Culture and development - Essay Example

Culture and Development Culture and Development Personally, I think the universal declaration of human rights is oneof the most important directives that guard against unfairness. For instance, it guarantees freedom irrespective of an individual’s color, language, religion, and race. The declaration also guards individuals from exploitation by the law by maintaining that an individual should be deemed innocent until proven guilty.1 However, article five, which prohibits individuals from being subjected through any form of punishment, is controversial to me since it does not consider the event of individuals performing criminal behaviors.
The convention for the protection and promotion of cultural expression diversity established one of the best foundations that acknowledge the importance of cultural expressions. It sought to promote cultural expressions diversity and provide distinctive nature of cultural activities.2 I find this essential in promoting principles of equitable access, sustainable development, and balance. I also think that the convention established the grounds for harmonious coexistence of all people regardless of color or race since it respects the existence of differences in cultural activities.
The article on Millennium Development Goals, MDG, is correct, with regard to my assessment, on most of the arguments put forward. For instance, mental health has been ignored when setting up health related goals.3 According to my view, the claim that mental health controls the overall person’s performance is correct since the brain controls a person’s activities. For the millennium goals to be achieved, mental health must be in the agenda although it is challenging due to the ambitiousness of the MDGs. On a personal view, the MDG might take very long to accomplish or fail entirely due to the failure of similar previous attempts.
The UN declaration of indigenous people’s rights, in my viewpoint, is out of order in some clauses. This implies that some of its clauses are too assumptive. For instance, the idea that respecting the culture and knowledge of indigenous people leads to sustainable development is a weak assumption.4 This is because when individuals mix, they pass information and ideas that are used in innovating and developing the society. Although, the indigenous ideas could be effective in this quest, new ideas are better. Additionally, the declaration over-emphasizes on the rights of indigenous people implying that the non-indigenous people may not be respected. However, other areas are correct such as the idea that all indigenous people have a right to nationality.
Bibliography
Mirands, J. Jaime and Patel, Vikram. “Achieving the Millennium Development Goals: Does Mental Health Play a Role?” PLoS Medicine 2 no. 10 (2005): 962-965.
UNESCO. 2005. Convention on the protection and promotion of the diversity of cultural expressions. Paris: UNESCO.
United Nations. 2008. United Nations Declaration on the rights of indigenous Peoples. New York: United Nations.
United Nations. “The Universal Declaration of Human Rights.” Last modified June 30, 2012. http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/ Read More