[By Racalbuto, Le Matin]
Sunday, December 21, 2008
Monday, December 15, 2008
To move or not to move?
The one Guard of the Parliament to the other: "Hey Mitso, am I supposed to move or to stay still?"
Friday, December 12, 2008
Clash of generations: the divide and rule of modern regimes?
(PHOTO: Yiorgos Karahalis/Reuters)The recent events in Greece, after the cold blood assassination of the 15-year-old student in Exarhia (Athens) by a police officer have opened up a big debate on the social and economic situation of many Greek citizens and the way those socio-economic grievances are to be expressed. Political distrust, inter-personal distrust and lack of personal efficacy are some of the feelings of the Greek citizen, who, paradoxically though stays loyal to his basic civil right of participating in national elections (one of the highest turn-out percentages in European Union) voting in crushing majority for the same two big parties who are accused for the current gloomy economic and social conditions.
The recent violent events in Athens and other major Greek cities should be seen under a specific analytical prism. First of all, it seems to me that we should distinguish between on one side, the people who participate in daily demonstrations claiming their right to express their grievances about the unorganized and sometimes exaggerated and irrational use of police force and their opposition to the current governmental policies and its incapacity to provide the Greek people with concrete answers on the barrage of economic scandals, and on the other side normless-hooligans who find the opportunity to demonstrate their internal rage and emptiness by creating havoc through destruction and pillaging.
Second, it is true the fact that the assassination of the young student was not the cause of the subsequent mobilization and violent event, but the effet declencheur which brought on the surface a 15-year-policy of austerity measures which was used in the beginning as an excuse in order to attain the national goal of integration to the common European currency in January 2002, but which continued as a new plan of tight economic measures under which salaries remained virtually unchanged when at the same time prices were soaring. The introduction of EURO currency along with the lack of serious institutional ways and political will of controlling the prices in liberal professions, as well as the transformation of a great number of goods of luxury into goods of first necessity (i.e. cell-phones and other services of telecommunications) forced many families into the new national sport, the “bank credits”. Furthemore, a first salary of 700 to 1000 Euros/month is really not enough for a young man to hope for a happy family life, when only the monthly cell-phone bills (4-member family) can reach 300Euros. No wonder why Greeks can be considered to be the Europeans “most attached” to their parental home up to the age of 30.
Third, it is important to mention that despite all the grievances, the economic scandals, and the irregular cases of police repression, we haven’t yet seen a massive popular mobilization. Really, where are all those people who have seen their quality of life being degraded in the last years? Where are all those families who are under the pressure of a series of bank debts and who try to cover up economic holes of summer vacations with new “Christmas Consumption Credits”? All we have seen is student manifestations during the day and street battles between “anarchists” and the police forces.
The recent violent events in Athens and other major Greek cities should be seen under a specific analytical prism. First of all, it seems to me that we should distinguish between on one side, the people who participate in daily demonstrations claiming their right to express their grievances about the unorganized and sometimes exaggerated and irrational use of police force and their opposition to the current governmental policies and its incapacity to provide the Greek people with concrete answers on the barrage of economic scandals, and on the other side normless-hooligans who find the opportunity to demonstrate their internal rage and emptiness by creating havoc through destruction and pillaging.
Second, it is true the fact that the assassination of the young student was not the cause of the subsequent mobilization and violent event, but the effet declencheur which brought on the surface a 15-year-policy of austerity measures which was used in the beginning as an excuse in order to attain the national goal of integration to the common European currency in January 2002, but which continued as a new plan of tight economic measures under which salaries remained virtually unchanged when at the same time prices were soaring. The introduction of EURO currency along with the lack of serious institutional ways and political will of controlling the prices in liberal professions, as well as the transformation of a great number of goods of luxury into goods of first necessity (i.e. cell-phones and other services of telecommunications) forced many families into the new national sport, the “bank credits”. Furthemore, a first salary of 700 to 1000 Euros/month is really not enough for a young man to hope for a happy family life, when only the monthly cell-phone bills (4-member family) can reach 300Euros. No wonder why Greeks can be considered to be the Europeans “most attached” to their parental home up to the age of 30.
