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	Human Rights: Back to the Future by UNESCO Courier   The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) is undoubtedly one of the greatest documents in history. The first international treaty of ethical values to be adopted by humanity as a whole, it has served for seventy years “as a common standard of achievement for all peoples of all nations,” to quote from the speech of Eleanor Roosevelt – Chairperson of the Commission on Human Rights and of the UDHR Drafting Committee – delivered at the United Nations General Assembly on 9 December 1948, the day before the Declaration was adopted.   Hailed as a unique charter of humanity and accepted as a key reference in today''s world when it comes to upholding the human dignity of people everywhere, the Declaration has not been immune to criticism, notably invoking the argument for cultural diversity.   While it is true that in its form, the UDHR is largely inspired by the Western tradition, it is equally true that, in substance, its principles are universal. “Tolerance and respect for individual dignity are foreign to no people and native to all nations,” stated Kofi Annan, the former Secretary-General of the United Nations (1997-2006), at the commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the Declaration at UNESCO in 1998. We pay tribute to the Ghanaian diplomat, who passed away on 18 August 2018.   For his part, Federico Mayor, Director-General of UNESCO at the time, declared that “In ‘commemoration’, there is ‘memory’. We cannot act without memory. But what we must remember in order for our actions to be worthy of our fathers is not so much the date, the place or the letter, but more the sounds, the colours, the feeling or the spirit of the moment.”   This is precisely the goal of this issue of the Courier: to rediscover the spirit of the time, so that we may better inform our reflections on human rights today. The Wide Angle section presents a selection of texts sent in response to a major survey on the philosophical foundations of human rights, launched in 1947 by Julian Huxley, the first Director-General of UNESCO. More than sixty prominent thinkers responded to the call of the young Organization. Mahatma Gandhi was one of them, as were Benedetto Croce, Aldous Huxley, Humayun Kabir, Lo Chung-Shu and Arnold Schoenberg.   “Such a project was particularly timely, for a world consciousness had developed towards this question. Our whole social structure had been shaken by the repercussions of total war. People everywhere sought a common denominator to the problem of fundamental Human Rights,” wrote Jacques Havet – who coordinated the project – in the August 1948 Courier. The answers – some very brief letters, others long studies of the question – reflected, according to the young French philosopher, “nearly all the world''s national groups and nearly all ideological approaches”.   Certainly, the world has changed a lot in the last seventy years. Many nations have cast off the colonial yoke, and many cultural traditions have resurfaced since the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights on 10 December 1948. Yet this effort by UNESCO – to develop a global philosophy based on a broad knowledge of the world''s cultures – has lost none of its relevance or validity.   * Access the 80 page Human Rights edition of the UNESCO Courier via the link below. Visit the related web page
	Anne Frank today is a Syrian Girl by Nicholas Kristof New York Times, Pulitzer Center USA   On April 30, 1941, a Jewish man here in Amsterdam wrote a desperate letter to an American friend, pleading for help emigrating to the United States.   “U.S.A. is the only country we could go to,” he wrote. “It is for the sake of the children mainly.”   A volunteer found that plea for help in 2005 when she was sorting old World War II refugee files in New York City. It looked like countless other files, until she saw the children’s names.   “Oh my God,” she said, “this is the Anne Frank file.” Along with the letter were many others by Otto Frank, frantically seeking help to flee Nazi persecution and obtain a visa to America, Britain or Cuba — but getting nowhere because of global indifference to Jewish refugees.   We all know that the Frank children were murdered by the Nazis, but what is less known is the way Anne’s fate was sealed by a callous fear of refugees, among the world’s most desperate people. Sound familiar?   President Obama vowed to admit 10,000 Syrian refugees — a tiny number, just one-fifth of 1 percent of the total — and Hillary Clinton suggested taking more. Donald Trump has repeatedly excoriated them for a willingness to welcome Syrians and has called for barring Muslims. Fears of terrorism have left Muslim refugees toxic in the West, and almost no one wants them any more than anyone wanted a German-Dutch teenager named Anne.   “No one takes their family into hiding in the heart of an occupied city unless they are out of options,” notes Mattie J. Bekink, a consultant at the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam. “No one takes their child on a flimsy boat to cross the Mediterranean unless they are desperate.”   The son of a World War II refugee myself, I’ve been researching the anti-refugee hysteria of the 1930s and ’40s. As Bekink suggests, the parallels to today are striking.   For the Frank family, a new life in America seemed feasible. Anne had studied English shorthand, and her father spoke English, had lived on West 71st Street in Manhattan, and had been a longtime friend of Nathan Straus Jr., an official in the Franklin Roosevelt administration.   The obstacle was an American wariness toward refugees that outweighed sympathy. After the 1938 Kristallnacht pogrom against Jews, a poll found that 94 percent of Americans disapproved of Nazi treatment of Jews, but 72 percent still objected to admitting large numbers of Jews.   The reasons for the opposition then were the same as they are for rejecting Syrians or Hondurans today: We can’t afford it, we should look after Americans first, we can’t accept everybody, they’ll take American jobs, they’re dangerous and different.   “The United States, if it continues to be the world’s asylum and poorhouse, would soon wreck its present economic life,” the New York Chamber of Commerce warned in 1934.   Some readers are objecting: But Jews weren’t a threat the way Syrian refugees are! In the 1930s and ’40s, though, a world war was underway and Jews were widely seen as potential Communists or even Nazis. There were widespread fears that Germany would infiltrate the U.S. with spies and saboteurs under the cover that they were Jewish refugees.   “When the safety of the country is imperiled, it seems fully justifiable to resolve any possible doubts in favor of the country, rather than in favor of the aliens,” the State Department instructed in 1941. The New York Times in 1938 quoted the granddaughter of President Ulysses S. Grant warning about “so-called Jewish refugees” and hinting that they were Communists “coming to this country to join the ranks of those who hate our institutions and want to overthrow them.”   News organizations didn’t do enough to humanize refugees and instead, tragically, helped spread xenophobia. The Times published a front-page article about the risks of Jews becoming Nazi spies, and The Washington Post published an editorial thanking the State Department for keeping out Nazis posing as refugees.   In this political environment, officials and politicians lost all humanity.   “Let Europe take care of its own,” argued Senator Robert Reynolds, a North Carolina Democrat who also denounced Jews. Representative Stephen Pace, a Georgia Democrat, went a step further, introducing legislation calling for the deportation of “every alien in the United States.”   A State Department official, Breckinridge Long, systematically tightened rules on Jewish refugees. In this climate, Otto Frank was unable to get visas for his family members, who were victims in part of American paranoia, demagogy and indifference.   History rhymes. As I’ve periodically argued, President Obama’s reluctance to do more to try to end the slaughter in Syria casts a shadow on his legacy, and there’s simply no excuse for the world’s collective failure to ensure that Syrian refugee children in neighboring countries at least get schooling. Today, to our shame, Anne Frank is a Syrian girl.   * Fractured Lands (New York Times Magazine/Pulitzer Center)   The product of 18 months of reporting, this extensive feature story tells the story of the catastrophe that has fractured the Arab world since the invasion of Iraq 13 years ago, leading to the rise of ISIS and the global refugee crisis. The geography of this catastrophe is broad and its causes are many, but its consequences - war and uncertainty throughout the world - are familiar to us all. Scott Anderson’s story gives the reader a visceral sense of how it all unfolded, through the eyes of six characters in Egypt, Libya, Syria, Iraq and Iraqi Kurdistan. Accompanying Anderson’s text are portfolios by the photographer Paolo Pellegrin, drawn from his travels across the region over the last 14 years.   It is unprecedented for us to focus so much attention on a single story, and to ask our readers to do the same. We would not do so were we not convinced that what follows is one of the most clear-eyed, powerful and human explanations of what has gone wrong in this region that you will ever read. - Jake Silverstein, Editor in Chief, New York Times. Access the feature Fractured Lands via the link below.   * See also Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting: http://pulitzercenter.org/reporting http://pulitzercenter.org/gateways http://pulitzercenter.org/projects Visit the related web page
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