Freedom of speech and human rights. They are one in the same. If you look closely, you are able to see how they integrate into each other and in our lives. We live in a world where we are slowly being silenced by older generations and superiors by making us believe that speaking up about important issues, is social and professional suicide.
This, of course, is completely untrue because unlike what many believe, freedom of speech is a basic human right and therefore it should be exercised into everyday life. The term ‘Human Rights’ can be thrown around quite casually and people have to be reminded what it truly is. Human rights refer to any right that could possibly exist on the face of the earth and these rights should be available to any human being despite of religion, race, beliefs, ethnicity, sex, nationality and language.
Ideally, discrimination should never come in where these rights are enacted but this is where it gets interesting.
In a world which is filled by people who decide to take it upon themselves to decide what is human and what is not, we have a list of people who went down in history as being the ones who challenged authority and opened up our eyes to a better, more understanding world such as Harriet Tubman, Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King, Malala Yousafzai and Helen Keller.
The question is, how can we keep working on their legacies?
It is through organisations with a concept, such as SPEAK, that we can educate ourselves on how we can break through the barriers that were cemented on us. SPEAK organise seminars and lectures to get people speaking about the nitty gritty of what is happening. It is important for people to get together and discuss issues that rule our society to get a better understanding on why we should not be silenced as human beings but rather say what is on our minds because after all, it is a basic human right.
