Happiness Day and combating racism

By Vanessa Cort
OF all the International Days celebrated each year, the one that should put a smile on your face is among the least known – International Day of Happiness – celebrated last Wednesday.

The question may well be asked, ‘Do people need to be reminded that they should be happy?’ According to a quote I read recently, we do, because happiness is a choice.

Writer and motivational speaker, Ralph Marston says, “Happiness is a choice, not a result. Nothing will make you happy until you choose to be happy. No person will make you happy unless you decide to be happy. Your happiness will not come to you. It can only come from you.”

Many more quotes abound, all advising us about happiness. Buddha tells us, “There is no path to happiness, happiness is the path”, and Greek philosopher Aristotle says simply, “Happiness depends on ourselves.”

And the United Nations declares that this day, celebrated since 2013, is “a way to recognize the importance of happiness in the lives of people around the world.”

The UN General Assembly, asserting that happiness is a fundamental goal, called for “a more inclusive equitable and balanced approach to economic growth that promoted the happiness and well-being of all peoples.”

The World Happiness Report, released in March last year declared, “a bright light in dark times,” pointing to the fact that while the COVID-19 pandemic brought pain and suffering, it also heralded an increase in social support and benevolence.

This year represents the 10th anniversary of the World Happiness Report and has a three-pronged approach as the world enters its third year of the pandemic. The report looks back at the start of COVID-19, takes a closer look at how countries are doing now and looks ahead to how societies are likely to evolve in the future.

Bhutan, a small, landlocked southern Asian country, which initiated the UN resolution leading to Happiness Day, is said to be “an inspiring example for the world about how to combine health and happiness.”

This country has recognised the value of national happiness over national income since the early 1970s, when it adopted the goal of Gross National Happiness over Gross National Product.

And on a particularly serious note, the world tomorrow celebrates International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination.

On this the 75th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), this year’s theme focuses on the urgency of combating racism and racial discrimination.

Given the escalating racial tensions worldwide brought on by the refugee crises, the extra-judicial killings of black people by the police in the US along with the increase in racially motivated attacks on people of colour and racial intolerance on our own ‘doorstep’, this day is of grave importance.

The UN General Assembly proclaimed the day in 1966 following the massacre in Sharpeville, South Africa six years earlier, on March 21, when police gunned down 69 people involved in a peaceful protest against the country’s apartheid “pass laws.”

This year the #FightRacism campaign, launched by the UN Human Rights Office, aims “to foster a global culture of tolerance, equality and anti-discrimination” and will highlight global figures fighting discrimination in sports.

March 21 also provides an opportunity for attention to be given to the International Decade for the People of African Descent, who, according to the UN, “constitute some of the world’s poorest and most marginalized groups.”

The Decade was launched in 2015 by the UN General Assembly and in its mid-point review, while stating the strides which have been made by several countries, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet, noted there was still much to be done.

“I regret that no State has yet adopted comprehensive measures that sufficiently acknowledge, address or mitigate the crimes of the past and their living legacy in discrimination, exploitation and suffering,” the High Commissioner said.

She went on to point out that, “People of African descent continue to suffer greater poverty. They endure unacceptable violence, including at the hands of the police. They rely on often inadequate basic infrastructure services; disproportionately lack adequate access to quality education, health and social protection services and are less likely than others to find decent work.”

More recently, her office reported that the situation still persists and the United Nations Educational, Social and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) made the chilling observation that though the world is becoming more and more interconnected this does not mean that people are really living together.

The Organisation advises, “In our turbulent international globalized landscape a central message must be heralded: peace is more than just the absence of war, it is living together with our differences – of sex, race, language religion or culture – while furthering universal respect for justice and human rights on which coexistence depends.”

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