Cultural Rights (14): Tolerance, a Model

To be tolerant means to accept the existence of and to avoid interfering coercively with beliefs, actions or practices that you consider wrong and objectionable. It means that you do your best to co-exist with people who are very much different from you, and different in a negative sense. You allow or permit these people to remain who they are and what they are. You consider what they are, what they do and what they believe to be wrong and objectionable, but not wrong enough to be intolerable and subject to prohibition, legal or otherwise. You tolerate them because you believe that what they do or believe should not be prohibited, or perhaps because you believe you’re not in a position to effectively prohibit. However, I would personally prefer to call the latter option “endurance” rather than tolerance and limit tolerance to the voluntary acceptance of things you could prohibit if you wanted to.

“Acceptance” here should of course be understood, not in the sense of a positive moral judgment, approval or agreement, but in the sense of a practical, pragmatical accommodation. The negative judgment remains but isn’t strong enough to warrant repression or prohibition.

We may decide to tolerate something for a variety of reasons:

• We may have a strong general sense of respect for other people and for their identity. We may respect people’s moral standing as agents able to choose their own vision of the good life. We disagree with their choices but we respect them as agents able to choose.
• We may be motivated simply by a general respect for the law, and the law happens to prescribe tolerance.
• We may believe that tolerance is necessary for the preservation of civil peace and public order, and these considerations outweigh our disgust for other lifestyles. In other words, we hate conflict more than we hate other people.
• We may be motivated by an expectation of reciprocity: if we show tolerance we expect to be tolerated. Maybe our own group isn’t in the majority either, or risks not being a majority in the future, and hence we may some day profit from tolerance.
• We may believe, as did John Stuart Mill, that even false opinions lead to social learning.
• Etc.

Those reasons can imply either equal or unequal relationships between those who tolerate and those who are tolerated.

Below I offer my own petty model of tolerance. I situate tolerance on a continuum going from what I call guidance on one side to prohibition on the other. Guidance means the attitude of emulating certain practices which you view as being important enough to guide your life and your fundamental opinions. Prohibition, the other extreme, means the attitude of suppressing certain practices which you view as being so depraved that they should be forbidden and eliminated, if necessary with violence.

One level below guidance I situate the attitude which I call positive acceptance. People accept things in a positive way if they consider them to be moral, but not necessarily moral enough to be the guiding light of life. One level below positive acceptance is indifference, which marks the boundary between things that are moral and things that are immoral.

Below indifference is negative acceptance, which means viewing things as being immoral yet not immoral enough to suppress them using the law or any other violent means. As stated above, I distinguish between two types of negative acceptance, endurance and tolerance, the difference being that tolerance means accepting something and yet having the ability to suppress. Endurance means you tolerate despite not wanting to tolerate: you tolerate because you don’t have a choice. If you had the power to suppress or prohibit, you would. You don’t suppress or prohibit and you tolerate because you don’t have the power to suppress or prohibit. Real tolerance means that you have that power but voluntarily choose not to use it, for any (combination) of the reasons mentioned above.

Some would also call endurance a type of tolerance. Personally, I want to keep it separate. (Which is why it is in light gray rather than dark gray in the image below). I distinguish three types of tolerance: people can tolerate things unconditionally, they can tolerate things if they happen only in private, or they can tolerate things that happen in public but only conditionally.

I also place all these attitude, including tolerance, on a moral scale, assuming that people decide to accept, reject, tolerate or prohibit acts or beliefs according to the moral value they attach to these acts or beliefs.

So, all this gives the following model (click image to enlarge):

model of tolerance

Let’s clarify all this with a couple of examples. First, imagine the case of a moderate American Evangelical. How would he fill in those abstract notions?

• a: the life of Jesus or Scripture, something morally strong enough to serve as a guiding example for his own life
• b: the beliefs of his fellow believers or the beliefs of followers of similar faiths (e.g. Catholics); these are not always strong enough to serve as a guiding example for his own life, but morally very positive nonetheless
• c: the rules of car maintenance, or something else that leaves him morally indifferent
• d: homosexual love, on the wrong side of morality according to him, but not something that he could prohibit; he just endures it, knowing that it’s not something people can prohibit
• e: the use of speech to promote a homosexual lifestyle, something he could prohibit but chooses to tolerate instead, given his attachment to freedom of speech
• f: the use of the public education system to promote a homosexual lifestyle, something he chooses to tolerate selectively and conditionally; for example, when he has the right to remove his children from a certain school
• g: gay sex, something he will tolerate only when it occurs in private
• h: polygamy, something which he chooses to prohibit.

Let’s take another example, say a French secularist who is also an atheist.

