SIM Peter Baehr lecture: Human rights: A responsibility for each and everyone of us
| Author | Mpanzu Bamenga |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/09240519221136943 |
| Published date | 01 December 2022 |
| Date | 01 December 2022 |
| Subject Matter | Lecture |
SIM Peter Baehr lecture:
Human rights: A responsibility
for each and everyone of us
Mpanzu Bamenga
*
Coordinator and Co-founder of IncLeaders
What am I striving for? If I strive for anything, then it is impact in society.
This lecture is in honour of Peter Baehr, who was such a giant in human rights. And I have
always believed: “because of them we are.”We stand on the shoulders of all these people, and I
believe we have the responsibility to try to move everything a little bit further. The Universal
Declaration of Human Rights has existed more than 70 years today. And its implications have
not really been explored fully. It is up to us to explore it more and more. Because it is us, and
our whole world, who will benefit from it. I am very happy and honoured to be here to speak
about human rights. I am very honoured as well to see some of you in the audience, like
Edward Nazarsky, who is one of my examples –he probably doesn’t know it –within human
rights and the implementation thereof.
Today, I will talk about responsibility. I believe we all share a responsibility in human rights. I
will share with you where my sense of responsibility came from, my journey to act on human rights,
and how I did it: in politics, activism, and as a lawyer. Then, I will tell you more about how human
rights nowadays are under pressure. I will share with you one example of my life. After that, I will
answer your questions and we can share some ideas.
My name is Mpanzu Bamenga. This name was given to me by my mother and father. The name
Bamenga was from my father’s side and Mpanzu from my mother’s side, which means fighter for
the people. I was born in Zaire. When I came to Europe, I came with my brother, sister, and mother.
My sister stayed in France and was adopted there, and me, my brother, and mother travelled to the
Netherlands. When we came here, we arrived in an asylum seeker reception centre. We learned a lot
of things there, and after that we got a house. What I remember from that time is that we were living
in poverty. We didn’t have any papers. Being undocumented meant that you couldn’t work. It also
meant that you could study only until 18 years old. It also meant that I could not go beyond the
* Mpanzu Bamenga was the Human Rights Person of the Yearof the Netherlands 2021, is the coordinator and co-founder
of IncLeaders, the Inclusion Leaders Network, as well as the coordinator of the Supervisory Group for Undocumented
Migrants in Amsterdam. The SIM Peter Baehr lecture was delivered at Utrecht University on 7 October 2022.
Corresponding author:
Mpanzu Bamenga, Coordinator and Co-founder of IncLeaders.
Email: mpanzub@hotmail.com
Lecture
Netherlands Quarterly of Human Rights
2022, Vol. 40(4) 422–427
© The Author(s) 2022
Article reuse guidelines:
sagepub.com/journals-permissions
DOI: 10.1177/09240519221136943
journals.sagepub.com/home/nqh
To continue reading
Request your trial