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Kofi Annan has died
- jmartinpetersen 8y ago"Human rights are what make us human. They are the principles by which we create the sacred home for human dignity." (Kofi Annan)
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- laretluval 8y agoSo for the vast majority of history we weren’t human?
- leothekim 8y agoEver hear of the phrase "Man's inhumanity to man?" Yeah that's been a thing since, well, humans have been around.
- k__ 8y agoI wouldn't consider this a static property. Back in the days it was humane to make many children because most of them would die. Today it may be more humane to make only a few but to invest more time into each.
- WalterSear 8y agoThat's doesn't make it more humane.
- didgeoridoo 8y agoGovernment protects your rights, it doesn’t create them or give them to you.
- EliRivers 8y agoI guess that depends on how you like to define humanity, doesn't it? If it's simply being a general sort of shape, or having a particular set of DNA, then perhaps being human is a simple yes/no. This creature isn't human, that creature is. If you like to define humanity as an ideal, or a process, or a goal, or some other such, then it becomes much more of a spectrum. All that said, anyone who does think in terms of binary when it comes to humanity needs keeping an eye on.
- krapp 8y ago> So for the vast majority of history we weren’t human? For any definition of "human" that is objective and universal, yes. If you swore fealty to the wrong lord, worshiped the wrong god, were born into the wrong clan, ethnic group or state, you were considered something less than human. And of course, nobles claimed descent from divinity, making them more than human. The concept of a common humanity with inalienable rights is relatively modern and in many places still controversial.
- eric24234 8y agoThis is very true in Indian caste system. In fact in indian caste ladder system, one become lesser human as one takes birth in the lesser caste hierarchy. Except the Brahmin community in the indian caste system others castes are denied education as per the vedas. During the british rule everone got access to education and every one is trying to be a equal human fighting the caste system.
- hkai 8y agoHe is the first top-level official that I heard advocating for drug reform. Well remembered.
- anoncoward111 8y agoHe saved Kenya from an election that everyone agreed was rigged and manipulated by all sides. That is really tough to do!!
- mike_kamau 8y agoAnnan facilitated the formation of the grand coalition government. A lot of the election reforms came out of that. May he rest in peace.
- Angostura 8y agoA good man. RIP
- idoubtit 8y agoThe death of a man does not make him a saint. Having good words for his family and friends is alright, but I see praises everywhere for Kofi Annan, and my perception is quite different. He was a charismatic diplomat, but an extremely ineffective and spineless leader, whose errors damaged the credibility of the UN and had a responsibility in millions of civilian deaths. The UN peacekeepers did nothing to stop or even slow the genocide in Rwanda (about 800,000 killed in a few months), and that was mainly Annan's responsibility. The same passivity was seen in Bosnia and Somalia under his control. When he was UN's First Secretary, he did say the US invasion of Irak was illegal, but spoke very softly against it, embraced a few lies of the Bush administration, then quickly sided with the occupying forces. Kofi Annan was also involved a scandal about the Swiss firm that employed his son and won contracts with the UN: the UN internal investigation judged there was no proof he intervened, but that his personal actions were inadequate when the accusations emerged. It was recently discovered that his son used offshore companies in Panama to hide his money. I believe that, among the Peace Nobel-prize winners, he will be remembered to the sides of Kissinger, Obama or Suu Kyii, though it was more for his passivity that he failed to contribute to peace and human rights.
- thefounder 8y agoYou don't know how U.N millitary forces work. They get "final" orders from their origin country not from the UN president. The country leaders didn't want to risk the lifes of their mil people so they backed off. UN is more a "voluntary" club with very little power(see the Iraq war) As far as the saints are concerned I don't think people want or vote for saints...just look at our leaders! Ha ha! Saint Trump, Saint Putin, Saint Orban, Saint Duterte...
- crunchlibrarian 8y agoObama won the Nobel Peace Prize at the same moment he was editing his kill list. We live in strange times where the team you're on is more important than truth or reality.
- packhughes 8y agoThe phrase “being on the right side of history” comes to mind.
- the-dude 8y agometa: interesting to see here on HN after the announcement of Aretha Franklin's death was removed from the FP this week.
- booleandilemma 8y agoI think it’s to do with him being a political figure vs a pop culture figure, but I could be mistaken. I sometimes see political news on HN, I don’t think I’ve ever seen pop culture news.
- krapp 8y agoIt just hasn't been flagged hard enough yet, but give it time.
- WalterSear 8y agoI see political news flagged faster and harder. Was David Bowie's death flagged? IMHO, despite all the work done here on censorship and topic management, I've experienced a greater level of meanspiritedness and unkind comments here than on any other comment forum I've frequented. Perhaps that's >why< there is such a presence and the need to shut down check potentially conttroversial topics. It begs the question of what is different on this forum.
- the-dude 8y agoIf you look at the comments for the Aretha thread as well as this thread, it seems not to provoke any interesting discussion. I am happy to keep such main stream news off the FP.
- WalterSear 8y agoHow does that relate to what I said?
- the-dude 8y ago
- baxter001 8y agoThe first thing I thought of when I heard about this was how surprised I was that he was still alive, given his very unhealthy daily breakfast of a coffee and a naan. What would you like for breakfast Kofi Annan? Yes please!
- vithlani 8y agoI'm sure tens of thousands of Rwandan's are truly sad. https://www.lrb.co.uk/v29/n09/perry-anderson/our-man https://www.lrb.co.uk/v29/n09/perry-anderson/our-man 'Man of peace'....indeed...