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Show PAGE 12 UNIVERSITY JOURNAL FOCUS THURSDAY, JANUARY 17, 2002 Week focuses on rights BY MEG CADY JOURNAL STAFF WRITER granted,” Baxter said. She hopes the Human Rights Week, which celebrates the sacrifices people have made for the rights of mankind, will begin Monday with the celebration of Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. SUU'’s observance of Human Rights Week will include several activities hosted by the Student Activities Board in honor of those who worked so hard to bring general rights to everyone. Movies with human rights themes will begin at 11 a.m. in the Sharwan Smith Center each day during the activities will provide a “personal week” for students. week, and facts about human rights will be posted around campus. . A clothesline of human rights activists, including reminders of what each person has accomplished, will be displayed on the upper campus. At the end of the week, flags representing deaths in the cause of Nicole Herrera, multicultural is about human awareness. “[There will be] a lot of visual displays of what’s been going on during history to advocate human rights,” Herrera said. Starting Tuesday, STAB will use the construction wall in the Sharwan Smith Center Rotunda as an “I Have a Dream” wall. Students will be able to sign pledges and put their dreams up on the wall. Josie Beth Baxter, Student Center programming director, said the wall will be used to inspire others. “Hopefully people will take it personally,” she said. Baxter said the theme of the wall was inspired by the words of King: MARGARET BOURKE/LIFE ‘human rights will be displayed on the lower quad. Herrera said Human R1ghts Week is 1mportant because it gives students great examples” of how to stand up for human rights. Human rights are for everyone, not just minorities, and representative for STAB, said the week Mohandas ‘Mahatma’ Gandhi children’s rights to women’s suffrage. Human “[This] goes back to protecting the rights of every BY KAMI SAVAGE ' human,” Herrera said. She quoted Commission: “Where, after all, do human rights begin? In small places, close to home.. Such are the places where every man, woman and child seeks equal justice, equal opportunity, equal dignity, without discrimination. “Unless these rights have meaning there, they have little meaning any where.” be able to join hands and sing... thank God Almighty, we are free at last!” “We take a lot of [human] rights for Sl a il kO serfs, but true freedom was not given either group for some time. Later, women were given the right to vote. So many examples of the battle for human rights exist-so many key figures have contributed to a progression of freedom. against “pagan” people,the slavery of Africans, the treatment of Native Americans, the genocide of Jewish people, Apartheid, Serfs. The list is seemingly endless. The western idea of human rights, as we know it today, existed for centuries in Europe. Of note was the signing of the Magna Carta in England which gave to people certain individual rights, including “the right of the church to be free from governmental interference, the rights of all free citizens to own and inherit property and be free from excessive taxes,” according to the Human Rights Web at www.hrweb.org. Such ideas were adopted in United States documents The idea of a national holiday to honor King was surrounded by controversy for several years. President Ronald Reagan signed legislation that created the holiday in 1983, but it was strike. He was shot and killed by an assassin’s bullet as he stood on hlS motel balcony. Klng S followers were devastated by equal.” At the same time, Russia emancipated its people by the Egyptians, Christian crusades the civil rights movement. Instead they continued the fight for equality in remembrance of their leader. - Memphis, Tenn., for a city worker according to the Human Rights Web. The Civil War between the northern and southern regions of the United States was fought ~ in part on the premise that “all men are created Islamic people all over the nation experienced varying levels of hostility in the aftermath. Human rights is, perhaps, one of the most explosive issues throughout world history-the biblical stories of the slavery of the Hebrew his death, but did not allow it to slow be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character,” King said. After delivering the speech, he visited working conditions, starvation wages, child labor, and, in the Americas, the ‘Indian Problem,’ as it was known at the time,” killed. And, on the other hand, many innocent King: ‘1 have a dream’ (continued from page 1) JOURNAL EDITOR human rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr. (see story on page 1) and celebrate the movement toward individual rights and freedom for all people. The subject of human rights is all the more visible now after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks when, because of hatred and bias, people were former chair of the United Nations Human Rights every state and every city, we... will of freedom. Various philosophers adopted ideas pertaining to “natural rights”-those which belonged inherently to a person because they were a human being. Initially, such ideas seemingly extended only to white male Europeans, but the “middle and late 19th century saw a number of issues take center stage... including slavery, serfdom, brutal Next week, the nation will honor the birth of Eleanor Roosevelt, “When we let freedom ring... from rights fight ongoing not until 1986 that King’s birthday was Mohandas Gandhi, known as Mahatma, fought for the rights of Indians repressed by British rule of India with non-violent resistance. He, like King, was murdered. His influence led to King’s own leadership of non-violent resistance against inequality in the United States. Such people have made important steps toward a better future, but many more strides must be taken before the journey is through. observed as a hollday nat1onw1de MBI B i i NT S e B 1A O T B AoV 0 (V0 www.suu.edu/suusa Help make wishes come true! Want to find out more about the Make-A-Wish Foundation? GENERAL INFORMATION MEETING, Jan. 23, 6-7 p.m. Bryce Canyon Room The Clubs and Organizations Assembly would like to welcome the Swing Club, Newman Club and the Mystery Writers & Poets Society Club to Clubs & Organizations. For more information about these clubs or how to start your own, please ‘contact Eric Kirby at 865-8342. TODAY Lunar Ex _tasy" An aid climbing rhovne about a walls*fexpé’?‘ence in Zion Nat. Park. Candidacy Information Meeting for Student Elections! Everyone Ready to volunteer? Volunteer Training, Rl e T Bryce Canyon Room. 1 O ARE YOU INT\ lifsf"” MEETING OF THE SEMESTER ON MONDAY, JANUARY 28™ AT ELC 105 FOR PIZZA AND TO SEE WHAT ITS ALL ABOUT! welcome! Candidates and volunteers! Sponsored by th Cllm ing Clu 6 p.m. TV lounge. Unity throush Diversity: Srcating Possililitics THE FiLM CLUB WILL BE MEETING TODAY IN ZIONS A & B AT 7 P.M. ANYONE INTERESTED IN MAKING MOVIES OR IN FILM LOOKING FOR IS WELCOME A CAREER TO JOIN. Januavy 93-35 in the Shaswan Smith Cented %flwiams i 2 mfl‘awffllk v TR ; Event howoly (om 10 a.m.-10 .. Contaet Dr. Mitehcll at SEE-TEBS (02 more infe. |