This morning CARE Talk, the topic of human rights was shared with the students. My eyes moisten. As soon as the presentation was over, I gave a quick instruction to my form class’s chairperson and quickly seek solitude.
I wept.
A story goes that a soldier marched into a country his army had just liberated. He was full of joy that the fighting had ended. Along the street, he met a young child. Eager to make another human being happier, he reached into his pocket and offer the child some sweets.
“I don’t want any sweets,” cried the child. “I only want my brother back from the war. And to go home safely from work (no luxury of school for this child) each day without fear of stepping on a landmine.”
And it dawned on the soldier that he is not prepared to give the child anything.
I wept.
An educator during World War II opposed the military government of Japan at that time. For this protest, he was unjustly imprisoned. When he was released, he vowed to fight this injustice. Not the injustice to his person, but injustice of the war that devastated his country and his country’s neighbors. He vowed to kill the hate in people’s hearts and to rid the world of miserly. His last cries for his students, was the Abolishment of Nuclear Weapons.
It was not the weapon that he actually hated. But what the weapon represented. Traditional weapons were used to fight the enemy who were trying to kill you. Nuclear weapons, for the first time in history, was a weapon designed to kill innocent civilians and to strike terror into the hearts of the population. They represent the violation of the basic Human Right to live.
I wept.
One of this educator’s students wrote to the effect that when a mother gives birth to a child, she is not thinking that this child is an American or an African. She doesn’t care that he is a Christian, Muslim, Hindu or Buddhist. It doesn’t not even matter that child is black or white or have any specific racial features. All she will want is for the child to grow up happy and healthy.
That is the Human Right to be treated simply as a human and respected as a human regardless of background. But many children today are still suffering from poverty, hunger and neglect.
I wept.
I once heard the following in jest, “Fighting for Peace is like Screwing for Virginity”. How myopic! “Peace is not the absence of War!”
Once, when I was younger and a lot more idealistic, I vowed to bring this message of human dignity to the masses. I always believe that my education was for the sake of expanding my sphere of influences so that I can be the part of positive changes for the future. This is one of the reasons I chose to become a school teacher.
But the apathy of youths hurts. There are no values to be inculcated until apathy is utterly demolished. When many of the youths are no longer interested in what the teachers say unless it is remotely related to their examinations and their own personal futures, it dulls the passion.
Have I fallen?
I wept.
The idea of Human Rights is a human construct. It is an idealistic construct. Many skeptics would dismiss it without a second thought. But do ideals not have its purpose and value? Without ideals, can there is hope for the betterment of society? Is that not what being human is truly about?
I am privileged in Singapore. My community is privileged. We do not suffer from the fundamental needs of humanity. But do we not have the responsible to drown the skeptics and bring hope to the sufferers even if their voices are far and their cries are soft? Isn’t that what education really ought to be?
I wept that the right to human rights is not cherished nearly enough.
It is a human right to care, and to dream.
