UN International Day of Older Persons Ageing with Dignity

UN International Day of Older Persons Ageing with Dignity – Open Letter to the President of ECOSOC (United Nations Economic and Social Council), Amb. Bob Rae, Permanent Representative of Canada

Mr. President,

ECOSOC’s NGO Committee on Ageing (COA) “advocates to lobby governments to convince the Human Rights Council of the need for a Convention to protect the human rights of older persons around the world.”

In this regard, the 34th United Nations International Day of Older Persons Ageing with Dignity will be convened on 7 October 2024.

This initiative is supposed to focus on “strengthening care and support systems for older persons, especially in the current ‘pandemic’ of intersectional injustice”, i.e. the accumulation of ageism together with other forms of discrimination.

We believe that this date cannot be chosen without bearing in mind the commemoration of 7 October 2023, when hate flooded out of Gaza in a frenzy of violence, rape, arson, torture, kidnapping and murder.

The targets of terrorism were also victims of ageism and intersectional discrimination: the elderly, weakened or disabled by age, or even by the past trauma of the Shoah; the children, some orphaned on the spot; the teenagers, intentionally humiliated and sexually abused; the corpses, maimed, burned and desecrated, paraded as trophies, kept as bargaining chips… all of them were also targeted by antisemitism, the paradigm of discrimination.

On 7 October, we shall commemorate the victims of Hamas’ genocidal attack: those who had aged through hardship and wars since the creation of the State of Israel, as well as the young ones, whose lives have been broken too early, who cannot grow older, who cannot bring their light unto the world.

We are compelled to remember all the victims who have lost the possibility of aging with dignity, who have been collectively brutalized by a gang of criminals, that rejoices in the number of fatalities and martyrs. By defiling the elderly, the youth and the babies, terrorists threaten the existence of families, communities, peoples, memories… They seek to break inter-generational dialogue, deprive the young of the lessons learned by the elderly, and destroy any shared promise for a better future.

Mr. President, we hope that, on 7 October, ECOSOC will not fail the universal appeal of “Never Again!” – issued as a response to the Holocaust – the foundational covenant of the United Nations in 1945.

Most Respectfully,

Dr. Shimon Samuels – Former Director for International Relations of the Simon Wiesenthal Centre

and

Alex Uberti – Consultant, Project Manager for CSW-Europe