All human beings equal in dignity

It is as simple as that. At the end of the Second World War, the painful awareness that supremacism, racism, xenophobia, dogmatism... were at the origin of an unprecedented war, with a huge cost in human lives... led the rulers of that time to make two essential decisions, among others of lesser significance: to establish a democratic multilateralism —in order to gradually replace the power of force by the power of reason— and to set some supreme ethical values, rights and duties whose foundation should be equal dignity of all human beings, whatever their gender, ethnicity, ideology, belief, sexual sensitivity, lineage... This should allow to fully eradicate the outbreaks that had given rise to Nazism (Adolph Hitler, 1933, “the Aryan race is incompatible with the Jewish race”...); Fascism (Benito Mussolini’s praise of the Romans); and the Rising Sun Empire in Japan (with Tanaka’s Plan supported by Emperor Hiro-Hito).

In 1945 the United Nations System was created and the UNESCO Constitution established that the supreme value should be the equal dignity of all human beings and the need for all societies to be guided by “democratic principles”. Three years later, in Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, emphasis was placed again on equal dignity... The message conveyed by the expression “We, the peoples” became absolutely clear after the Second World War: the target is democratic governance based in non-discrimination and, thus, in the unsuitability of any “badge” that may confer an advantage to a particular group of individuals.

At that time male absolute power still prevailed and 90% of humanity was born, lived and died in a few square kilometres, thus ignoring what was going on beyond their immediate environment. All human beings were fearful, obedient, submissive, silent. Women were totally marginalized and, despite the above considerations, racism still prevailed in most parts of our planet —often with extremely radical features as was the case in South Africa.

To avoid mentioning slavery in remote though well known periods, I will only refer here to the most relevant facts that took place from the 16th century onwards in the American continent, where the treatment reserved to aboriginal populations led Friar Bartolomé de las Casas to defend natives with such determination that he was appointed "Universal Procurator or Protector of all natives". The Laws of the Indies, promulgated in Burgos in 1513, were already in favour of human rights of natives, and in 1516 Cardinal Cisneros clearly stated that "God has given them the same talents as were given to the white man".

A few years later, the Jesuit Peter Claver devoted himself with great solicitude to alleviating the suffering of slaves who arrived at the slave trade port of Cartagena de Indias. His struggle in favour of human equality of black slaves resulted in his canonization by Pope Leo XIII in 1888.

It is also worthwhile mentioning —in the same American context— the “Cry of Dolores” issued by Father Miguel Hidalgo in 16 September 1810, when he proclaimed Mexico’s independence and declared that natives should be recognized as totally equal.

I have mentioned America as an example of what was happening in other parts of the world, in different ethnic and cultural backgrounds, in order to emphasize that what prevented human beings from receiving an equal treatment was the absolute power I’ve already referred to.

As long as Africa is concerned, in year 1976 I had the opportunity to meet a great African, the Senegalese Amadou Mahtar M’Bow, who was then the Director-General of UNESCO. A few years later, when I was myself appointed Director-General, I had the opportunity to establish an excellent friendship with African leaders such as Léopold Sédar Senghor, Julius Nyerere, Aminata Traoré, Gertrude Monguella, Félix Houphouët-Boigny, Graça Machel, Doudou Diene, Kofi Annan and, particularly, with a man imprisoned for 27 years named Nelson Mandela and who later became the world symbol of reconciliation and universality. This is why it was in the heart of Africa, in Yamoussoukro, where in 1989 there was a big UNESCO meeting to launch the Program of Action on a Culture of Peace and Non-Violence, as an attempt —precisely in Africa— to gradually replace  imposition, domination and violence by a culture of encounter, dialogue, alliance and peace. The transition from force to word.

It was on the Island of Gorée —the point of departure of most ships carrying black slaves, declared as a World Heritage site so it would become a worldwide reference— that I wrote in July 1992, when the great International Programme The Slave Route was created, the following verses: “His last / look / before lying down / in the cellar. / His last / look / at that narrow / door, / at that island / at that land / of his / that now sails / in the waves of disaffection / towards unknown shores. / We yearn / so much today / for those cries / that last / travelling look / that was so brutally uprooted / from its landscape, / its home / its shores. / They were sold / in bulk. / We must / pay our debt”. Some months later the Door of No Return was built in Ouidah, Benin.

I would like to recall some of the words I dedicated to Nelson Mandela after he had spent 26 years in prison, the last ones on Robben Island near Cape Town, and who was now prepared to spread so many seeds of solidarity, harmony and peace: “There you are, reckless / giving us liberty / by the handful. / We want you to know / that our wings / have in each feather / the shadow of your bars;/ .... that from your cell / you liberate and release / so many hearts that were anchored / in half-heartedness...”.

It is worthwhile stressing that when we were at the dawn of year 2000, of a change of Century and Millennium, the European Union drafted the Chart of Fundamental Rights which begins precisely with equal dignity. There was some ground to believe that mankind would finally behave as it should in one of the most crucial aspects that could allow everybody, in the new era, to fully exercise the capacities that are inherent to human beings (thinking, imagining, foreseeing, innovating, creating!).