• a: he would consider the teachings of Richard Dawkins and other atheists as guiding examples
• b: he would positively accept teaching atheism and secularism in schools
• c: again, car maintenance would leave him morally indifferent
• d: some forms of religious belief he would endure, knowing that he could never suppress them, and since you can only tolerate what you can suppress this is not an example of his tolerance
• e: religious expression he tolerates unconditionally given his attachment to freedom of speech and religious liberty
• f: religious dress, for example, he would only tolerate outside of schools and government buildings
• g: aggressive proselytizing he would only tolerate when it happens in people’s private lives and among adults
• h: violent exorcism he would prohibit.

More on tolerance is here.

What Are Human Rights? (30): Three Views on Human Rights

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1.

The standard view of human rights is that they are intended as regulators of conflicting norms and practices. And, indeed, they seem quite useless and out of place in settings in which people agree, hold the same religious convictions and aren’t intent on attacking each others’ lives and possessions.

“Regulators” in this sense doesn’t mean that rights solve conflicts between norms and practices. They can’t do that because then they would have to change those norms and practices, and they don’t. What they do is pacify and civilize conflicts: they force conflicting parties to extend some measure of respect to the opposing norm or practice, and to refrain from physical or legal attacks, violence and suppression. For example, when different forms of speech come into conflict with each other, neither side in the conflict has a right to suppress the speech of the other side or to violently attack the other speakers.

2.

A somewhat less simplistic view of human rights, but also a less common one, is that these rights don’t just regulate conflict but actively promote it. By taking the sting out of conflict, one obviously encourages conflict. Usually, when an activity becomes less risky, it becomes more common.

Why would there be a need to encourage conflict? One reason has to do with the notion of the marketplace of ideas: only an idea that has survived the onslaught of a large number of opposing arguments can be a good idea.

3.

And then there’s another, even more sophisticated – some say perverted – view of human rights, one that sees beyond the conflicts that these rights are supposed to regulate and/or promote, and that focuses on the role of rights in providing the prerequisites for the appearance and development of conflicting norms and practices. Without this understanding of rights it’s difficult to make sense of rights such as the right to healthcare, the right to a certain standard of living and the right to education. Those are all rights that don’t regulate conflict but instead allow people to acquire and develop norms and practices.

Migration and Human Rights (22): Number of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) at All-Time High

Pakistani refugees wait in line for bread at the Yar Hussain camp. Photograph: Paula Bronstein/Getty

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According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, the number of people internally displaced within their own countries (also called IDPs) has reached a historical high of more than 28 million (see also here for the full report). The numbers of IDPs usually fluctuate a lot and go up and down as a result of the outbreak or settling down of internal conflicts within states. The current increase follows recent events in Sri Lanka and Pakistan. The countries with the largest numbers are Colombia (3 million), Iraq (2,5 million) and Sudan (2 million). (There’s an older map here).

More statistics are here.

Religion and Human Rights (17): War and Non-Violence in Buddhism, The Case of Sri Lanka

Artwork symbolizing non-violence, at the UN headquarters in NY

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[This post is by guest-writer Line Løvåsen].

Though Buddhism is known for its insistence on non-violence and compassion, there have been some Buddhist wars in history (Thompson 1988:102). I will discuss one of these: the conflict between Buddhist Sinhalese and Hindu Tamils in Sri Lanka, which has recently come to an end with the victory of the government over the rebel Tamil Tigers.

Sri Lanka gained independence from Britain in 1948. The island has long known political and economic tensions between Buddhist Sinhalese and the minority of Hindu Tamils (Harris 2003:107). Increased Sinhalese nationalism and emerging Tamil separatism resulted in violence and war in the 1980s. Tens of thousands have since been killed in a brutal ethnic war (Seneviratne 2003:76).

The Sinhalese have justified the war and the use of violence by way of the teachings of Buddha. In this post I will examine the role of religion in this conflict. By showing tensions between Buddhism and Sinhalese politics, I will argue that although the conflict is expressed and justified in religious terms, it is actually part of the state’s nationalistic agenda. I will also argue that this is a typical example of how poverty and a crisis of national identity are misused by a state in order to mobilize ethnic groups for conflict. To prove my argument, I begin by describing the Sinhalese view of the war. Then I examine general Buddhist principles against war, after which I outline Theravada Buddhism to see how the Sinhalese are able to manipulate the principles for their purposes. I then examine to what extent the Sinhalese actions fit the just war criteria. I will take into account other explanations of the conflict and I will discuss how Buddhism can contribute to a solution.

There’s more.

Children’s Rights (9): Child Soldiers

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From Amnesty International:

Approximately 250,000 children under the age of 18 are thought to be fighting in conflicts around the world, and hundreds of thousands more are members of armed forces who could be sent into combat at any time. Although most child soldiers are between 15 and 18 years old, significant recruitment starts at the age of 10 and the use of even younger children has been recorded.

Around the world, children are singled out for recruitment by both armed forces and armed opposition groups, and exploited as combatants. Easily manipulated, children are sometimes coerced to commit grave atrocities, including rape and murder of civilians using assault rifles such as AK-47s and G4s. Some are forced to injure or kill members of their own families or other child soldiers. Others serve as porters, cooks, guards, messengers, spies, and sex slaves.

