Things Fall Apart Social Security

967 Words2 Pages

Art and literature are mirrors; they take the lives we are living, the world we are living in and everything that happens in it, and reflect them, so that we can see and comprehend our own reality. Artists and authors, therefore, are given the daunting task of depicting their oftentimes unpleasant world. In particular, defense of human rights and examples of their violation are copious in both art and literature, just as they are in reality. Article 22, the right to social security, is in particular abundance, as governments have failed to provide the resources necessary to uphold their citizens’ economic, social, and cultural rights, thus inhibiting their development of personal dignity and personality, and when governments fail, artists …show more content…

The hierarchical tribe in the novel has a hefty focus on social security, but not in the traditional sense. For this community, social security is having a place within the hierarchy and having a role in the society. Achebe is able to relate this standardized view of social security and attribute the same principles to an African tribe, which allows the audience to both further understand the power structure of the tribe and their own government’s failures. By presenting social security in a more abstract environment, Achebe allows the audience to see it from the outside looking in, and thus see the multiple ways in which the government violates it. In Things Fall Apart, social security is more of a threat than a right, and because it is not guaranteed to members of the tribe, each must sacrifice their personality in order to obtain the security they so desperately desire from their …show more content…

Czech photographer Josef Koudelka uses his powerful images, which often prominently feature Romani people, to make political statements. What Koudelka does is, however, remarkably different. His works prominently feature disenfranchised peoples, those who the government has made no strides to provide social security for, and highlights their personality. While the photographs, such as his “Invasion – Prague 1968” collection depict citizens in anything but secure positions, he almost takes a stance against the last line of Article 22. By claiming that social security is essential to the full development of human personality, the Declaration inadvertently decrees those without security to be without identity. Koudelka shows us these people, taking up arms against the Soviet Union which has left them with nothing, not as empty vessels but as emboldened human beings. He embraces both the power and fragility of the human spirit without assuming either. Koudelka’s work takes the Article to a new level; allowing his photographs to criticize the government without degrading his

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