Originally written on Sunday, 28. September 2008.

I have just learned that this year is the 60th anniversary of the UN Declaration of Human Rights. Is it really, I hear you say. Yes. And to mark this ‘celebration’ the Economists Intelligent Life quarterly has asked a collection of eminent thinkers to list a freedom gained and a freedom lost. My invitation to rant in such an esteemed mag’has clearly been lost in the trip to the southern half of the planet,so with this in mind, I give you, here, my views.

Freedom Lost.

There have been a number of significant freedoms lost over the last decades, but, as I have not been around for all of these, I am accepting of the status quo, however, the last ten to 15 years has seen a significant shift away from the freedom to express, the freedom to articulate and right and freedom to self determination.

I am not talking about the the break up of countries, such as Yugoslavia, performing acts akin to the Matryoshka dolls from which spring ever small countries, determined to offer the right of its own people to their self determination. Countries and political entities are, almost by definition, only transitional states. Even places like England or Britain or the United Kingdom or the British Isles are transitional, the boundaries of ‘rule’ have changed over the last thousand years or so, some times not always from the ‘where’ but to the ‘who’. As an aside, have you ever tried to explain to somebody who is not familiar with our sceptred isle the difference between those four nomenclatures ?

I did have a chat with a colleague from Johannesburg who thought that Scotland was simply a part of England, that England was the entire island. It pains me to admit, but, in the end, yes, I did correct him. I did not however bring up the West Lothian Question, to which it seems there is no answer.

No, what I am talking about are the small freedoms we have lost, the little things that can make life just a little more tolerable for The Self. For example, the freedom for an adult to go to a, sometimes
private, adult only environment and participate in adult only experiences, such as smoking in pubs.

Now,I understand that there will people reading this that will say that they want the freedom to go to a pub and come home not smelling like and ash tray and yes, I do, broadly, agree. However,and this is the crux of the matter, we are adults humans, beautiful,intelligent, amazing creatures, often flawed but capable of some breath taking feats and we are all, every one of us, capable of making our own choices.

Some of those choices are good, some bad, some ugly. But we are capable and as such we should be allowed to continue to make bad choices as well as good ones. We understand that some times we have to take the rough with the smooth and to this end,there may be activities that some people enjoy that others do not. Well, tough is my point. If you don’t like it, don’t do it.

Pubs are adult places. Alcohol has been categorised as an ‘adult only experience’ and pubs are intended for the consumption of these delightful malty infusions, and as such will tend to be associated with other adult only experiences. Keep the smoking inside the pub where the consenting adults have made the choice to be in the first place and do not let it spill into the street where the hoards of smokers now ply their ever increasingly illicit pass times, infusing the innocent passer by with the scent of second hand Gauloises.

Should you need any more convincing of the rights of smoking inside pubs take a walk though any small to large British or Irish city on the morning after night before and look at the amount of cigarettes ends that are strewn liberally and carelessly in the shop and pub doors ways. A few years ago these would have been indoors and our urban landscape would have been just a little more pleasant.

There are other small freedoms we have lost over the years. If the last point was flippant, and maybe it is, the freedom, neigh, the right to express oneself certainly is not. The right to express oneself is now so curtailed for fear of offending somebody else that almost every interesting subject of conversation is now, effectively off limits. The most interesting and now most dangerously taboo subjects is religion.

As most of you will know, I am an atheist. I have been for some time. I arrived at this decision after weighing up the pro’s and con’s of religion, and, after a period of careful consideration and looking at what is laughingly called ‘the evidence’ for god. I made a concious, considered and quantifiable choice and am now, firmly, in the land of ‘infidel’ or ‘gentile’. I am happy with this choice. It works for me. I am allowed to express it.

However, I am, technically, not allowed to publicly express why or how I arrived at this position, for fear of enticing religious hatred. This rationale would be part of the series of
draconian laws that have been passed in the UK in the last seven or eight years or so, in theory to counter the threat of religious extremism. Needless to say, these laws are comical and in the most spectacular ways have simply not done anything other than allow those with the most conservative of religious views to propagate their acidic ideas to the most vulnerable or stupid in society.

And yet, as an atheist, I have no right at all to question those views, I am not allowed to counter them, I am not allowed to posit a counter rational. Not least this is denying a lot of people the right to have a damn good argument, over a pint and a cigar in small pub with a good cosy fire of burning atheists smouldering nicely in the corner. And, should you think that I am exaggerating, Turkey, the denizen of pseudo secularism, the country most desperate to join the Euro’ Union has banned access to a number of scientific journals and web sites, perhaps the most high profile and recent being that of Richard Dawkins. Yes, freedom of speech and thought and wonder isalive and well.

