Whose lives matter?

By Heather Hill, Co-Chair: Human Rights Committee, UNA-NCA. In collaboration with Jenn Chow, Member: Human Rights Committee, UNA-NCA.

It rises slowly, fiercely; the din of chaotic words and cries after the gunfire, falling on our ears like the thundering rain of a hot summer storm. So much noise, the chanting on the streets, the shouting at protests and in riots, the explosions of expression on social media feeds. Everyone vying to be louder, needing to be heard; crying at the side of a grave that swallowed its dead far too soon.

I think about the debate flaring up across this country, centered on the concern of whose lives matter. I hear the questions being fired out; what is happening, and what are we doing about it?

What I see and hear makes me stop. It makes me look out into the night and try to find the flicker of a firefly in the deepening twilight.

This is the United States of America, a country whose strength lies not only in its separate states working together nationally, but in the integrity of its many faceted people living in unity; in peace and equality.

My own ideas of what it means to be a people, which I want you to read from now on with the definition of "united diversity, living in peace and equality," comes largely from growing up outside of such a reality and not being a part. I have lived the entirety of my life as an outsider, having been born and matured, and now also lived and worked across four continents. It stems from being deprived of the same legal rights as those around me.

My idea of what it is to be a people stems from being called into the interrogation room at night to be questioned by military police about why I live there or why something might be wrong with my paperwork. It comes from having no vote; from carrying paperwork on my person at all times as proof of residency; from having a slight accent, from being shorter and plumper, from being too different. It comes from being denied, from having to leave the country I called home, and from always being relegated to the other even when at times and in certain places, that otherness afforded its own set of privilege.

It comes from being perceived and acted towards as the embodiment of what those around me, those with security and status, associate with me when we interact. While sometimes those associations and perceptions are pleasant, other times they result in people acting out of fear and anger over a broken trust, forcing a growing divide between us.

As a child, I always looked to the United Nations as this space that allowed me to be myself. It was the place where, for all of the oddness of my multi-cultural being, I could feel at home and safe, recognized as part of instead of as other.

Today, I still find myself looking to the UN for answers and aid—but I also see myself as part of the provision of those answers and that aid. "Be the change," Gandhi said.

Since moving to the States, I have noticed a perception that the work of the UN is really for the rest of the world. That here in this country, we don't have the same sort of needs. It certainly is true that as a country, the United States provides an enormous bulk of funding for humanitarian programs and supports the many efforts of the UN in the rest of the world. There really are areas where we can collaborate with the UN to better this country, too.  

This question we are facing in the United States today is a human rights question. Whose lives matter? And the resounding answer is that yes, in fact, all lives matter. All of them. All of us. We are all human, we are all people, and each and every one of us matter, end of story.

The problem with this wonderful statement, however, is not that any of us think not all lives matter, but rather, that not all lives seem to matter. That not all voices get heard, that not all treatment is equal; that there are those amongst us in this country whose lives seem to matter less. 

Robert F Kennedy once said,

"Every time we turn our heads the other way when we see the law flouted, when we tolerate what we know to be wrong, when we close our eyes and ears to the corrupt because we are too busy or too frightened, when we fail to speak up and speak out, we strike a blow against freedom and decency and justice."

Many people here in the United States have some degree of awareness of the Holocaust, which is forever engrained in the walls of the Smithsonian Holocaust Museum as a perpetual reminder that such a tragedy should never happen again. Having spent my teenage years in Eastern and Western Europe, I heard Holocaust stories from neighbors and strangers nearly every day - stories entrenched in their memories - reminding me, never again.

I went off to Rwanda to study genocide and reconciliation, to try and wrap my own mind a little more around the questions of why we can come both to define and to diminish humanity; of what identity and fear of the other can do; and of how in the world we can ever hope for peace when it takes so little to shatter humanity.

It hurt my ears at times, the refrain of "Never Happen Again" which floated up from the memorials and the museums and mouths of victims and victimizers alike, because I kept looking back at the history of the world and looking around at the events only beginning to unfurl then and thinking to myself, "But doesn't it always happen again?"

Whose lives matter?

When answered in a way that is not inclusive; that does not work hard to build in equality where there is none; that fears the other around it; this is the question that breaks a country into all hell and a people into person vs. person.

I think about that "Never Happen Again" slogan from Rwanda that I wrestled so much with. Over time, I have come to a new appreciation for it. In saying "Never Happen Again," it at once both acknowledges that something terrible happened, and that something must be done.

No hurt can be healed without acknowledging its existence.

No inequality can be fixed without first being pointed out by someone and then also acknowledged by everyone—after which comes the work of doing something about it.

We have come to a point in time when the inequality and injustices in our country have come boiling up to the surface and what happens now will define us far into the future and in ways we can only begin to imagine. But although we are heartbroken, shaken, and hurt—even scared—this is the time to act, to begin to effect change, and utilize the globally-inclusive UN to feel the positive impact of it at home.

Among the United Nations’ treaties, bodies, and plans there are a number of key pieces we can use in our own country to address becoming a peaceful and inclusive country, one that protects all of its people as a people and ensure that dignity is afforded to every one of us.

On behalf of the Human Rights Committee, I invite you to join us as, over the next few months, we explore in dialogue, events and activities, and this blog the connection between what is happening in our locality today, how the UN can help us achieve what we want, and the actions we need to take, including:

·       The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights

·       The Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment

·       The Human Rights Council

·       Global Goal 16

Eleanor Roosevelt, who served as a representative to the UN as well as a diligent leader of the United Nations Association in its founding days, once said,

" Where, after all, do universal human rights begin? In small places, close to home—so close and so small that they cannot be seen on any maps of the world. Yet they are the world of the individual person; the neighborhood he lives in; the school or college he attends; the factory, farm, or office where he works. Such are the places where every man, woman, and child seeks equal justice, equal opportunity, equal dignity without discrimination. Unless these rights have meaning there, they have little meaning anywhere. Without concerted citizen action to uphold them close to home, we shall look in vain for progress in the larger world."

Today, let’s look for a firefly or light a candle for those who are gone, and then carry those we remember with us as we work towards answers and change.

If we do not recognize the patterns at work and stop to say "never again!," then we continue to be complicit in deepening our own wound instead of beginning the long road to healing and working together to create the sustainable beauty of a people, equal, peaceful, and united.