More on the problem of child soldiers here. Here is a map pinpointing the places in the world where children are used as soldiers. And here and here are adverts that are part of a campaign against child soldiers. Something more general on children’s rights is here.

War Journalism

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[This post is by guest-writer Line Løvåsen].

Living in an “information age”, journalism and media have become major resources. The information revolution was due partly to media activity. Also known as the fourth state power, media in many ways steer the informational component of the world. The media can either strengthen democracy, but in the case of war journalism we see that they can also undermine democracy. And this is no denial of the courage, professionalism and objectivity of many individual war journalists.

War journalism can undermine democracy and can even perpetuate war because it can act as a justification of violence. The way conflict and violence are presented and justified in the media – justified explicitly, but more often implicitly through fear-mongering, double speak, euphemisms and taking sides - can have an effect on a war, on a violent situation and its outcome.

War journalism therefore often favors the agenda of the ruling elites. But acts of war and violence carried out by governments also favor the media, because violence sells. There is a double-sided influence and dependence between journalism on the one hand, and politics and war on the other.

Johan Galtung

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Johan Galtung, the founder of peace studies, discusses the following points regarding war journalism:

• A focus on violence as its own cause-thus decontextualizing violence, not looking at the reasons
• Dualism, always reduces to two parts, and hereof winners-losers, which ignores the possibility of non-violent outcomes
• Manicheanism; the two parts consist of the contradictions good-evil
• Armageddon, violence is inevitable
• Focus on the individual, avoiding structural causes
• Focus on the battlefield and visible effects, not on underlying forces
• Excluding and omitting the bereaved, thus never explaining why there are actions of revenge and spirals of violence
• Failure to explore the causes of escalation and the impact of media coverage itself
• Failure to explore the goals of outside interventionists
• Failure to explore peace proposals, and offer images of peaceful outcomes
• Confusing cease-fires and negotiations with actual peace, peace is defined as victory plus ceasefire
• Omitting reconciliation; and conflicts tend to re-emerge if wounds are not healed (Galtung 1992).

Consider the war on terror. The underlying causes of terror have not been given attention. After 9/11, U.S. president George W. Bush ignored the causes (the reasons stated by Al Qaida, such as disrespect, the Palestionan issue etc.), and claimed that the attack on the U.S. was because Al Qaida hates the western values of peace, freedom and democracy; one international crime became a global war. This had a massive psychological impact, and politicians use this fear and its representation in the media to gain advantage in elections and justification for a range of policies. The masses can be convinced that they are not sufficiently safe in peace or war, and thus are dependent of the guidance and protection of the leaders.

Responses to so-called terrorism may threaten nations more than actual acts of terror committed. Rather than the “terrorists”, it is politicians, through their counter-actions, who define the severity and the impact that acts of terror have on a country. War, as part of the national psyche, is responsible for a higher scale of damage than terror. Moreover, it sows mistrust and reduces the ability of people to come together or unite in order to bring about change.

Clausewitz

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War is prolonged political business, in the words of Clausewitz. And information is the currency of the current age. Tactics for justification and consciousness formation are widely used in this special market place. The influence of power structures on the masses in the Western society has been widely portrayed, in everything from science fiction (The Matrix etc.) to literature. In his book “1984″, George Orwell described how politicians apply a mutation of the English language (called “Newspeak”) in order to shape and mold our consciousness and acceptance, allowing them to justify violence and oppression.

George Orwell

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For example, in Newspeak, words such as torture are referred to as “deep interrogation”. Mercenaries as “security people”. In addition to the misuse of words, you have the double language and manipulation of the mind as tools to force people to accept contradictions. An example of double thinking is the use of projection; where you project your own subconscious unacceptable, malicious desires on to others. Projection helps justify unacceptable behavior, distancing ourselves from our own dysfunction. One example is how “we” have weapons for purely defensive purposes, while “they” have expansionist motives and offensive weapons.

Orwell notes that, instead of exercising the purpose of their profession (that is “the publishing of unbiased information” and hence constraining the ruling elite by informing the public), the media accept the influence of the ruling elite and have in fact joined their ranks, assist them and live in almost . One example of media manipulation and propaganda is the media empire of Rupert Murdoch and his support to different politicians he favors, for example in England. After being supportive of Thatcher and Major, Murdoch switched his support to the Labour Party, and his secret meetings with Tony Blair came to be a political issue in Britain.

Murdoch owns the “News Corporation”, based in New York. Aside from newspapers, magazines and television stations, he also has become a leading investor in satellite television, the film industry, and the Internet. His corporate owned TV-station Fox News has a strong conservative bias, and both Fox News and all of Murdoch’s 175 newspapers favored the Iraqi war.

