4.3. ANTHROPOLOGY, SOCIOLOGY AND THE HUMAN RIGHTS DISCOURSE
Boas set the tone for anthropological discourse in much of the 20th century , and central to the contestations on the universality and relativity of rights are the questions of ‘the’ universal standard. Cerna makes a case for universality but locates obstacles in implementation, especially as this affects the private sphere, ‘...which deals with issues such as religion, culture, the status of women, the right to marry and to divorce and to remarry, the protection of children, the question of choice as regards family planning...’, while Donnelly makes a subtle case for ‘Relative Universality’ where he attempts to navigate a tricky middle path with many compromises on some rights that are arguably central to the universalist regime.
He comes up with solutions and paths that are so compromising as to be arguably fatal to the paradigms of universalism and better treated as an absolutely fantastic academic venture incapable of being envisaged in real life situations, particularly as it relates to one of the two illustrations he gave. Donnelly cites Article 18 of the UDHR in alluding to the denial to change ones’ religion under an Islamic setting. He asks whether article 18 is relatively universal within that context and answers, ‘probably’. Donnely interestingly goes on to state,
Prohibition of apostasy also has a deep rooted doctrinal basis, supported by a long tradition of practice... there is no guarantee that the choice be without cost. A state thus might be justified in denying certain benefits to apostates as long as those rights are not guaranteed by human rights !!!
One finds this position to be so compromising and so disfigured a representation of universality as to be utterly self-destructive. In the end it cunningly serves to strengthen the relativist epistemologies.
Clinging to the anthropological basis for cultural relativism however, Scholte makes the following case:
'From an ethnological standpoint, we have no right to make our own local temporal scale the measuring rod of historical significance... Such action would represent a pedestrian insensitivity to the prodigious wealth and enormous diversity of human customs so richly documented in the ethnographic literature... Still worse it would reflect an ethnographic arrogance so typical of egocentric and ‘cumulative’ civilizations (mostly our own), who wilfully co-opt or ruthlessly coerce ‘stationary’ societies into their own historicist mythologies and imperialistic stratagems'
Admittedly, difficulties abound in determining where the lines of universality should be drawn without dragging cultural peculiarity into the measures of relative universality, and without suspicion . Donnelly stance for instance, resorts to concessions on the extents of universality in his ‘relative universality’ proposition, a proposition advocated to lesser or greater extents by many.
The AAA’s stance on the universal declaration takes cognisance of a people’s world, which for Geertz, ‘...contains their most comprehensive ideas of order’ . An ‘external’ understanding of norms is unlikely to make a person feel ‘bound’ or ‘free’, safe as they perceive. Neither may such stance arguably make a person feel their ‘rights’ are respected in full, safe within the context of how their particular society interprets them against its own norms. Thus, the Muslim woman in Iran who finds freedom, honour and dignity in a life characterised by a veil, co-wives, a home-based role, an accustomed life-pattern of non-appearance in public settings and a ‘superior’ view of the Muslim man would arguably be confounded with notions of freedom characterised by simple dresses (read immodest), public appearance and equal mingling with the male folk (read blasphemy and dishonour) as a form of enslavement. That a Bush on Wall Street thinks she is not free does not make her feel bound, and to impose the Wall Street notion of freedom on her may be perceived as some sort of ‘monkey salvation for the fish’ where the fish is ‘salvaged’ from the ‘drowning’ waters to ‘breathe’ the air of ‘freedom’ high up in the trees!
This argument does not imply, however, that societies under culturally relative regimes are as homogenous and unanimous in norm formulation as to be devoid of dissent, disagreement and outright protests. The point should not however be lost on a recognition, that the art of enacting norms and extending them as ‘universal’ may be said to deeply underestimate the complexity inherent in modes of thought , and may well be described as culturally imperialist. However, recurrent cries of anguish, pain and dissent from countries enforcing cultures and laws condemned under the international and regional regulatory frameworks as ‘repressive’ would impede any unqualified applause for these admittedly strong arguments for relativism.
5. INSIDE CULTURAL RELATIVISM
Outcries against cultural relativism as a truly inglorious shield for suppression are loudest from the west, especially activists in the mould of Steve Barber who in rejecting Mazzar’s relativist stance, asserts that Islamic cultural relativism masks terrorism, and Maryam Namazie who affirms that cultural relativism is not only racist and gender discriminatory, but ‘....doesn’t only ignore violations; it actually legitimizes them’ . Feminism is often bitterly averse to cultural relativism, though Brems argues that the two are ‘dissident voices’ that could work harmoniously.
Cerna largely succeeds in isolating ‘repressive’ regimes whose human rights records are bad , Islamic and Asian countries almost always featuring prominently. Statistics of ‘extrajudicial’ deaths, incarcerations and brutal repression of protests and opposition are ‘alarming’ in the face of colossal wealth and privilege for leaders. Proponents of relativism would however question the criteria used to arrive at such judgments and revert to the old question: whose standards and values determine violations? For them, it falls far short of objectivity for the rules for assessing human rights records of one society to be set and administered by the institutions and actors of a different society. Such standards of assessment are guaranteed to produce the results they have regularly produced. In the mould of Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, the masters of these bodies are bound to be exonerated by the rules and standards which govern them – a case of the masters’ tools for the masters’ house.
What universalism defines as ‘innocent citizens’ asking for their ‘rights’ in Iran, may as well qualify for ‘enemies of the Iranian state’ in the eyes of the Iranian State, threatening the very norms upon which the state is founded,- ‘Treason’ one may say! Conversely, Indian parents exercising their cultural right to ‘give out’ their daughter to a ‘suited suitor’ even against the ‘uninformed’ and ‘ignorant’ wishes of the girl would be violators of her ‘rights’ in the United States. Though this boils down and back to the very definition of rights and the quest to fashion out a universal standard, it certainly does not efface the reality of human anguish in systems that legitimize Slavery or Genital Mutilation as culturally acceptable for instance.
In the eyes of the Iranian citizen, the (Universalists’ Scoundrel) leaders represent cherished Iranian values, and their ‘God-Given’ power of decision to punish offenders against state sanctity are honourable. To castigate such in a ‘foreign’ mould only exerts his greater zeal to protect and defend the symbols of the ‘values’ he cherishes, however oppressive of a ‘segment’ of the populace. The blood stains, cries of woe, mysterious disappearances and massive elimination of numerous people amidst stern denials of the freedom of expression thus remain ignoble spectacles dotting the ‘sacred grounds’ where cultural relativism holds political sway- an ideological refuge.
...TO BE CONTINUED
No comments:
Post a Comment