances of racism and racial discrimination
in the advanced countries themselves. Therefore, it is clear that the UN
despite its being the most outstanding example of the endeavor for
human rights, has done nothing in this regard. It has intervened in
international issues in the role of a preacher or priest. The Security
Council is one of the principal organs of the UN and functions as the
main decision-making body in which the big powers have the right of
veto. That is, every decision that is made in the UN and in the Security
Council against the real agents who handicap the nations, could be
vetoed by the same agents themselves, that is, the big powers. The
United Nations and its organs, agencies and organizations, whether they
are cultural, economic or technical, are under the influence and
domination of big powers. The US pressures even hits a cultural agency
like the UNESCO and others that are known to everyone. You witnessed how
the US subjected the UNESCO to pressures during these last two years
just because a Muslim was the chief of the UNESCO who desired to
maintain his own independence as well as that of the agency.
Consequently, we feel that the UN as the most significant outcome of the
endeavor for human rights has proved to be an ineffectual and impotent
element, which has been created as a consolation for nations and is
practically useless. On account of the interference on the part of big
powers, it functions as their feudatory. We do not of course reject the
UN. We believe that this organization ought to exist, and it must be
reformed. We ourselves are a member of it. However, what I mean to say
is that after all those efforts, after all that clamor and the hopes
that were attached to this organization, you can see how inadequate and
ineffectual this organization has remained in securing human rights in
the world today. Hence, the answer to the first question has become
clear. We can say that the efforts made for establishing human rights
and the claims made in the name of human rights throughout the last
several centuries and especially during the last few decades did not
bear any fruit. They have failed to secure human rights.
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