How the media present, justify or even shape conflicts is one problem. The next is when conflicts are not presented at all. Why are some event shighlighted while others are not? What kind of criteria causes one news item to supersede another? Occidental deep culture is reflected and reinforced by the media in the concepts of hero, victory-defeat and linear time. Nothing attracts more attention than direct, uncensored violence. It is this violence that is a major criterion for determining the airing of the actual event. Rather than focus on the underlying contradictions, the media focus on attitudes and behaviors because they are more newsworthy, and thus psychologize conflict. At the end of it all stands a win-lose-discourse that leaves us unable to explore the root of the situation or to use dialogue to solve it.

War is more profitable (in monetary terms) than peace. Peace is more profitable for long term investments, while war benefits the short term investment of specific factions/stake holders such as arms producers, politicians, and the media. Manipulation by politicians and media is not the only important factor in the continuation of war and power structures. Power structures cannot be maintained without people acting them out (Nietzsche’s “performance of the masses”). War reporting is profitable, it fascinates, but it also instills a sense of fear, keeping the “plebs” docile. The forces that have reshaped the U.S. constitution since 9/11 can be mentioned in relation to this. The legitimacy provided by constituent power allowed President Bush to expand the power of the presidency far beyond its normal limits. Constitutional change can occur through either a legal (formal) or non-legal (informal) political process. Constitutional change in the United States has not typically happened in the former way. After 9/11, president George W. Bush’s administration asserted that the world had changed and the old rules no longer applied. He was able to do so because he enjoyed the immediate support of the American people, a support which was to a large extent nourished by the media.

Violence sells. In a typology of the goals of violence, Galtung mentions different purposes for violence, among them the purpose of entertainment. Here, profit through violence is not a modern phenomenon: Historically speaking, this can be traced as far back as Roman rule, where violence meant revenue in relation to for example gladiators. A more contemporary example is that of the fight between the Spanish bullfighter and Toro. Both are examples of deep cultural values.

So in a sense, the media act as a double-edged sword; profiteering through enacting control. As a result, in a battlefield, journalists can compete with each other in finding the most dramatic story. But not only find them; they cherish them, nurture them, focus on the sensational aspects, and even modify and justify them, all in order to profit. And as a result of this financial profit, politicians earn political profit. And war continues.

References

Galtung, J. & Vincent, R. C. (1992) Global glasnost: Toward a new world information and communication order? Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press
Galtung, J. unpublished manuscript: “The TRANSCEND Approach to Simple Conflicts, C=1″

Religion and Human Rights (11): Religious Hatred and Holy Sites

Kjell Magne Bondevik

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It ought to be possible to … focus on two complementary ways to be able to live in peace with one another. One being to acknowledge the common values shared by the great religions, such as the intrinsic value and dignity of the human being, the commitment to peace and justice, and respect for the sacred. And on the other hand promoting the ability to live side by side with cultural and religious differences. This way culture and religion could become part of the solution to conflicts, rather than being a source. Kjell Magne Bondevik

In many places in the world, the co-existence of different cultures and religions has been, and still is, a source of conflict and even war. Theories about the “clash of civilizations” are increasingly popular, and so is islamophobia, the fear of a return of medieval religious wars (see also here), hate crime and hate speech.

One particular and photogenic aspect of religious conflict and religious hatred is the desecration of an enemy’s holiest shrines or sites. The Samarra mosque in Iraq (see account below), the Buddhist statutes destroyed by the Taliban government, and the destruction of mosques and churches during the Bosnian and Kosovo wars are perhaps the best known examples. A similar problem is the fact that many holy sites are claimed by rival religions: the site of the Ayodhya mosque in India (also destroyed), the Al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem (in which case we have to congratulate the “occupying force” for its handling of free access; another force would have in all probability destroyed the thing) etc.

An interesting effort to cope with this comes from the Oslo Center for Peace and Human Rights, headed by Kjell Magne Bondevik. They are working on a Code for Holy Sites. The code would protect the rights of different communities to worship at a site.

However, what are the chances of different religions agreeing to share holy sites? Even the presence of non-believers is not allowed in some holy sites, such as Mecca (see the picture below), probably because this presence would infect or “contaminate” or foul the site. In any religion, non-believers are by definition sinners (perhaps with the exception of Hindus and Buddhists who do worship side-by-side, in the same temple).

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Here’s a newspaper report about the infamous bombing of the Samara mosque in Iraq in 2006:

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The bombing of the al-Askari Mosque in Samarra began at 7 a.m. on February 22, 2006 when insurgents dressed as Iraqi police officers entered the shrine and captured five guards. The attackers then placed two bombs inside the dome and detonated them, collapsing most of the dome and heavily damaging an adjoining wall.

