Osho speaks on human rights; part 4 of 4.
Part 1: Human rights are just hypocrisies
Part 2: Nowhere in the world are any of the basic rights being applied
Part 3: There can be no conscience without consciousness
Article two: Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this declaration without distinction of any kind, such as race, color, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status.
All these are bullshit. The first question I was asked as I entered America was that I had to declare under oath that I am not an anarchist. If I am an anarchist, I cannot enter America. Anarchism is a political ideology. I cannot conceive that these people go on declaring these things. Who is going to ask them: “When are you going to practice them?”
Everywhere there is discrimination – in different ways in different countries, but discrimination is there. Mankind needs a great uproar against these so-called humanitarians. They think they are doing a great service. For example, in India, for the same amount of work the woman will be paid less. And in this declaration it is said that for the same amount of labor, the same rewards should be paid – whether it is man or woman, white or black does not matter. But it is not true.
In America, I was in six jails, and in all the jails there was not a single white man. In six federal jails – which were huge, six hundred people, seven hundred people in one jail… but all black people. And you say discrimination is not there. It seems strange – in a white country all the criminals are black. And that was not all. I inquired of a few black inmates – because they all loved me; they had been watching me on television every day for five years, and they had become involved in controversies themselves. They were reading my books, and they were happy that I had come at least for one day to their jail – they would remember this day for their whole lives. I asked them, “What is your crime?” They said, “All these people you see have not committed any crime. They have been arrested the way you have been arrested – without any arrest warrant. And we have been told again and again: ‘You will be taken to the court next week, tomorrow,’ but that tomorrow never comes.” One man told me that he had been there for nine months without being taken to court. Now this declaration says nobody should be arrested without an arrest warrant, nobody should be kept in jail unless he is proved a criminal. Innocence needs no proof; you have to prove a person criminal, only then can you keep him in jail. Otherwise you cannot keep him in jail. But people have been there for nine months, eight months, six months in jail – and all young people.
So I started figuring out the reason: it is not that they have done anything wrong. The reason is that they are young and revolutionaries. They want rights for the blacks, equal rights for blacks. That is their crime. But they cannot be taken to court because the court will release them, so they go on keeping them in jail. But this is absolutely criminal on the part of the government of the U.S. I have seen only six jails and nearabout three or four thousand young black people. Perhaps thousands of people are in other jails. They told me, “Because there is too much pressure from all over the world, that’s why they are taking you to court. Otherwise, if the world had remained silent, if the news media had not spread all over the world that the whole government is doing everything criminal against an innocent person…. The pressure is too much and the eyes of the whole news media are focused on you. They are, under compulsion, reluctantly, taking you to court.”
Still, they took twelve days. That too is against human rights. From the place where I was arrested, the court where I had to be present was only five hours’ flight. My own jet was there. We offered them our jet; we said, “You can have your pilots; you can have your people, and you can take me to the court. What is the need to keep me here in your jail?” They would only take me in their own airplane. The whole strategy was: “Today the airplane has not come… something is wrong with the airplane” – they had only one airplane, it seems. “The pilot is sick…” They took twelve days to make a five hours’ journey. But looking at other inmates I thought, “It is very quick, only twelve days….”
Every government goes on doing everything illegal and everything against human rights. And these people are the representatives of governments and without any shame they can make this declaration – perhaps without even feeling what they are doing. They are lying utterly – white lies!
Article three: Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person.
But death is not included – and it is important. Because birth is not in your hands – you are born without your consent – now only death is there. And you have the choice: either to die without your consent or to die with a dignity of a human being, with your own consent – not to give death a chance, but to move, yourself, when you have lived. But they are worried about putting death into it because then all the religions and all the political parties will be creating havoc for them. Everything has to be consolatory: ‘life’ – but what kind of life?
Just in the last year, six months ago, in Europe the common market had accumulated mountains of butter and other foodstuffs. People were dying in Ethiopia – one thousand people per day – and they had a surplus but they would not give it to Ethiopia. That surplus had to be drowned in the ocean. Just in drowning it, two billion dollars were wasted – that was not the value of the food, it was just the labor of shifting and drowning it in the ocean. And they are doing it every six months, because every six months the surplus is there and you need more warehouses. And what will you do with it? – fresh crops are coming. But you will not give it to Ethiopa.
In India, fifty percent of the people are living below the medical standard of nourishment and twenty-five percent of the people are almost starving. Fifty percent of people in the villages are eating only one time a day – and when I say eating, don’t think of the Taj Mahal Hotel. It means just bread, salt, a little sauce from mangos or from other fruits – that’s all. This is not food. Unless the world is one, we will not be able to give everybody enough nourishment. And what does it mean to say that you have the right to life? Because people are there; and people are dying, people have died. America is doing the same, Stalin’s Russia was doing the same. It is not something happening only in Europe. Every three months America drowns its surplus – and that is worth billions of dollars. In the days of Stalin, Russia was using wheat instead of coal in their railway trains because wheat is cheaper, it is surplus and coal is difficult and costly to obtain in Russia. People are dying – that is not important. People are starving – that is not important.
Article nine: No one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention or exile.
