TOPIC: Is the concept of human rights applicable around the world or only in the West?
Introduction and Civilization History that Evokes Human Rights.
Implementation of a united world is indeed no easy and simple task, as to build up to the idea of a utopia requires a lot of corporation and collateral understanding between nations. However, this point of view can be overwhelming thinking that we have to satisfy 6.6 billion people (estimated by July 2007) needs and still try to be fair to all parties. This essay is the exposition about the needs of basic human rights, tying all related articles and incidents towards supporting the necessity of a protection and right to live. We will try to justify the basic human entitlement to dignity, respect and equal treatment in a broader context of the world, and try to understand why the human rights concept didn’t being totally accepted in certain parts especially Southeast Asia. Strongly binded by ASEAN – Association of South East Asian Nations, we will try to relate all the events occurred in this region to justify cultural relativism in order to apply and give impact to 558 million people in this region. 10 nations that build up this association has necessity to think about their people and every year a summit was held to discuss the importance of socioeconomic and politic turmoil in the region.
The idea of having a universal guidance seems a traditional view of religious scholars. It was understood that human needs guidance in their life thus God, as the supreme power of the universe has bestowed knowledge and instinct to give us hope to live. Karen Amstrong, a renowned writer of human anthropology and world religions had stated that in the earliest of time, human dependency towards the ‘Supreme Power’ or God is inherently obvious. This statement is strongly supported by series of chronological events and incidents that she clearly illustrates in her writings. Firstly, human used to relate themselves with the nature, worshipping the life giver, for example the ‘Sun’ or the ‘Tree’. At this stage naivety of human’s mind had succumbed to the universe temperaments, thus having sacrificial events when the sun eclipse, thinking that the Sun God had gone mad or be respectful to the tree that bore fruits, the source of living. The reason being for this is that, they solidify the form of God in their immediate surrounding. At this level, communities of human work together so there is no absolute need to break away from the monotony of an ancient civilization. As time goes on, human gain improvisation of society ideologies and materialistic technologies, they start to think they can act as God. This change is a slow revolution of mind, which takes thousands of years to develop. Human think they can live without the dependency of the Supreme Creator as they now can create things and start the idea of individualistic by starting to stand out in their society. The short summary of Amstrong’s writing has definitely strengthened the idea that human had becoming more individualistic and apparently more sensitive to things related to them.
In the modern history, disputes and wars broke all over the world to defend one’s sovereignty and dignity over the other insulting party. In this case, party is used because for most of the war fought, a nation hasn’t been formed as yet. Examples could be ample, taken from European 17th -19th century war, which held the party’s status and ability to cowardice their enemy. A party represents a society or tribe or even sometimes, a race.
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