The attack left the shrine’s famous golden dome in ruins. The shrine has enormous significance for Shiites, and its destruction in the midst of growing sectarian violence ignited a nationwide outpouring of rage and panic that sharply underscored Iraq’s religious divide. Following the attack, thousands of demonstrators gathered near the shrine, waving Iraqi flags and calling for justice.

There have been no claims of responsibility, though Sunni extremist groups are suspected. A government statement reported that “several suspects” had been detained. This attack and the violent retribution that followed it seemed to push Iraq closer to civil war. President Talabani was quotes as saying that “we are facing a major conspiracy that is targeting Iraq’s unity. We should all stand hand in hand to prevent the danger of a civil war.” (source)

Why Do Countries Become/Remain Democracies? Or Don’t? (3): The Resource Curse

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Why do countries with lots of natural resources tend to do worse than countries with less resource wealth, both in terms of economic growth and in political, social and human rights terms? We see that countries which own lots of natural resources such as diamonds, oil or other valuables that are found in the ground, are often relatively poor, badly governed, violent and suffering from gross violations of human rights.

This figure shows the correlation between resource exports as a share of GDP for a number of countries and their GDP growth:

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Causes of the resource curse

There are many possible causes of this curse (also called “the paradox of plenty”):

1. Lack of economic diversification

Other economic sectors tend to get neglected by the government because there is a guaranteed income from the natural resources. These sectors therefore cannot develop and cannot become an alternative when the resources are taking hits. The fluctuations of the international prices of the resources can cause extreme highs and lows in national economic growth. This is bad in itself, but also makes it difficult for the government to do long term planning, since the level of revenues cannot be predicted. Dependence on one economic sector means vulnerability.

Another disadvantage of concentrating the economy on one resource sector, is that these sector often provide few jobs, especially for local people. The oil industry for example needs highly specialized workers, who are mostly foreigners. On top of that, these sectors do not require many forward or backward connections in the economy (such as suppliers, local customers, refiners etc.), which again doesn’t help the local job creation.

Even if the government tries to diversify the economy, it may fail to do so because the resource sector is more profitable for local individual economic agents.

Resource dependent countries also see their best talents going to the resource industry which pays better wages than the rest of the economy or the government sector. As a result, the latter are unable to perform adequately. See point 4 below.

2. Corruption

Corruption tends to flourish when governments own almost the entire economy and have their hands on the natural resources. More on corruption in a future post.

3. Social division

Abundance of natural resources can produce or prolong violent conflicts within societies as different groups try to control (parts of) the resources. Separatist groups may emerge, trying to control the part of the territory most rich in resources. This is often aggrevated by existing social or cultural division. Division may also appear between parts of the government (e.g. local government vs central government, or between different parts of the central administration).

The resources therefore may cause divisions and conflict, and thereby cause deficiencies in government, economic turmoil, and social unrest. But the resources may also prolong conflicts because groups which manage to take control of (parts of) the resources may use these to arm themselves or otherwise gain influence and power.

4. Government’s unaccoutability and inefficiency

Countries which do not depend on natural resources are often more efficient in taxing their citizens, because they do not have funds which are quasi-automatically generated by resources. As a result, they are forced to develop the government machinery in an efficient way, hence a reduced risk of government break-down. The citizens in return, as they are taxed, will demand accountability, efficient spending etc.

Conversely, the political leaders in resource-dependent countries don’t have to care about their citizens. They create support by allocating money, generated by the resources, to favored interest parties, and thereby increasing the level of corruption. And if citizens object, they have the material means to suppress protest. They don’t appreciate an effective government administration as this carries the risk of control, oversight and other anti-corruption measures (see point 2). So they have an interest in bad government.

It is obvious that bad government, rights violations and economic stagnation have many causes. The resource curse is only one. There are countries which are blessed with resources and which do well at the same time. And there are mismanaged countries that don’t have any resources. As in all correlations, the causation may go in the other way: bad government can create dependence on exports of natural resources.

“When a country’s chaos and economic policies scare off foreign investors and send local entrepreneurs abroad to look for better opportunities, the economy becomes skewed. Factories may close and businesses may flee, but petroleum and precious metals remain for the taking. Resource extraction becomes ‘the default sector’ that still functions after other industries have come to a halt.” (source)

What to do about it?

Leif Wenar has argued that a strict application of property rights could help reduce or correct the resource curse. When dictators or insurgents sell off a country’s resources to foreigners or multi-national companies, while terrorizing the people into submission, they are in fact selling goods that they stole from those people. They have no right to sell what they don’t own. The natural resources of a country belong equally to all the people of that country. Article 1 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights states:

All peoples may, for their own ends, freely dispose of their natural wealth and resources.

And

“the people, whose resources are being sold off, become not the beneficiaries of this wealth but the victim of those who use their own wealth to repress them”. Leif Wenar (source)

One could take legal action in western jurisdictions to try to enforce the property rights of the citizens of resource cursed countries and to charge multinational corporations with the crime of receiving stolen goods.