This has not been the case. Despite the fact that for the first time in history, and thanks to a great extent to digital technology, all citizens of the world know today what is happening everywhere; they can finally express themselves freely —now that “We, the peoples” have a voice of our own!— and women are about to achieve equality and will soon be able to participate with all their inherent capacities... the neoliberal drift has prevented governance from becoming multilateral and democratic and the outbreaks of supremacism, fanaticism and dogmatism from being fully ruled out. Multilateralism has been gradually marginalized by United States Republican Party. This is not something new, not at all. Already in 1919 it prevented the United States from becoming a member of the League of Nations... despite being created by one of the Presidents of the USA! (Woodrow Wilson). Due to this decisive absence, the League of Nations was unable to properly redirect authoritarianism and populism, and, as already mentioned, Nazism and Fascism finally led to the Second World War.

After the Cold War, which cast such a shadow over actions taken by the United Nations System, two unexpected events —the conversion of the Soviet Union into a Community of Independent States and the end of the apartheid, the most abominable form of racism, in South Africa, thanks respectively to Mikhail Gorbachev and Nelson Mandela— filled mankind with hope. But it was again the United States Republican Party, with President Reagan and the cooperation of United Kingdom Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, that laid aside democratic multilateralism and entrusted worldwide governance to only six countries, the G6. The neoliberal drift —that subsequently gave rise to the G7, G8 and G20, the latter as a result of the financial crisis of 2008— placed humanity as a whole within one sole “great market” where the only reference was the gross domestic product (GDP), a rate of economic growth but not of sustainable development.

For years a large number of institutions and scientific bodies had drawn attention —with a growing emphasize— to the need to reduce the “greenhouse” gases because they could lead to an irreversible climate change with global warming and, ultimately, to the deterioration of the Earth’s habitability.

In 1947 UNESCO created the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and it later launched the Geological, Hydrological, Oceanographic Plans...the great Programme “Man and the Biosphere”...; and the Club of Rome, under the leadership of Aurelio Peccei, warned about the “limits of growth”; and in 1979 United States National Academy of Sciences informed that it was of the utmost urgency to reduce the emissions of carbonic anhydride because the oceans recapture capacity was significantly decreasing also due to the deterioration of marine waters (phytoplankton)….

Warnings were again ignored. And markets continued to grow and to deserve the attention that should have been devoted to the big priorities that had always been supported by United Nations: food, drinking water, quality health services, caring for the environment, education for everyone during the whole life, and peace.

In 2005, after a short period of hope resulting from attention paid to several international issues (Islam, ecology, mediation...), President Obama, an Afro-descendant, achieved a long intermission of hope after signing this same Autumn the Paris Agreements on global warming and the Resolution adopted by United Nations General Assembly regarding the 2030 Agenda (Sustainable Development Goals) aimed at “Transforming our World”.

Unfortunately for everyone, the election of President Donald Trump involved a radical change in all these trends that seemed so positive and, since the very beginning, he declared that he would not put into practice the environmental Agreements and would rather request bigger investments in defense... obtaining with such a demand an obedient approval from daunted leaders who were submissive to the power of markets, to an economy based in speculation, relocation of production and war (I must once more insist on the thousands of people who are dying from hunger each day, while more than 4,000 million dollars are invested in weapons and military expenditure). Trapped in the same networks, the European Union was no longer the democratic Europe that showed solidarity and defended human rights and equal dignity... it started closing borders instead of seeking development aid for emerging countries, contributing to exploitation instead of international cooperation... however, in recent years, alarmed by ultra-right, populist and absolutist movements, the European Union has tried to redirect its actions.

This was the situation when the COVID-19 reached us and came as a surprise to all those who were solely interested in human trafficking and had not taken any of the measures vainly recommended by scientific communities in the face of epidemics, which have always existed, will continue to exist and become epidemics due precisely to the big mobility of transmitters. And humanity has realized that there are a number of guidelines we have to follow, because viruses have no understanding of frontiers or surnames and, therefore, a new concept of security is needed, so that the defence of territories is paired with the capacity to deal with natural or man-made disasters and, above all, to prevent as much as possible pathogenic agents.

It is an intolerable scandal to traffic with health. To let retirement homes become part of a big business instead of being a health care service... to allow privatization to deprive these institutions from “medical” devices that since time immemorial have been only used for conflicts...

This time, we will not forget. This time, the lessons learned will be put into practice because citizens can now express themselves, and have clearly undestood that the reins of our common fate cannot be put in the hands of a few plutocratic groups but rather in the hands of “We, the peoples” as we are referred to in the Charter of the United Nations. Now —as we can fortunately see in the worldwide reaction against discrimination of black men and women in the United States— “the peoples” will no longer remain silent, they will not let anybody distract them; they will express their views in great popular clamours... knowing that today if there is no evolution, there will be a revolution. I insist that the difference between both of them is the “r” from responsibility. Until very recently I advised against revolution because it entailed violence. Now that the peoples have a voice of their own, it is no longer necessary to resort to violent demonstrations. The time has come to replace force by word. Not the word of a few but the word of all of us.