UMEHR: Founding call of a radical-democratic association
Note of the editorial office: The following article is the translated text of the invitation for the founding assembly of the association UMEHR on April 21th 2021. Afterwards, UMEHR was officialy registered as association according to german law. The purpose of this translation is to inform readers about the character, aims and philosophy of UMEHR.
Founding call of UMEHR
We invite all interested parties from near and far to prepare the foundation of a preliminary association for the registration of our association, who are committed to our human rights. A human rights movement cannot develop a unified program, but it can assert the interests of individuals and groups in the public sphere.
When profiteers can enforce their economic interests with state violence against the sense of justice of the majority of people, our human rights are put on the back burner. Where only profit counts, humanity falls by the wayside. That is why we want to unite with all people on an equal footing and await your proposals and offers.
We live in a world full of unsolved problems, while the current economic and political system cannot offer humanistic solutions. The economic oligarchs force small and medium companies to produce according to their conditions, while their lobbyists in governments push their interests at the expense of all of us. When we grow old and useless to them, they simply leave most of us in poverty.
The current social system’s promise of advancement, that anyone who works hard can achieve prosperity, has long since been exposed as a lie. The current measures are threatening the standard of living of small and medium-sized companies, small businesses, and people who had a decent wage job. Due to short-time work and bankruptcies, there are more and more companies and employment relationships from which people cannot live, let alone feed a family. Above all, the owners of global companies are the winners of the global measures in this deliberately exacerbated economic crisis. Global oligarchs have now begun the final consumption of the infrastructure of local communities, looting treasuries and seeking to capture any state property that is not nailed down.
The oligarchs, through the UN and its subdivisions such as the WHO, use the centrally affiliated states to gain unrestrained access to anything they desire. The wars they have deliberately instigated and the economic squeezing of the world have devastated entire regions and bred terrorist gangs. The concept of shared security between smaller and larger states through the UN has never worked. The arms profiteers are destroying any meager gains for peaceful solutions and pushing dependent states into wars. Due to reaching the profit limits, the danger of a military clash between nuclear powers has become very high.
Contrary to the claim of long durability, many products are specially designed to break quickly and cannot be repaired. As a result, profits increase, but the impoverishment of the people progresses and the mountains of waste grow to gigantic heights.
This system will either end in chaotic collapse or, hopefully, lead large parts of the world’s population to negotiate together for a new and humanistic community. It is an obvious lie to tell us that current politics is willing and able to solve our problems. Growing social and political inequality are not natural forces. The globalized rule of oligarchs, which concentrates the wealth of this planet on fewer and fewer individuals, is coming to an obvious end and is not without alternatives.
Due to the predominance of major owners against the right of the possessors, it is hardly possible for the possessors to sue for their human rights against the power of disposal of major owners. Possession obligates one’s own or common use, while influential major owners have obligated our community and the state to enforce their interests against all possessors with merciless force. No possessor of a house or a business is safe from the desires of the oligarchs. This state of affairs should be changed democratically if we do not want our civilization to perish because of individual interests.
Technical progress could continue to make our lives easier and our jobs more bearable if we would not leave it to irresponsible profiteers who want to get rid of almost three-quarters of the current producers through technical progress. Only if we divide the remaining work among all of us in an actual community, we can find a humanistic solution.
The simple principle of „supply and demand“ and fair international cooperation are massively suppressed in this system. The current economic system is not oriented to the needs of the people and their human rights, but to their ability to pay. But the profit of the oligarchs results solely from the impoverishment of the mass of people.
Global corporations, which are allowed to circumvent even the most fundamental democratic rules and can choose the cheapest labor, the lowest taxes, and the lowest-cost standards worldwide, are accelerating the collapse predicted by many experts.
In a humanistic world, a community is not responsible for the interests of a very small elite, but for the needs of all people. Only in an actual community, the observance of human rights can be guaranteed in a binding manner. The consistent exploitation of the civil liberties we have left for a comprehensive democratization of society can restore cohesion and help us to build a humanistic society. Only with democratic structures of self-governance that combine sovereignly and purposefully, people can effectively protect themselves from the consequences of the collapse of this economic and power system. We do not need rulers who manipulate political decisions with the help of lobbyists.
Today, many citizens are turning away from the party system because they have to experience again and again that their interests are given far less consideration in political decisions than the wishes of wealthy economic leaders. A democracy can only be realized if the citizens themselves are the lawmakers (legislature) and thus the all-important power in their regions. In a democracy, all strategically important personnel issues on the various levels must also be discussed by the people of the state in public debates and decided by elections. The votes of the citizens must be organized so that manipulation is impossible. The powers of the state apparatus can be truly separated only if all important functionaries of the judiciary, executive, and public media are elected by the respective people of the state at the appropriate levels (comune, county, district, state, etc.) with an imperative mandate.
There is a majority for democracy among the people, but there is no majority for it among party officials. In many countries, the decline of established parties is giving rise to new movements that are increasingly changing the way political conditions are viewed. Democratic movements usually quickly outnumber the hierarchical structures of the party system; what matters is organizing them. Party members are only a small minority of the proportion of the entire population. Any movement organized by associations is inherently non-partisan and also integrates members of a wide variety of parties.
Movements are easier to organize, therefore usually have more supporters and, from a certain stage of development, can provide their members with more social influence than a single party could.
What oligarchs achieve through their money, influence of media, and lobbyists, we can only achieve through our mass, mutual tolerance, and public presence. If we organize ourselves intelligently, we will have more power than the privileged few. Only then can we enforce a community for the good of all people and relegate egoists to an equal place beside us.
Therefore, the current members of the association UMEHR GbR organize public meetings, where all interested parties can agree on a common statute or future cooperation.
The founding meeting shall be broadcasted via video conference to give all interested parties and groups the opportunity to declare themselves as founding members and to confirm this by signature later on.
The core of a statute is always the purpose of an association, therefore the following wording is proposed:
“1. The purpose is the association of people who are committed to anchoring the egalitarian human rights of the UN of 1948 in constitutions and laws through their free decisions as citizens. On the international level, the „Universal Declaration of Human Rights“ was adopted for the first and last time in 1948 by the General Assembly of the United Nations, which has a universal and global claim, but is not formally binding. The members of the association are aware that the text of this declaration is inherently contradictory, controversial, and in need of improvement and are working towards an improved, new version and international legitimacy. Therefore, the members of this association organize themselves regionally, supra-regionally, continentally, and globally and form alliances with other initiatives, organizations, and associations.
2. Its specific work consists also in supporting people locally in the definition and realization of their democratic claims for their human rights.
3. The association offers political education, promotes the direct participation of people in the solution of their human rights problems, and makes them visible to the public. For this purpose, the association develops, promotes, and provides offers and flanks them with pamphlets, newspapers, magazines, books, and events. In this way, the association contributes to broadening the public spectrum of opinion aiming to cultivate the public debate on human rights and broaden the spectrum for opinion formation.
4. The association promotes and participates in public education and discussion events on the subject of human rights and hosts networking meetings and supra-regional structures, up to and including the international level.”
The organizational part of the statute provides for the development of an advisory board composing all legal persons of the association. This advisory board will provide the opportunity for all groups to pursue cultural, charitable, or other purposes in addition to the main purpose of the association. UMEHR wants to provide an organizational framework, legal representation, and a variety of services for as many groups as possible, such as the booking of premises or office service.
Translated by Peter Mueller
[1st edition/23, page 2]