Western countries, investors and consumers could also boycott companies that invest in resource-cursed countries, or try to pressure campaign them to get out of these countries, or they could stop to invest in these companies.

When people finally get a grip on their resources, they open the path to better government, a better economy and better protection for human rights. Perhaps then they will not have to die trying to recapture a tiny part of the resources that are their lawful property, as happened in many cases in Nigeria, for example, where people often try to tap some oil from the pipelines channeling their property to the west. In doing so, they risk their lives. As a consequence of their actions, the pipelines can explode:

Plato, Democracy, and “Human Rights” (4): Real Theoretical Life

Plato

(please read part 1, part 2 and part 3 first)

In the ideal Platonic society, led by thinking people who use force to train others to become like them, there will be wellbeing because spiritual life, free from the slavery of nature and desires, is the only good life. It means freedom, the satisfaction of knowledge, and peace because the desires and passions of people are the main reason for strife. Also other reasons for strife, such as scarcity, will be eliminated by a planning state taking care of population and birth control. The number of citizens will no longer cause scarcity, envy, territorial expansion and other reasons to go to war. (More on population control).

So Plato started from an initially attractive premise, the importance of a thinking life compared to consumerism, but then issued a whole range of proposals to protect and promote this life which invariably lead to dictatorship. In all this, he is perhaps the classic example of the way in which the combined hostility to nature, materialism and the plurality of society causes hatred for democracy.

But even his premise is questionable. Is solitary reflection of the general, free from appearances and the particular, really the road to wisdom? Perhaps it is more correct to say that sense perception, expression, and hence the use of one’s body and the interaction with other bodies is the best way to gain knowledge. Much of science is still very material, and discussion, argumentation, deliberation and the testing of opinions through expression and discussion protected by human rights can radically improve our opinions.

We need interaction and communication with other people in order to think correctly, and even to think at all. Would we think without our parents and teachers, without speaking and listening to anyone, without engaging in the world of appearances? And would we be able to think more or less correctly without public interaction protected by a democracy and human rights, without venturing in the bigger world of appearances and without leaving our own small and private group of people? Thinking needs the public use of reason (see also this post on Kant). Thoughts are not something you develop on your own, not even in some small and closed group. You first need to listen to as many freely expressed thoughts as possible in order to develop your own thoughts, and then you need to test your own thoughts in confrontation with others.

By making your thoughts public and thus submitting them to scrutiny and tests by other people – first and foremost submitting them to those who are not your private or personal friends, because they might be too kind for you or too like-minded – you are forced to say how you came to have these thoughts and to give an account of the reasons why you have these thoughts instead of others. This will force you to reflect on your reasons and arguments, and, if necessary, to look for better ones. Giving a public account of your reasoning, or knowing in advance that you will give this account, makes you very critical of yourself and helps you avoid mistakes. Nobody wants to make a fool of himself.

The world of appearances, so disliked by Plato for its volatility and imperfection, actually improves the quality of thoughts because of the range of sources of information and opinions, because of the a priori self-criticism that it promotes and because of the a posteriori testing and objecting by other and not necessarily like-minded people (a phenomenon well known in the scientific community).

Giving a public account of your reasoning and arguments, taking objections into account, putting yourself in the place of someone else, think like someone else, look at things from another side or perspective, act as if you hold a contrary point of view, all this is possible only when different perspectives and different points of view are freely expressed. Human rights can help to achieve this. Without human rights, many valuable points of view or perspectives will not be made public, and many valuable objections and counter-arguments will not be known to someone defending a certain thought or idea. This can diminish the quality of the thought or idea in question and therefore it is difficult to understand how a theoretical life can benefit from the elimination of the world of appearances.

Knowledge can hence be defined in a way which is completely different from the Platonic, passive, lonely, anti-social, introvert, non-discursive contemplation. More on the problem of knowledge and politics here.

Parts 1, 2 and 3

What is Democracy? (4): Conflict

Claude Lefort

Election rules institute conflict and struggle. The place of power is an empty place (says Claude Lefort). The law forbids that persons occupy or appropriate this place in a permanent way. Power is the result of a regulated struggle for this place, a struggle that is periodically restarted because power itself is periodically called into question. However, conflict is not just institutionalized, it is also channeled: potentially dangerous conflicts between groups or parties competing for power can be battled out or decided in a peaceful , formalized and reasonable way. Since there will always be a next chance for the losers—who, by the way, do not risk loosing anything more than power—there is no need to resort to more forceful means in order to win the battle. In this way, democracy supports the right to security . This is one of the many examples of the link between democracy and human rights.

