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I had announced in the January issue that we would get somewhat
involved in human rights, the presenting and explaining of it. I
also would invite you to participate when we get going. We
already had David McKague have a long look at the issue through
his column “Petitorial”. His strong point of view has made him
quite a few friends with animal lovers and now he is setting out
to illustrate how Animal Rights and Human Rights are intimately
interwoven.
My announcement in the last issue prompted an individual from
Germany to send several fax pages packed with newspaper articles
pointing out the day to day violations in Germany. The garbled
messages made obvious that people experience a lot of injustices
even in democratic states that have a strong foundation based in
justice and the law and that the countries fail to always serve
their citizens. I cannot thank the sender for reminding us of
this because he remains anonymous.
I want to early on point out that we do not accept anonymous
mail as source material. It is necessary that you identify
yourself to be believable to us. You may ask to have your
identity withheld if we refer in any way to your input, which is
a common practice. Once our blog is installed at the Internet
you can use a moniker. Since we are not here to investigate
human rights or give legal advice we are not interested in
secret activities. We are interested in illustrating what human
rights are, so we all better understand what we can expect and
perhaps could or should do about it.
One vital requirement is firstly communication, adequate and
precise, something I was reminded of this last month in
abundance, dealing just with every day situations. I have always
considered communication the solution for everything. Even
though most people agree with me they fail to practice what they
preach. If there is a problem we too often pull back and stop
communicating instead of telling more to clarify a situation.
Sometimes it is better to do it in person, at other times, when
a legal point of view is involved, we can do it in writing. But
we must communicate, and precisely and as simply as we can and
as often enough as is necessary to be understood at the other
end. If we expect a decent response it helps not to be
antagonistic but factual.
So let’s communicate. With a little practice we will get it
right ad march in the correct direction. Once we have someone’s
attention we can say what we need to say in a way it can be
understood on the other end. If that has happened then we can
expect an acknowledgement and a response that is delivered the
very same way to us. So simple, yet so misunderstood.
Making use of the right to communicate, I mean specifically in a
responsible way, is a Human Right that also extends into the
animal kingdom, as we can observe.
So let us make good use of it and let us not forget that it
includes listening so we can understand!
 There
is one rule we should also know about: We have the right to not
only give or receive communication, but we also have the right
to refuse to give or receive communication. How you chose
depends on the situation.
Until next time
Sybille Forster-Rentmeister
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