And here is the common thread that joins together both the flippant, perhaps, and the serious. The only way that we grow, intellectually, the only way that we can discover new ideas and new thoughts, the only way that we can progress, scientifically, intellectually, artistically and emotionally is to explore, to break new ground, to be allowed to express ourselves, to counter and be countered and develop extensions to those ideas, and, perhaps most importantly to challenge each other and make mistakes.

To stifle this expression, either through legislation or fear of being hit over the head with a sturdy lump of wood is simply to allow the extremist of thought but more fearfully of action to take the upper hand. And if this happens, we may very well end up living in a world that is, very much akin the the world which originally gave rise to all the crusty old books to which the religious do so love referring.

Freedom Gained…..

This, I have to admit, did take some thinking about. Quite a lot in fact. My head still hurts a little at the back. I could have written about the freedom of travelling, but that is restricted to those that can afford it, or, as I am, lucky enough to have somebody, in this case my employer, to pick up the bills. It is also curtailed by the need to get a visa to some of the more interesting places which in turn could be declined if you have previously visited some other interesting locations that are deemed unacceptable to the next country you are wanting to visit.

I could also talk about the joys of the internet and the freedom to read and learn about other views but again, this is sadly restricted by far too many elected and more often unelected regimes. I won’t mention them here, but you know who they are largely because you are not restricted by those ideologies, but many, many are.

I could talk about the joys of technology and the freedom we have to watch and listen to the bland and mundane or, occasionally, interesting, as and when we want, but alas, this too is restricted. Try buying a dvd in one country and playing it in another. The copy protection added will permit the user, often, only to watch the film in the country of purchase. Region country codes were invented by the film makers and distributors to keep the prices artificially high and ripping these to hard drive to allow them to be watched ‘on the road’ is, technically illegal. Pah.

Even the humble mobile ‘phone is coming to the attention of the multinationals; try putting some software on an Apple Iphone and see how long it lasts. Apple will remove that software at the next update. They take the view that, even after forking out several hundred pounds they still own the device and it is your privilege merely to rent the device from them. This particular issue is something I could rant on about for days, and, to the chagrin of some of my colleague, often do.

So, what, as a result of 60 years of the UN Declaration of Human Rights have we gained ? An end to wars ? Sadly, no. Anecdotally at least, there seem to be more wars and conflicts around the world than ever before. I admit that we may simply be more aware of conflict,due to the parasitical rise of the 24 hour news channels such as Sky and CNN, but the UN Declaration of Human Rights has done nothing to curb these local endeavours.

So what about the rise of equality ? Peter Tatchel, the UK gay rights campaigner, suggested this as his ‘freedom gained’ but this is not a universal right and is, largely, restricted to the ‘developed’ western world. There are many places where the concept of homosexuality is utterly alien and in many places, illegal. Tatchel is correct from a UK perspective, perhaps even a european standpoint,but not in such liberal enlightened places as Saudi Arabia, our ‘big friend’ in the Middle East.

So what then, has the UN Declaration of Human Rights given as a freedom gained ? Sadly, I am going to say, not a lot. Maybe the UN Declaration of Human Rights is a work in progress, maybe it needs to be bigger and more encompassing. Maybe it needs to be smaller, more lithe, quick thinking and more pointed. However, in it’s current format, the UN with its 180 plus members it will never satisfy everybody, it will never deliver the big ideals for which it was, originally, and correctly, created after the second world war.

There are simply too many polarised views with the UN, there are too many local interests, culturally, intellectually and religiously to satisfy all member and as each resolution takes longer to ratify,there are more and more ‘op-outs’, more and more exceptions to the rules.

So, as a riposte, I will leave you with this single freedom. Human beings are an incredible species. We are both clever and stupid at the same time. We are capable of the most wonderful creations and the most amazing destructions. We are capable of discovering the wondrous, and ignoring the obvious, we can create something from, seemingly,nothing and in return something into nothing. But the one thing we are all capable of is thinking. The freedom to think is perhaps the greatest freedom of all.

Imagine what we could do if we are all allowed to think and act upon those thoughts; we could explore space properly, create wonderful architecture, find a cure for James Blunt and Lilly Allen, anything.

We just need to do it.