It is very important to notice the connection between the two different kinds of institutionalization of conflict, namely the conflict of opinions institutionalized by freedom rights, and the power struggle institutionalized by the democratic election procedures. These two ways of institutionalizing conflict reinforce each other in a fruitful interaction or reciprocity. The legitimate existence of a continuous, open and public power struggle in which the entire people can participate, justifies and creates public conflict in general, in the society at large and in every domain of life. If conflicts of opinion are allowed in the political domain, then why should they be forbidden in other domains of life? There is no democratic power struggle without freedom of expression because this struggle requires criticism, argumentation and persuasion (in order to form majorities). In this way, democracy protects human rights.

The opposite is also true. Human rights protect democracy because they are necessary prerequisites for a real power struggle. The participants in the power struggle have to be able to express themselves, to present themselves to the electorate, to create a distinct profile for themselves, and to make the electorate familiar with their political program (that is why they need the freedom of expression); they have to be able to organize and associate in a group that is free from government control, because this allows them to gather strength and have a more influential voice (so they need the freedom of association, the rule of law and the separation of state and society); and for the same reasons they have to be able to meet and demonstrate (so they also need the freedom of assembly).

Human rights need democracy. They are safer in a democracy because a democracy needs human rights. But a democracy also needs equal human rights. If everybody does not have equal rights, there can be no equal influence, and if there is no equal influence, there can be no democracy. The creation of public opinion or of the will of the people depends on the equal influence of everybody or, in other words, on the equal ability to convince, and this equal ability requires equal human rights. Equal influence also requires respect for economic rights—because these rights limit the unequal influence of money on politics—and for the right to education for everybody—a right that limits the unequal influence of intellect or talent on politics.

Religion and Human Rights (1): War and Non-Violence in Buddhism, The Case of Sri Lanka

[This post is by guest-writer Line Løvåsen].

Though Buddhism is known for its insistence on non-violence and compassion, there have been some Buddhist wars in history (Thompson 1988:102). I will discuss one of these: the conflict between Buddhist Sinhalese and Hindu Tamils in Sri Lanka, which has recently come to an end with the victory of the government over the rebel Tamil Tigers.

Sri Lanka gained independence from Britain in 1948. The island has long known political and economic tensions between Buddhist Sinhalese and the minority of Hindu Tamils (Harris 2003:107). Increased Sinhalese nationalism and emerging Tamil separatism resulted in violence and war in the 1980s. Tens of thousands have since been killed in a brutal ethnic war (Seneviratne 2003:76).

The Sinhalese have justified the war and the use of violence by way of the teachings of Buddha. I will in post examine the role of religion in this conflict. By showing tensions between Buddhism and Sinhalese politics, I will argue that although the conflict is expressed and justified in religious terms, it is actually part of the state’s nationalistic agenda. I will also argue that this is a typical example of how poverty and a crisis of national identity are misused by a state in order to mobilize ethnic groups for conflict. To prove my argument, I begin by describing the Sinhalese view of the war. Then I examine general Buddhist principles against war, after which I outline Theravada Buddhism to see how the Sinhalese are able to manipulate the principles for their purposes. I then examine to what extent the Sinhalese actions fit the just war criteria. I will take into account other explanations of the conflict and I will discuss how Buddhism can contribute to a solution.

Background of the conflict in Sri Lanka

The Sinhalese, as Buddhists, were able to engage in mass killing because of the importance they attach to the Sinhalese identity. The perceived identity crisis, combined with economic problems, led to violence. Colonization and poverty first made the Sinhalese mobilize against the Christians. After decolonization, the new Sinhalese state instituted an official Sinhalese culture and language. This emerging ethnic nationalism was also directed against the Tamil minority. To understand Sinhalese ethnic pride, one has to turn to the vamsa texts of the Sri Lankan Theravada Buddhism, where you find the Sri Lankan chronicle of Mahavamsa. Mahavamsa is said to link Sinhalas to the Island in two ways: Buddha came over and “chose” the land, and Buddhist scriptures were written here. Buddhism was adopted and restored by the ancient Kings, which is the justification for the association between the nation and the religion (Cheng 2007:182-183). This association is a driving factor behind ethnic nationalism (Tambiah 1992:39). Referring to the glory of former Kings is also used as a justification for war (Bartholomeusz 2002:5-7): one of the stories in Mahavamsa describes how a former Buddhist King, Dutthagamani, defeats Elara the Tamil King in a war to unify the island (Tambiah 1992:33). Such stories from Mahavamsa, where Sri Lanka is the Buddhist Promised Land and the King/government has a duty to protect the land and the religion, can easily justify war.

As mentioned, Sinhalese Buddhist nationalism started to develop in the late nineteenth/early twentieth century as an anti-Christian movement (Tambiah 1992:5). At that time, the Sinhalese and the Tamils stood together against the British. After some time, however, the Tamils started to feel uncomfortable with the Sinhalese dominance in politics (Tambiah 1992:9-10). After independence in 1948, Sri Lanka adopted a kind of secularism, but with a preference for Buddhism. The state felt a responsibility to foster Buddhism, and Buddhism was used to justify political power. Religion went from being a personal moral practice to a cultural and political possession. The incorporation of Buddhism into the state led to a perversion of Buddhist teaching and to hegemonic and exclusionary tendencies towards non-Bugghists (Tambiah 1992:59). The inconsistencies between Sinhalese politics and religion are examined more in the next sections. I begin by outlining the Buddhist view on war and violence.

