Untitled - Convivencia

and mathematical amount of deaths. Onlyone life is worth the same as the wholehuman life is worth. To play down theimportance of the death of only one personor disregarding it can open the door to thejustification of what is worse: to kill or let diethousands or millions of persons for anyreason of State or politics or religion, oreconomics. All genocides start with oneperson and if there is not a strong rejection,the moral relativism of the quantity willjustify the exponential growth of death. It’sworse to condemn the magnification of thedeath of one person than letting him die.To neglect the death of one person ordisqualifying his acts in order to minimizethe importance of his death is more seriouswhen the event is in front of our faces andour consciences and we have time andinformation that allow us to discern. Everyneglecting of the death of one person isethically unacceptable and there isjustification to condemn it. Wheneversomeone becomes an accomplice to death ofa defender of life, above every political orsocial argument he is clearly defining hisown moral height.If it is the case of one person who values andsupports violence and death, it’s veryregrettable and worrying, but if it is the caseof one religious group, an organized mafiaor even a modern State, it is even moreserious and then the duty of denouncing, offinding solutions and creating states ofopinion which lead to disallowing suchexcesses should be a responsibility of all ofus, shared by every honest citizen, by everysocial group, by every institution whichrespects itself. This responsibility alsoincludes the entire international communitywhich should make a commitment.So states the Pope Benedict XVI before theGeneral Assembly of the United Nations:“The acknowledgement of the unity of thehuman family and the attention to the innatedignity of every man and woman acquirestoday a new emphasis due to the principle ofthe responsibility to protect. This principlehas been defined recently but it was alreadypresent in an implicit way, when the UnitedNations were founded and now it has turnedmore and more into a characteristic of theactivities of the Organization. Every State hasthe primary duty of protecting its populationfrom the serious and continuous violations ofthe human rights, as well as from theconsequences of the humanitarian crisisprovoked either by nature or by men”. (BenedictXVI in the General Assembly of the UnitedNations, New York, Friday 18 th April 2008. Thistext was entirely published in “Convivencia”magazine Nº 3, May-June 2008,www.convivenciacuba.es).We should say clearly and precisely that everynation should respect the sovereignty, theindependence and the self determination of thepeoples. This is a fundamental principle of theinternational relations and the dignity andrespect that all peoples deserve as well as everygroup or group of nations. The empires,colonialism and neo colonialism are equallyreprehensible by the universal conscience.Nobody wants any nation to intervene in theinternal affairs of another nation. But no matterhow important this principle is, it’s not moreimportant than the human life. If we accept thatthe primary, supreme and main value is thelives of persons, then we can understand thefact that a religious leader, that is, the Pope, orthe most representative internationalorganization have clarified that the ones whodo not respect the human life, even if it is oneonly person, are the first ones who lead to andprovoke the reaction of the internationalcommunity:“If the State is not capable of guaranteeing thisprotection, the international community has tointervene by means of the legal resortsestablished by the United Nations Chart and byother international instruments. The action ofthe international community and its institutions,taking for granted the respect for the principlesthat lie in the base of the international order,never has to be interpreted as an unjustifiedimposition and a limitation to the sovereignty.On the contrary, the indifference or the lack ofintervention is what causes a real harm. What isneeded is a deeper search for the means toprevent and control the conflicts, by exploringany possible diplomatic via and by payingattention and also stimulating the slightestsigns of dialogue or desire for reconciliation”.(Benedict XVI in the General Assembly of theUnited Nations, New York, Friday 18 th April2008).Ediciones ConvivenciaPinar del Río. 201261