It’s Human Rights Day tomorrow.
“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere”
Martin Luther King
Well we seem to have injustice everywhere in the world right now, so not sure where to begin.
Not entirely relevant, but I suggest you go and see the film A United Kingdom to get a shock taste of what it is like to have your human rights taken away from you because of the colour of your skin. It’s a very easy film to watch. At the heart, a simple love story that battles against the odds, but what is so shocking is that it is a true story, starting in 1947 that remains just as powerful and relevant today in these divided times.
The lead actors are great in their roles – especially Oyelowo who is passionate and powerful in his role. The story exposes an tiny overlooked chapter of postwar history that you can’t believe can be true. Two people fall in love in London – Rosamund Pike plays Ruth Williams, a clerk working in Lloyds of London in 1947, who meets handsome law student Seretse Khama (Oyelowo) and is blown away by him. What she doesn’t know at the time is that Seretse is an African king in waiting, leader-to-be of the Bamangwato people of Bechuanaland (later Botswana), the British protectorate to which he is due to return on completion of his studies to lead his people.
When he proposes, having duly explained his true identity, Ruth without hesitation accepts his hand in marriage. But of course this kick-starts a whole series of chain reactions they could not predict. “We misjudged this, didn’t we” is the understatement of the year. Not only is Ruth pushed out by her father who finds her disgusting (played by Nicholas Lyndhurst, not sure that was a good choice – he’s a cross between Hitler and an old Rodney Trotter) and from there it only gets worse. I cannot imagine what they must have had to go through – they were incredibly brave to stand up for their love and for what they believed to be right. When the news of this high-profile black-and-white union reaches his uncle and subsequently neighbouring South Africa, who is just about to bring apartheid into law, the nervous British authorities decide to forbid the marriage for fear of angering South Africa who is their supplier of cheap gold and uranium.
It is an “against all odds” sort of film that is perfect for our post-Brexit and post-truth era and it lifts the soul and reminds us that at the heart of every person is a simple human being looking not only for love, but for fairness and for equality.
Human rights in other words.
You will come away feeling uplifted and hopeful that we can overcome injustice. A great reminder of what this actually means, despite there being many other examples of how human rights are being exploited and eroded around the world right now.
