Chapter 319: None Against

On the twenty-sixth of June, 1945, in San Francisco, The charter was signed. Fifty governments signed it that day. Poland was not in the room. It signed in October, and it is counted among those who founded the organization. The charter tells the organization to promote respect for human rights, And for fundamental freedoms, Without distinction of race, sex, language, or religion. It does not write the rights out. A purpose is not a list. On the twenty-fourth of October the charter came into force. The five permanent members had ratified, And enough of the others. The date is the organization's own day. The articles of a right were still not in it. The commission that was to draft them met after that. Eleanor Roosevelt was its chair. John Humphrey, of the secretariat, brought the first full draft. René Cassin set an order on that draft. The text is not one hand. Peng Chun Chang asked that the first article hold conscience As well as reason. He brought the Chinese word ren to the argument, The regard of one person for another. The English that stayed beside reason is conscience. Hansa Mehta required the article to say human beings. A draft had said men. The article does not say men. On the tenth of December, 1948, at the Palais de Chaillot in Paris, Before midnight, the General Assembly adopted the declaration. The resolution is 217. The declaration is its first part. Thirty articles. The first says that human beings are born free And equal in dignity and in rights. It says they are endowed with reason and with conscience, And that they should act toward one another in a spirit of brotherhood. One article says a person may change belief. The preamble says that contempt for these rights Has resulted in barbarous acts Which have outraged the conscience of mankind. It does not name the camps. It does not name the cities. The list of the dead is not this text. Fifty-eight states were members. Forty-eight voted for the declaration. None voted against it. Eight abstained. The Soviet Union abstained, And Ukraine, and Belarus, and Poland, And Czechoslovakia, and Yugoslavia. Saudi Arabia abstained. It had spoken against the article that lets a person change belief. South Africa abstained. Honduras was not in the vote. Yemen was not in the vote. Do not call the night unanimous. A vote with eight abstentions and two absent Is not a vote of every member. Andrei Vyshinsky spoke before the count. He said a right had its meaning inside a state. He asked the assembly to wait until the next year. The motion to wait was lost, forty-five to six. The assembly did not wait. The declaration is not a treaty. A state was not bound by signing it, because no one signed it. The assembly adopted it. The text that would bind a state which accepted the obligation Was left to be written afterward. Do not move that later text back into this night. Do not make the preamble a register of the dead. Do not make the charter's clause into the thirty articles. The charter named a respect. The declaration named articles. They are two documents, and two years. Hold the June signing, fifty hands, Poland not yet among them. Hold the October day, when the charter had force and still no list. Hold the tenth of December, before midnight. Forty-eight for. None against. Eight withholding. The word in the first article is human beings. The word Chang asked for is in the sentence. A declaration can put a person on a page with every other person. It does not, by being adopted, keep the person alive. It does not close a shrine. It does not choose a city. The striving is to say the right where a state can hear it, And not to pretend the hearing was a statute, And not to pretend the silence of eight was a yes. Count the charter on the twenty-sixth of June. Count its force on the twenty-fourth of October. Count the declaration before midnight on the tenth of December. The articles are not the dead. The dead are not thereby left off the work of naming.