The man who accepts Western values absolutely, finds his creative faculties becoming so warped and stunted that he is almost completely dependent on external satisfactions, and the moment he becomes frustrated in his search for these, he begins to develop neurotic symptoms, to feel that life is not worth living, and, in chronic cases, to take his own life.
Freedom from discrimination for women, ensuring that female children can learn to read, these are human needs for half the human race, not western values.
The domination of western values, beliefs and way of life has angered many from the east and in developing countries.
We don't have to apologize for American exceptionalism or western values.
Polls show that Arabs admire a lot of the Western values, cultural aspects in the West. It is more about policies than about way of life.
My brother thinks it is very, very bad that I left Islam. My half-sister wants to convert me back; I want to convert her to Western values. My mum is terrified that when I die, and we all go to God, I will be burned.
I very much feel that marriage is a sacrament and that sacrament should extend and can extend to that legal entity of a union between what traditionally in our Western values has been defined as between a man and a woman.
Our ultimate weapon is not our guns but our beliefs ... Ours are not Western values. They are the universal values of the human spirit and anywhere, any time, ordinary people are given the chance to choose, the choice is the same. Freedom not tyranny. Democracy not dictatorship. The rule of law not the rule of the secret police. The spread of freedom is the best security for the free. It is our last line of defence and our first line of attack.
The UDHR has become an iconic document over the course of more than six decades, the starting point for discussions of whether or not the rights as set forth are truly universal or slanted to reflect the hegemony of Western values, especially those associated with liberal individualism.
