Cruel or compassionate world?

This chapter highlights the need to recover respect for human rights, for humanitarian law, and for the ideals written into the UN Charter. Those who craft policies could support areas of public life which either have not appeared on their radar or have not been perceived as having anything to do with cruelty. To that end, priority tasks in education for humanity concern issues which have been given insufficient emphasis. These issues include the erosion of human rights principles; reminders about the ways in which free market economic policies enable corporations to contribute to poverty and to cruelty to children; evidence of the increase in cruelty to animals; and the cruelties associated with the possession and threatened use of nuclear weapons. The chapter underlines the responsibilities of teachers, in schools, in colleges, and universities, plus journalists of every description, to educate about rebuilding civil societies through advocacy of human rights, including protection of a precious planet, and by supporting public institutions and services.