Day 64 - Alex Neve

"All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights." {Universal Declaration of Human Rights, article 1} 
 
The Universal Declaration, adopted by the United Nations in 1948, is our beacon of hope in these times of turmoil, division and violence. Its magnificent, ultimately irrefutable and irresistible promise of universality is our roadmap to a just, sustainable world at peace. A promise that was crafted and offered at a time when the world had come face to face with the previously unimaginable depths of our capacity for violence and brutality. A time when we were reeling from the carnage of the Second World War and the harrowing evil of the Holocaust. How notable, then, that at such a time we knew that the way ahead did not lie in more of the same. It did not lie in bigger armies, and deeper divisions and suspicion. It did not lie in hiding away from, and certainly not in vilifying one another.  Instead, we committed ourselves to the simple and universal truth of our shared humanity. 
 
Today, it is almost impossible not to give in to doubt and cynicism; in fact at times it seems inescapable. We have after all had nearly eighty years to find our way towards that universal promise. In despair, do we look around and give up? For in 2026 it seems evident that we have not only failed to deliver the promise; it feels as if we are losing ground. 
 
But the poetry and the necessity of universal human rights persists. I have been humbled time after time when I have encountered the Declaration in a corner of the world where hope had every reason to have been extinguished. But there it was, pinned to a post in a Rohingya refugee camp in Bangladesh and framed and hung high on a wall above the heads of a group of young boys locked up without charge in a prison in Burundi. More times that I would ever be able to recount I have seen it lifted up on protest placards and in defiant chants that are all about resisting, insisting and imagining. That is because the universal promise of human rights speaks of something that will ultimately prevail, for it is ultimately undeniable.      
 
It is at such a time as this, when we feel as if humanity's ground is heaving under our feet that we must turn to each other like never before. For that is where true power lies. It lies in solidarity and community. It lies in creativity and affection. It lies in courage and determination. More than anything else, it lies in believing. Believing in ourselves and believing in one another.  No matter how steep the climb, change is in our hands. Reach out and grasp the hands around you. For they are many. And do not let go. I certainly will not.
 
Alex Neve
Ottawa, Ontario