Dec. 10, Human Rights Day, marked 68 years since the U.N. General Assembly adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, a blueprint for a world order affirming the dignity and worth of all human beings.
Yet, while human rights education is standard curriculum in many parts of the world, most Americans are unaware of its existence.
On Human Rights Day, 2016, I had the opportunity to hear Evie Litwok, the featured speaker during a program at Congregation B’nai Israel in Northampton about mass incarceration. Evie describes herself as an older, Jewish, queer, formerly incarcerated, daughter of Holocaust survivors, and an activist.
Her talk recounted her two years in federal prisons, where she and the women who became her community suffered a host of indignities. Perhaps most disturbing was Evie’s description of her seven weeks in solitary confinement, locked in a cold, windowless, fluorescent-lit room, furnished with a toilet, blanket, and thin mattress.
Listening to the endless screams of other women yelling, “Get me the f out of here,” Evie felt she would not survive. She tells the audience not to be fooled by her calm, articulate demeanor. She is broken inside.
I am reminded that the Declaration of Human Rights forbids “cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment or punishment.” Evie is wounded, but she is a warrior; a writer, speaker, and advocate for the human rights of those convicted of crimes.
History is filled with stories of ordinary people who, like Evie, deserved basic rights that so many of us take for granted. The film, “Loving,” chronicles the story of Richard and Mildred Loving, the two plaintiffs who brought suit against the state of Virginia that led to the Supreme Court decision legalizing interracial marriage. The Lovings were not activists. The strength of this film was its depiction of two very ordinary people, who merely wanted the right accorded them in Article 16 of the Declaration: “Men and women … without any limitation due to race, nationality or religion, have the right to marry and to found a family.”
Ironically, those with privilege often take our precious rights for granted. Despite the African-Americans, women, Native Americans, and others who risked their lives for the right to “universal and equal suffrage” (Article 21), sadly, only about 55 percent of Americans voted in this year’s presidential election.
Human Rights Day came and went, ignored by millions of Americans, who fear that the Trump administration will abolish our fundamental human rights.
I worry that we will respond to attacks on our basic freedoms with passivity. The hundreds of thousands of Americans, who took to the streets after the election have returned home.
Millions are planning to participate in the Women’s March on Washington on Jan. 21, but where will they be on Jan. 22? Some already have given up, preferring to go into hibernation and just “wait out” the next four years. Do they know how much can happen in four years with a cabinet of mostly unqualified people, led by an even more unqualified president?
We can learn from the Standing Rock protesters, who began their demonstrations last June 27, and, despite blizzards, frigid temperatures and threats of arrest, remain resolute in their determination to defeat Dakota Access oil pipeline.
That same resolve is necessary to preserve our human rights during these dangerous times. A friend recently reminded me of the nonviolent protests of the civil rights era, when people locked arms and stared fear in the face singing, “We shall not be moved.” What will mobilize Americans to dig our heels into the ground and remain steadfast in our determination to fight an oppressive regime?
As an adult child of Holocaust survivors, I know the importance of taking a stand for human rights. I also know that even in Nazi Germany, there were those who risked their lives to resist.
The White Rose, an organized group of mainly college students from the University of Munich, actively defied Hitler by secretly writing, printing and distributing leaflets, urging Germans to oppose the Nazi regime.
They painted, “Down With Hitler,” “Freedom,” as well as crossed-out swastikas on the sides of houses on a main Munich thoroughfare. The leaders of the group were eventually caught, tried, and executed, but remained defiant to the end. One member bravely proclaimed before his execution, “Long live freedom!”
Nonviolent resistance may not sway the administration, but it lets the world know that most of us actively oppose the self-serving actions of the Trump administration. Visibility sends a message to our legislators that we will not tolerate their inaction in the face of policies that decimate our rights. When we show up, others will join us to build a community of ordinary people with extraordinary strength.
“Why do you allow these men who are in power to rob you step by step, openly and in secret, of one domain of your rights after another, until one day nothing, nothing at all will be left …”
— Third leaflet of the White Rose
Sara Weinberger, of Easthampton, is a professor emerita of social work and writes a monthly column.