Human Rights and
Human Rights Education
by K. Peter Fritzsche
 The
last decade has experienced the recurrence of the most serious human
rights violations caused by the rise of nationalism, racism, xenophobia
and religious intolerance, among other factors. Safeguarding of
human rights goes well beyond the protection afforded by the law.
No society can guarantee equal rights if the citizens do not support
them, and without at the same time encouraging the citizens» activities.
Human rights education (HRE) calls for educational strategies aimed
at preventing the outbreak of violent conflicts and related human
rights violations. No society can guarantee human rights without
making an effort to develop in its citizens an awareness of human
rights: the knowledge of oneós own rights, the willingness
to accept the same rights for others and to support the defence
of the rights of all people according to oneós own possibilities.
Human rights are the result of a conflict-ridden learning process
in societies. The benefits for civilization which result from this
learning process are rights which the citizen can legally recover
from the state, as well as mutual moral rights that citizens can
expect each other to accept. Human rights have legal and moral sides,
which both influence the standards of a civil society. The task
of HRE is to make this learning process understandable. Within the
national and the international contexts of HRE four typical difficulties
of HRE can be identified. They are referred to as the four Big Ižs
of HRE: ignorance, incompetence, indifference and intolerance.
1. Ignorance: This means the lack of knowledge about human
rights and the institutions of human rights protection, as well
as an inadequate understanding of the benefits for civilization,
brought by the idea of freedom and equality of human rights.
2. Incompetence: Defending oneós own rights is easy,
but it is hard to support the acceptance of the rights of others.
Citizens lack the competence in human rights, mainly because they
are not willing to accept the same rights for others.
3. Indifference: Citizens behave indifferently towards the
endangerment or the violation of human rights, because they do not
understand what they themselves can do to defend human rights.
4. Intolerance: Even where there is an abstract acceptance
of the human rights of others, intolerance still exists, and very
often aims at what people actually do with their right to be free.
HRE has to support the following knowledge and competences in order,
to overcome these problems:
Understanding of Human Rights: An essential element of HRE
is the knowledge of the nationally guaranteed and internationally
standardized human rights, as well as their institutions of protection.
However, HRE should not just mediate knowledge, but has to convey
the idea behind the rights and the institutions. From the point
of view of a broad understanding of human rights, HRE aims at a
competence, which allows citizens to judge actions of the state
and to found oneós own actions on human rights standards.
Willingness to accept: An interest in oneós own rights
plays a leading role in human rights awareness. But the personal
perspective is only one side of the coin. Human rights, being the
rights of humanity, also include the same rights for others. This
shows that rights also entail duties and responsibilities. However,
an awareness of human rights where rights and duties are treated
as belonging together requires the willingness to accept equal rights.
Based on this willingness, it will be possible to strengthen the
idea of freedom and equality of human rights against the racist
and nationalist ideologies of bondage and inequality.
Involvement: HRE is an integral part of democracy education,
but very often it is unclear where the connections are. Therefore,
HRE has to support the involvement of citizens who are aware of
human rights. Human rights are essential for democracy and the role
of citizens in a democracy involves participating in the protection
of democracy from political and social powers such as racism and
extremism, whose ideologies are built on the denial of human rights.
Competence of tolerance: A broad understanding of the term
HRE includes, tolerance education, and the disturbing manifestations
of old and new forms of intolerance make tolerance education a high
priority. At the same time there is always a need to explain the
inner connections between human rights and tolerance for better
understanding. It is about the connection between accepting equality
and difference at the same time. Tolerance as a competence of citizens
living and working together or next to each other is more in demand
than ever. The living conditions of modernization force the citizens
to shape the growing varieties and diversity of their own freedom,
and to acknowledge the freedom of others. Tolerance has to be learned.
One has to be made capable of tolerance, and it is one of the utmost
tasks of tolerance education to promote the elements of this capability.
From the dictum of the indivisibility of human rights we derive,
for HRE, the claim to the indivisibility of HRE. This means, that
human rights present an indivisible ensemble and have to be treated
as such, opposing the widely spread misunderstandings regarding
the defence of oneós own rights and the acceptance of the
rights of others.
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Index: Podium
Human Rights and Human Rights Education
by K. Peter Fritzsche
The Difficult Question of Evaluation
by Thomas Lillig and Katrin Uhl
Portrait
Novamerica: a Brazilian NGO
Expert's Commentary
by Katrin Uhl
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