Towards dignity and justice for all

We have achieved much and much more will certainly be possible when politicians mature and begin to agitate and mobilise based on issues rather than on personality and selfish pride.

How have we done over the last 40 years since signing on to uphold the tenets of the UN Declaration on Human Rights?

What is the state of play today and the prospects for the future of T&T emerging as a maturing society that actively encourages “dignity and justice for all?”

We could easily point to a few areas in which we have done well: generally free and fair elections; since 1986 we have been able to move political parties in and out of government with relative ease; there is freedom of worship and a quite large measure of religious tolerance; equality for all based on ethnicity and social class, while not being perfect, has been comparable to elsewhere; and, notwithstanding difficulties and imbalances in the implementation of the ideals of the UN declaration, T&T is a society in which aspiring after those objectives is ongoing.

Certainly with regard to the very obvious and major tenets of the declaration, such as the outlawing of slavery and servitude, the right to liberty and security of the person, the right to freedom of opinion and the right to freely express that opinion, there can be no denying that we in this country have lived up to the declaration. And this is notwithstanding the fact that at times, and for various reasons, there have been those within official circles, and outside of them, who would have sought to deny or restrict these rights.

Significantly in 1995, for the first time, a prime minister and a political party based mainly among the Indo-Trinidadian population, ascended to office. That meant that political parties based generally amongst the two major ethnic groups of the population had been elected to office. That it happened again in 2000, this time even without the support of the minority black party, at the time representing Tobago, was of great significance.

The reality for many plural societies has been almighty and bloody struggles between and among groups for the right to govern the country. We have achieved much and much more will certainly be possible when politicians mature and begin to agitate and mobilise based on issues rather than on personality and selfish pride.

However, there are more subtle areas of the spirit and letter of the Human Rights Declaration in which there is definite need of development. For instance, we have not really succeeded in having governments encourage the evolution of a participatory democracy. And our people have failed to insist on participation beyond electing a government every five years, four in the case of the Tobago House of Assembly.

On the very central tenet of the declaration on equal pay for women and men, there is clear need to develop and entrench this element of the human rights agenda.

Indisputably, this society has not fully recognised the rights of people with a variety of disabilities to partake of and participate in all aspects of the society and its resources, the outstanding case being the inability of wheelchair-bound people to access the Hall of Justice from the front steps.

The establishment of the Equal Opportunities Commission to guard against and to encourage equality and justice for all has the potential to advance T&T’s standing on the UN declaration.

In the UN-declared Human Rights Year ahead, we in the media have been encouraged by the world body to pursue and highlight issues relating to the declaration. This newspaper will vigorously pursue the objective.

The UN is also encouraging governments to actively grow the human rights agenda and demonstrate by its own actions its commitment to the objectives.