2020 - 1948 = 72

1. O indivíduo tem deveres para com a comunidade, fora da qual não é possível o livre e pleno desenvolvimento da sua personalidade.
2. No exercício destes direitos e no gozo destas liberdades ninguém está sujeito senão às limitações estabelecidas pela lei com vista exclusivamente a promover o reconhecimento e o respeito dos direitos e liberdades dos outros e a fim de satisfazer as justas exigências da moral, da ordem pública e do bem-estar numa sociedade democrática.
3. Em caso algum estes direitos e liberdades poderão ser exercidos contrariamente aos fins e aos princípios das Nações Unidas.

Artigo 29.° da Declaração Universal dos Direitos Humanos 

As an incorrigible insomniac I confess that hardly ever in my own recent history of enjoying music in all its splendour, did I ever feel as moved as every time I listened to Max Richter's masterpiece SLEEP, either awake as asleep, falling into it or in all possible stages in-between. He has just managed to surprise me once again with his record VOICES: a piece of beauty as much conceptually charged of thinking layers as simply able to inspire contemplation and action. And that is exactly what I  believe to be the suitest role for art. In the mist of the undoubted global isolation we are sensing, he calls his ensemble - made mainly out of basses and cellos together with hundreds of voices in multiple languages - a negative orchestra, performing a truthful act of community. The composer and his partner Yulia Mahr, the filmmaker behind the project, emphasize just that while promoting the record along with the celebration of Human Rights Day by quoting Nina Simone saying that "an artist's duty is to reflect the times in which we live". And so they do. Probably never before in this century as right now, were the communities in which we are born to, grow up, live and work in, so essential in general perception. 

The voices in VOICES feature all the 30 articles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, resonating  that another time in the history of mankind in which hope was also this urgent and the only possibility to think the future was together. A time so close to that of pure fear everywhere, that only its memory alone could have enable such a common vision of justice and peace in prosperity. It was called universal and we hoped for the best happily ever after. Which is no longer good enough, since a very long time ago in this planet. And we should all know that, if we still don't. These voices redimension our current needs - or duties, rights and freedoms - in accordance to that of our community. We are really not alone and we are one. Or could we?

We are celebrating 72 years of that collective dream of sanity to our world today. And we are not there yet. We have been moving further away on many levels actually. Regarding what kind of spirit is needed to feed healthy communities, for instance. For our own long-lasting wellbeing, we do need to gather the courage to leave our islands of privilege, cocoons of habit, museums of tradition,  whatever we prefer to call it, and face the community around us, each and all of their living members - also other humans. 




1. Jeder hat Pflichten gegenüber der Gemeinschaft, in der allein die freie und volle Entwicklung seiner Persönlichkeit möglich ist.
2. Jeder ist bei der Ausübung seiner Rechte und Freiheiten nur den Beschränkungen unterworfen, die das Gesetz ausschließlich zu dem Zweck vorsieht, die Anerkennung und Achtung der Rechte und Freiheiten anderer zu sichern und den gerechten Anforderungen der Moral, der öffentlichen Ordnung und des allgemeinen Wohles in einer demokratischen Gesellschaft zu genügen. 
3. Diese Rechte und Freiheiten dürfen in keinem Fall im Widerspruch zu den Zielen und Grundsätzen der Vereinten Nationen ausgeübt werden.

Artikel 29 der Allgemeinen Erklärung der Menschenrechte



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