Human rights is an idea that arose in the twentieth century out of
concerns with survival and suffering. It is an idea also built on traditions
of compassion and insight into human interconnectedness. I know it
is a complex concept, that it can be as hollow as saying “Coca
Cola.” Yet, human rights has become, to my mind, the most significant
moral language and mapping project of our times. I came to human rights
out of a fascination with genocide and apatheids in my 20s. I read
Leo Kuper’s on genocide. In understanding how we might define
human rights, he wrote: “The denial of a common humanity would
seem an important component of any definition.” I am struck by
the idea of a common humanity. It suggests something deeply resonant
exists. But it is a resonance that is denied by ignorance, fundamentalism
and non-recognition. I agree with Upendra Baxi entirely when he states “human
rights give voice to the suffering.”
Launch of Activating Human Rights in 2006 by Justice Michael Kirby
Archbishop
Tutu, the apartheid of homosexuality, and being human
This contains
an introduction to and the transcript of Baden's interview with Archbishop
Desmond Tutu, Nobel Laureate, while Tutu was in Sydney to
receive the Sydney Peace Prize in 1999. The interview took place at the Observatory
Hotel.
The Apartheid of Homosexuality -
article by Baden Offord
The issues and problems facing homosexuals are also experienced across
culture, race, health, law, ethnicity, politics, religion and economics.
For all kinds of reasons and in all kinds of ways, homosexuality has
become a marker of the final years of the twentieth century. And it
defies borders - it does not matter from which part of the world you
take a look, whether in Asia or Africa, the Americas, Europe or the
Middle East, homosexuality has currency at an international level not
witnessed before.
Homosexual
Rights as Human Rights: Activism in Indonesia, Singapore and Australia
The
Australian Public Intellectual site hosting a review and details
of Baden's 2003 book.