Third, it is important to mention that despite all the grievances, the economic scandals, and the irregular cases of police repression, we haven’t yet seen a massive popular mobilization. Really, where are all those people who have seen their quality of life being degraded in the last years? Where are all those families who are under the pressure of a series of bank debts and who try to cover up economic holes of summer vacations with new “Christmas Consumption Credits”? All we have seen is student manifestations during the day and street battles between “anarchists” and the police forces.
The authorities response to this crisis was to create confusion between destruction/”anti-democratic behavior” and legitimate claims for economic and social fairness, and on the other hand between student youth and “anarchists”/hooligans. Governmental officials have neither pronounced on the issue of economic and social difficulties, nor have they tried to draw a line between the young students and the “young” “anarchists”. The cornerstone of the actual debate has become the question of “who are those people with the covered faces” and not “what is the problem with the young generation of today”. The authorities have played the security card of “terrorism by the young hooligans”, who vandalize private property. In this way the same authorities aim at digging a wider gap between the young generation of 16-17-18 year old and the older generations who are integrated in the economic and social life. Following the experience of the last year’s widespread student mobilization against the revision of Article 16 of the Constitution which would authorize the creation of private universities, there are plenty of people who started expressing themselves in the media claiming that “it’s better for those young generations to try hard in their studies in order to become good citizens” rather than following the easy way of violence inspired by meager social sensibilities.
Wednesday, December 10, 2008
Pitting Universalism against Cultural Relativism?
This text is a simple product of a reaction to the lecture of the 1986 Nobel Prize Laureate in Literature, Mr. Wole Soyinka, given in Geneva for the Commemoration of the 60th Anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted on December 10, 1948, in Paris.
In his lecture, Mr. Soyinka made clear to his audience his view about the juxtaposition of Universalism and Cultural Relativism. The title of his presentation was “The Trap of Cultural Relativism”, and therefore from the title the tone of his speech was far from being in favor of the cultural relativist trend. He started by defining cultural relativism as a state of mutual respect and a framework of acknowledgment of cultural diversity, which however, allows any kind of conduct as long as it is defined in cultural terms, and [I would add] as long as it puts an emphasis on the cultural particularity of the actor. Based on this definition he argued that on such a basis, barbarism and other forms of violence and degradation of the human nature could easily be understood and excused as forms of cultural particularity. Dignity and the social nature of human beings are the ethical and moral norms to be respected and they constitute the important universal values, which under no circumstances should be sacrificed in the name of dogmatic cultural principles and obligations. Besides, according to Mr. Soyinka, the processes and conditions of human upbringing and development are not to be a matter of distinction among human beings nor have to limit the freedom of choice among different perceptions of life.
Mr. Soyinka’s short lecture of Universalism vs. Cultural Relativism brings us back to one of the fundamental debates of liberal tradition, between the liberal communitarians (Will Kymlicka, Iris Marion Young etc.) and liberal cosmopolitans (Jeremy Waldron, Brian Barry, Chandran Kukathas etc), based on the relationship between the individual and its social environment. While on the one hand, the liberal communitarians highlight the importance of cultural membership, as well as the importance to protect the cultural structures (groups) along with their content and their practices, on the other hand, liberal cosmopolitans defend the protection of the rights of individuals and their right to adhere to practices without the formal recognition of the cultural structure. Thus, for cosmopolitans, inspired by the Rawlsian assumption that the right of people to seek for alternatives in order to satisfy their needs and pursue their ends excludes the necessity of the perpetual existence of any particular culture, any culture should not be seen as a legitimate framework to cover up violations of the individual freedom (of choice). In the liberal tradition this debate can be summed up with two notions: external protection vs. internal control.
However, my point here is not to analyze the different variants of the liberal tradition, but to make a specific methodological comment on Mr. Soyinka’s argument. In my opinion, Universalism and Cultural (Historical, Regional, Economic etc.) Relativism should not be considered as two competitive visions in the human rights discourse. Far from presenting myself as somebody who could propose a compromise between them, I think that there is a space to perceive them in a more constructive relationship. What I mean is that, on purely theoretical basis, we have failed to see what are these visions made of. I believe that both Universalism and Cultural Relativism are made of two parts:
In his lecture, Mr. Soyinka made clear to his audience his view about the juxtaposition of Universalism and Cultural Relativism. The title of his presentation was “The Trap of Cultural Relativism”, and therefore from the title the tone of his speech was far from being in favor of the cultural relativist trend. He started by defining cultural relativism as a state of mutual respect and a framework of acknowledgment of cultural diversity, which however, allows any kind of conduct as long as it is defined in cultural terms, and [I would add] as long as it puts an emphasis on the cultural particularity of the actor. Based on this definition he argued that on such a basis, barbarism and other forms of violence and degradation of the human nature could easily be understood and excused as forms of cultural particularity. Dignity and the social nature of human beings are the ethical and moral norms to be respected and they constitute the important universal values, which under no circumstances should be sacrificed in the name of dogmatic cultural principles and obligations. Besides, according to Mr. Soyinka, the processes and conditions of human upbringing and development are not to be a matter of distinction among human beings nor have to limit the freedom of choice among different perceptions of life.
