Human rights is one of the most commonly used terms in national and international politics. In our daily lives, we increasingly come across this term. It is on everyone’s lips, so to speak. From politicians, housewives, businesspeople, minorities, journalists, students and workers to prisoners, everyone demands rights.
But, what are human rights? This question leads into a blind alley, because neither those who demand rights nor those from whom rights are demanded really know what human rights are. And what is worse, as İoanna Kuçuradi says, they think they know it. It is clear that they are something good. People are right in demanding them, nobody can object to them. But it is rare to find someone who can give an answer based on knowledge to the questions “what are human rights?” and “why do human beings have rights?”. Where knowledge is missing, conceptual confusions start and such conceptual disorder can sometimes be more dangerous than social disorder. When those who demand rights and those who are being demanded of, don’t know what in fact they demand, a dialogue of the deaf is going around.
What our programme deals with is this lack of knowledge. Our purpose is to explore, together with you, what human rights are. Instead of circumlocution, we shall try to show the relationship between human rights and all of us – with you, with me, with him, with her, with us. We shall not open a book and read a page, but everything we say will be based on knowledge. It is not our aim to lecture you, but to think together and perhaps to discover a few things.