According to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights which was avowed by the United Nations General Assembly on 10 December 1948, all humans regardless of the age, sex, race, occupation have the Right to life, liberty and personal security (Article 3). The world today is faced with extreme abuse of this article based on the intense global terror and tension especially in Africa and Middle East. Death toll in Nigeria, Somalia, Syria and Yemen in 2015 is dismaying and unfortunately the attacks in all of these regions are still ongoing and getting worse on a daily. Thousands of innocent civilians have lost their lives and so many have fled their homes, leaving away their establishments, jobs, and even in some cases their loved ones.
With the unfortunate state of the world full of tension and panic, the big question now is that are we really supposed to celebrate today December 10th 2015 as human rights day? Going by definition of celebration; it is a joyful occasion for special festivities to mark some happy event. May be the word “mark ” will be better instead of celebration. This question and many more open ended questions like this are open to me and you to answer. As earlier highlighted, thousands of people have been displaced around the world and some of us are lucky not to be in those discomfort zones. That we feel we have the right to live, be free and to feel safe might not be worth the joy because anyone can truly become a refugee. I really don’t think it’s ever a plan set out by anyone in good health and in good faith to flee for safety from their comfort zone.
Like the popular African proverb, “When two elephants fight, it is the grass that gets trampled” which is the case in all of these regions. This proverb paints a picture for us and it can be understood from two different views. From the political perspective, the power tussle among the elites always bounce on the civilians and from the humanistic perspective, the fight between predominantly adult men always affect the innocent kids and women. The pain of the innocent children who don’t understand the situation in all of this troubled zones is the pain of the world. You know why? as you might have imagined, children in all of these troubled regions will want to ask why adults can be so much in disagreement that they turn things this much apart. It is undisputedly a state of ill-being for them due to the affliction of the wars. As we continue to hope that the state of the world ameliorate rather than exacerbate, the meaning of the condensed memorable saying “Peace is costly but it is worth the expense” becomes more clear and concise.
By Elega Adeola
