60 Years of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights: A Poem-Plea

POETRY FORMAT, 30 Jun 2014

Francisco Gomes de Matos – TRANSCEND Media Service

Sixty years ago the UDHR was proclaimed
Humankind’s living conditions to improve
For Justice and Peace so much was claimed
How united can the Family of Nations move?

For Human Rights we can educate
Violations of Rights we can denounce
The Family of Rights let’s integrate
Needed emerging rights let’s announce

As a system of values the UDHR can be seen
Human Rights should be supported and respected
To every human being, what can RIGHTS mean?
Is Human DIGNITY being universally protected?

The UDHR text we can proudly probe and display
But there is a long list of things to be done
As HUMANIZERS what is the role we can play?
That of HUMANIZING RIGHTS so the WORLD is ONE.

___________________________

From:Human Rights Quarterly, Volume 30, Number 4, November 2008, p. 1063 | 10.1353/hrq.0.0044.

Francisco Gomes de Matos, Ph.D. is an applied peace linguist from Recife, Brazil. He has degrees in Languages, Law, and Linguistics. He is Professor Emeritus at the Universidade Federal de Pernambuco where he is active in the Dom Hélder Camara Human Rights Commission. He is one of the pioneers in Linguistic Rights (author of 1984 Plea for a Universal Declaration of Linguistic Rights) and in the emerging area of Peace Linguistics. Currently he is President of the Board, Associação Brasil América (www.abaweb.org). He can be reached at fcardosogomesdematos@gmail.com.

 

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