Die Insel

ONE is a youngster compared to such veteran publications as "Die Insel" which has flourished several years on the Continent. The following translation of an article in the July issue 1952 reveals clearly how similar are its purposes to ONE's and how international are all of our aims. The style is heavy compared to some of our frivolous standards, but you'll remember what it said long after you've forgotten today's "easu" reading.

For an upright man of good will it cannot be an entirely pleasurable experience to reflect upon his responsibility for concern with the welfare of others as well as his own. The welfare of citizens, however, is guaranteed through the recognition of personal, inalienable freedom and justice for everyone. In a democratic state these facts ought to be self-evident. But the social lag, lacking insight into the reality of the human species, which has seized our jurisprudence and the indolent adherence to archaic thought-patterns leads even a democratic society toward the danger of stagnation and therewith the denial of its own rights.

A static democracy which cannot tolerate independent thought or the individual pursuit of happiness on the part of its citizens its really a non-entity. A democratic society has no alternative but to sanction continual criticism from those who pledge allegiance to it.

When the World Federation for the Rights of Man was brought into being in Bremen at the end of 1951, it was the conviction of its founders that citizens there were in need of the protection and legal defense such as a strong alliance could provide whether the Government was more or less disposed to acknowledge the fact or not. The World Federation for the Rights of Man saw as its obvious duty first to take up its fight where the need appeared most urgent.

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