I have been subjected, so I am a witness to it, that this declaration is not being used by any government – and particularly by America, which was the sponsor for this declaration. I have been in detention in England – not even for an arbitrary reason. I wanted just to stay for six hours at the airport in the first-class lounge because my pilots had flown their time and they wanted to rest. It is against their laws to fly more than twelve hours, so we had to stop. My pilots said, “They may create trouble; they may say that the first-class lounge is for first-class passengers and you are not a passenger; you have your own plane. Now what class is it, how can they decide?” So I said my people to purchase two tickets, two first-class tickets for the morning flight: “We will go with our plane, but purchase two tickets in case they bring up this point” – and they brought up that point. Then we brought up the tickets! The officer was shocked. He had not thought that we would have tickets too. I said, “Now what do you think?” He said, “I cannot do anything. I will have to ask the higher authorities.” And who was the higher authority? It seems it was the prime minister herself. When the man was gone I looked into his file; he had left it on the table. The government had given him orders. I have never asked for any entry visa into England. They should not have bothered. But they decided in Parliament that I should not be allowed in the country – in case I should ask to enter.
When the man came back I told him, “I do not want to enter England, even if the whole of England wants me to enter England, I am the last person to do it. I have no business in England, I just want to sleep in the lounge. And from the lounge you cannot enter the country. It is closed; you will remain only at the airport. And the airport is international. It is not England.” But he said, “What can I do? The insistence is from the top: ‘If he insists then put him in detention. That’s the only way. He can remain in jail for six hours.’ ” I had to remain in jail for six hours – not even for an arbitrary reason. I had not committed any crime, I had the tickets, I had the plane, I just wanted to rest. But the politicians – because I have been exposing them continuously – now have become so frightened that even my sleeping six hours in the lounge at the airport is dangerous for the religion of England, its morality, its character. I can corrupt the youth just by staying in the lounge! These people are not lovers of human beings. Nor do they have any respect for human dignity.
Article eighteen: Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance.
“Freedom of thought and expression” – I have never done anything except to express my thoughts. If that is a human right, then no government has anything against me. I am not active in any politics; I am not interested in any power. I am simply saying whatsoever I see more clearly than all these blind politicians. What is the fear?
Just now the pope has called a World Conference of Religions. All the chief priests and leaders of other religions have been called. My sannyasins from Italy have been writing to me: “We are insisting to the pope – and his secretary is very much interested in you and is willing to extend an invitation, but the pope is against it.” In fact for eight months the Italian government has been thinking about whether to give me a three weeks’ tourist visa or not. And the pope has been the cause of the whole delay. And these people go on saying, “We love freedom of thought, freedom of expression.” Nobody loves freedom of thought. It has to support him, then it is loved. “Freedom of expression….” The pope has put my books on the black list so that no Catholic should read them. They have a black list. In the Middle Ages, whenever a book appeared on the black list it was burned all over Europe. Now they cannot do that, but this much they can do: no Catholic should read it. And Catholics are not a small minority – seven hundred million people, a world in itself. Now, preventing them simply means you have accepted defeat; it simply means you don’t have any answers to me. But then why all this nonsense about a declaration of human rights?
Article nineteen: Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.
This is not right. The Indian parliament has urged Indian journalists and news media people not to give any space to my ideas. The American government has been pressuring the Indian government so that no news media people from the West should be allowed to take my interview. The American government has been doing two things: telling all the governments of Europe, and Australia, that I should not be allowed to reside in their countries, that I should be sent back from everywhere to India. So all the countries of Europe have passed resolutions in their parliaments that I cannot be allowed in their country even as a tourist for three weeks. The American idea is that I should not be allowed to enter any other country and nobody who wants to see me or meet me should be allowed to come to India. In this way they feel they can destroy the sannyas movement. This goes on in reality. And in words, beautiful and great slogans… but empty.
Article twenty-two: Everyone has the right to the free development of his personality.
I don’t see that you are allowed to have freedom to develop your personality. In the first place, the people who wrote this don’t know that personality is the false part of you, and it has not to be developed at all. Your reality is your individuality, which has to be discovered. But they don’t talk about individuality. They may not have ever thought of it. Because they are only personalities, they don’t yet have their individuality awake, alert. Naturally, they are writing the word ‘personality.’ ‘Personality’ is an ugly word. It means a mask; the very root of the word is ‘mask.’ And we don’t want people to have masks. People should be natural, spontaneous, themselves.
Article twenty-five: All children, whether born in or out of wedlock, shall enjoy the same social protection.
Now, if this is true, it cancels marriage! If a child born from a marriage and a child born outside of marriage have the same rights, then marriage loses all meaning. What is the meaning of marriage? But they don’t have the courage to say that. And this too is not true, because nowhere are children born outside marriage respected. They are condemned in every possible way.
I gave this much time to this rubbish because these are the people who are controlling the whole world, and these are the people whose heads should be hammered as much as possible. They have kept humanity in slavery – this should not be allowed anymore. They don’t have any right of declaration. We have the right to declare. We are the people. As far as my people are concerned, we declare that we will live freedom, love, humanity. We will grow into our individuality and we will help anybody who is inviting and welcoming us. The only basic right is to become god. And unless you have found god within yourself, everything else is mundane. Finding godliness within you, everything else is found simultaneously.
Osho, Sermons in Stones, Ch 26 (part 4 of 4)
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