Woman's Rights are Foundation of Human Values

Shirin Ebadi, Rooz Online:

For us as human beings two different worlds have always been pictured in Persian literature: the internal world and the external one. The internal world can be interpreted in the secrets of life, educational impacts, emotions, feelings and so on. The external one is simply the outside world surrounding us. Human beings are connected to the external world through their internal world and values.

The reality is that one can not talk about values such as human rights and democracy in external world without feeling such a blessing in the internal world. Such values are not written decrees or law books to be passed on to a 40-year old individual who gets into a position through which he oversees or affects the lives of many human beings.

In his early years of learning at home and in school, every individual should be taught to respect the rights of others, avoid violence and know his rights by asking for them. Such a person learns of peace of mind and acquires self-respect and confidence. This attitude is the foundation of respecting the rights of others and loving them. A humiliated individual who has lost his self-confidence is always defensive; some one who cannot be a peace-loving human being with love for everyone once he steps into society and is appointed to high positions of responsibility. He will not respect the rights and interests of others and therefore would not be able to protect his interests.

One expects a mother to respect her child's rights and self confidence, and to teach him to avoid violence while respecting other's rights. If the mother’s rights are violated, she herself will have been living a life full of insecurities and stresses, and thus not healthy to teach healthy and human values to her off-springs.

The fact of the matter is that to build a better and more humane world, there is no better solution but to provide all citizens with equal rights based on their abilities. One should not forget that in the final analysis every violent man has been raised by a woman. Masculine dominated societies may be compared to the illness of hemophilia. In this disease, the woman is not necessarily sick but can transfer the disease to her son. Based on the same logic, a look at governments around the world indicates that if women’s rights are at their lowest in a society, human rights and other modern values are absent there too.

Democracy, tolerance and human rights are promoted and established by tolerant, democratic and respectful individuals. This is primarily and in the first instance shaped in the family and thought by those mothers who themselves enjoy such respectful human rights.