Mr. Soyinka’s short lecture of Universalism vs. Cultural Relativism brings us back to one of the fundamental debates of liberal tradition, between the liberal communitarians (Will Kymlicka, Iris Marion Young etc.) and liberal cosmopolitans (Jeremy Waldron, Brian Barry, Chandran Kukathas etc), based on the relationship between the individual and its social environment. While on the one hand, the liberal communitarians highlight the importance of cultural membership, as well as the importance to protect the cultural structures (groups) along with their content and their practices, on the other hand, liberal cosmopolitans defend the protection of the rights of individuals and their right to adhere to practices without the formal recognition of the cultural structure. Thus, for cosmopolitans, inspired by the Rawlsian assumption that the right of people to seek for alternatives in order to satisfy their needs and pursue their ends excludes the necessity of the perpetual existence of any particular culture, any culture should not be seen as a legitimate framework to cover up violations of the individual freedom (of choice). In the liberal tradition this debate can be summed up with two notions: external protection vs. internal control.
However, my point here is not to analyze the different variants of the liberal tradition, but to make a specific methodological comment on Mr. Soyinka’s argument. In my opinion, Universalism and Cultural (Historical, Regional, Economic etc.) Relativism should not be considered as two competitive visions in the human rights discourse. Far from presenting myself as somebody who could propose a compromise between them, I think that there is a space to perceive them in a more constructive relationship. What I mean is that, on purely theoretical basis, we have failed to see what are these visions made of. I believe that both Universalism and Cultural Relativism are made of two parts:
a) a part presenting them as frameworks of thought about norms and ideas and,
b) a part that conceives them as arguments to justify various policies.
In the end by avoiding the Trap of Cultural Relativism we sometimes tend to fall into the Trap of Ethic and Moral Universalism with the subsequent risks that our modern history has experienced. And I justify this by saying that the spokespersons of Universalism in human rights tend to overestimate the philosophical ethical and moral value of Universalism and to omit to comment on the nature of some actions taken in the name of it, whereas on the other hand, they put emphasis more on the practical implications of Cultural Relativism which they tend to relate it to the notion of non-intervention in internal affairs (of a group or a state), without mentioning the fundamental Herderian moral and ethical principles of respect and acknowledgment of cultural diversity and cultural protection, which are taken for granted.
Saying that, I do not argue against fundamental universal norms, values and principles, and I do not claim that the protection of a cultural social environment has a priority over human dignity and freedom. Instead, I believe that norms, values and principles are not fixed elements in our evaluation system. They can be discussed, evaluated, and reviewed. And a cultural relativist vision with its ethical and moral principles can become a framework of understanding of specific human actions and therefore become a pool of culturally, historically, regionally, socially diverse ideas to be discussed and evaluated in the process of reinforcing existing or drafting new Universal values and norms. At the end of the day, in our world, the Socratic claim of the existence of more than one truths seems to fit better than the one of the religious dogmatic objective (divine) truth.
Saying that, I do not argue against fundamental universal norms, values and principles, and I do not claim that the protection of a cultural social environment has a priority over human dignity and freedom. Instead, I believe that norms, values and principles are not fixed elements in our evaluation system. They can be discussed, evaluated, and reviewed. And a cultural relativist vision with its ethical and moral principles can become a framework of understanding of specific human actions and therefore become a pool of culturally, historically, regionally, socially diverse ideas to be discussed and evaluated in the process of reinforcing existing or drafting new Universal values and norms. At the end of the day, in our world, the Socratic claim of the existence of more than one truths seems to fit better than the one of the religious dogmatic objective (divine) truth.
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