HUMAN RIGHTS VS RESPONSIBILITY

SACHIDA NATH, NADI

Someone asked, why human rights are such a big issue; how about human responsibilities?

Generally, people find it uncomfortable to discuss matters of personal responsibility.

Here is my take on the of matter ‘responsibility’ by way of an example.

Let us consider the institution of marriage, for instance, and see if responsibility factor can somehow be ordered.

A person with liberal values will see the needs of an individual more important than family and society. He/she will see marriage as something he/she will enter and if he/she finds it unfulfilling he/she will get out of it. Imagine, I reason and argue with this liberal type that; the purpose of marriage is to create a safe, secure place to nurture children for the extended family and society as a whole. That divorce is an anathema to traditional family values. The same will turn around and say ‘you have heated the empty air around your head needlessly by your bigoted and intolerant comments’.

Generally, people are gravitating towards freedom from various responsibilities in life including marital ones.

That is why one social analyst called this trend a ‘free people’s suicide’.

Sachida Nath will receive a Parker pen as our letter of the week last week.