An article of mmhmt4 dated March 5, 2018 was published on Middle East and North Africa ( ref. About) where a number of interesting other articles could be found. We republish this article on Human Rights & Endangered Cultures with our compliments to the author and publisher because we happen to fully agree with what is professed in it.
Human Rights & Endangered Cultures
Climate change has a lot to do with human rights. We as humans believe we have an inherent right to a lot of what this world has to offer. We use our resources like they will always be replenished because we think it is our right to use them. We build our factories, and throw our trash where we want, we drive the cars we think are the coolest and fastest, because we do not see the immediate effect its takes on the planet. It has taken years for us to ruin the world we live in. Years of not caring about our input and not worrying about our output has lead us to the place we are in. You can argue whether or not global warming is real. But the facts are there. And it happened because of humans. So yes, we have basic human rights that we should all recognize. But we also have the right to live in a healthy environment, and if we want that we need to change the way to view our rights. In Elizabeth Lidnsey’s Ted Talk she mentioned how the elders in her community took her to the ocean and told her that one day it wouldn’t be like it was. Her elders were right, they predicted that before massive amounts of trash got dumped into the ocean every year, and before the BP oil spill. Humans should have the right to protect this earth.
Endangered cultures are cultures that have the potential to disappear. Whether it be the language they speak or the practices they have, for some reason or another they are going extinct. Endangered cultures are such an interesting thing to think about. Picture your culture just no longer being. It is hard for me, as an American, to realize because I don’t really have a distinct culture. But that is the problem. There are smaller cultures in the world that just do not have the following or the number of people to keep it going forever. There are languages that used to exists and don’t any longer; they are written down, there is no way of relearning it. In the country I am learning about, Jordan, there are small rural regions of it where the practices just are not as popular as the more populated areas. If I had to guess, I would say that someday those practices will no longer be in use. It is sad to think about. We need to preserve smaller cultures as much as we can. That is why it is important to have a curiosity to learn about other people. No culture is better than another.
That brings me to the topic of eurocentrism. Eurocentrism is the idea that the European or western culture and history is more important that other cultures or histories in the world. This is a flawed way of thinking for many reasons. But the main reason is because our history is so flawed that it would be foolish to think there is not a more interesting history to talk about or repeat. I will not linger on this topic for long, but the most important thing to remember is that there are billions of people on this earth, that is billions of backgrounds, histories, and stories to learn about and try to understand. If you are so closed minded that you can only focus on one, then that is the problem.
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