Religion, human rights and the role of culture

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights is widely taken as the only universal framework of human rights today. With the diversity that existed at its drafting, it aimed to speak to the world to the tune of a vague and abstract universalism. When aspirations turn into practice, this universalism appears to be in conflict with the particularism inherent in religion. The solution does not lie in excluding religion in the discussion of common good. For religion is part of human rights history. The challenge lies, instead, in making religion part of the civil society and nurturing a culture of intellectual solidarity.