Essential Buddhist principles on war and violence

Buddhism is known for its preaching of non-violence, or ahimsa. In the words of Buddha: do not harm neither others nor yourself, as everything is interrelated, and every action has a fruit. Moreover, as Gomez (1992:43-44) puts it, non-violence is linked to the notion of no-self, and that of the love of self. The principle of no-self means that you shall put yourself in the place of others before taking an action; “see the other as yourself” (Hahn 1987). According to Harris’ interpretation, not even a duty can mitigate these principles. A warrior has in mind hatred and anger, which, according to Buddhism, is the cause of suffering (Harris 2003:95).

According to Gomez (1992:44), Buddhism leaves the question of a just war unresolved, since Buddha’s words are: violence must not be met with violence (Bartholomeusz 2002:99). So, when can ahimsa be modified? When can the principles be broken? Does Theravada Buddhism, the dominant Buddhist tradition in Sri Lanka, provide the possibility of a just war? Theravada, the oldest Buddhist tradition, is characterized as having a lack of consistency, and being sensitive to contexts and therefore easier to manipulate (Harris 2003:94).

Harris (2003:95) sees three ways to justify war in Buddhist Sri Lanka; from texts, from utilitarian arguments for the greater good, and by contesting the notion that war has negative consequences. I will now give examples of these three justifications. Concerning the texts, I already mentioned the stories from Mahavamsa which can be used to justify war. But in the Theravada canon, Buddha also uses military vocabulary, which the Sinhalese use for justification. An example of military metaphor is how Buddha mentions how a virtuous person in war is better than a coward. The question though is: does he have to be taken literally, or is he using metaphors (the warrior being the spiritual warrior) (Harris:98-99).

Regarding the utilitarian argument, Bartholomeusz (2002:26-27) discusses how the Sinhalese have developed an ethical pluralism, and choose their ethics according to context. The first of the three ethics is the deontological, which emphasizes that the act of war is wrong whatever the consequences. The second is consequentalist, which Buddha preached: an act of war is wrong because of its consequences. The third is virtue ethics: being moral means not so much following rules, but having a virtuous and moral character and intentions (Bartholomeusz 2002:119). The focus here is clearly on utilitarian and virtue ethics. War is justified because it allows the state to protect its citizens from aggression and to prevent Buddhism from being destroyed (good consequences). Moreover, it is argued by Sinhalese that if the war is a state-duty, one’s mental state will not be damaged. The suffering, which is caused by hate and anger in the mind of the warrior (see above), is diminished when this warrior is simply an agent of the state carrying out orders. And guilt is relieved if one regrets killing (Bartholomeusz 2002:58). Hence, the virtue ethic is also salvaged.

When confronted with the opposition between all this, and ahimsa, the Sinhalese explanation is that “reality does not always alow for the Buddhist ideal” (Bartholomeusz 2002:40). Sinhalese also use the argument that their Buddhist religion is superior because of its non-violent values. However, this religion must be protected, because of its superiority (Bartholomeusz 2002:75). Thus the Sinhalas use violence to erode violence, blaming others for making them violent (Bartholomeusz 2002:74).

Explanations for the war

There is a debate between social scientists whether the ethnic conflict in Sri Lanka is a contemporary phenomenon or rooted in history. Seneviratne (2003:76-77) goes through textual and syncretistic Buddhism in order to determine whether the role of Buddhism in the war is a new or old phenomenon. Textual Buddhism is the scriptures of the Buddhist doctrine. This doctrine has, of course, been subject to different interpretations throughout time, causing some contradictory views and ideas. According to Seneviratne, the texts do not contain anything that could be a factor in the conflict of Sri Lanka.

Syncretistic Buddhism is the sum of beliefs and practices in Buddhist societies. These beliefs and practices produce a culturally unique Buddhism specific to each particular society. Here Seneviratne discusses how Buddhism has adapted to so many different cultures. In Sri Lanka, and especially postcolonial Sri Lanka, as we have seen, religion became entangled with politics, producing an interpretation of Buddhism that contributed to the conflict.

Solutions

How can Buddhism contribute towards a peaceful solution and a new national consensus (assuming that the recent government victory didn’t solve the underlying problems)?

Seneviratne (2003:84-90) suggests the following elements of Buddhist doctrine: the principle of human effort (in contrast to the “divine assistance” in other religions), the denial of self, and Buddhism’s openness to all rather than to a chosen group (Buddhism is opposed to the caste system). He mentions religious tolerance in Sri Lanka as a “syncretic contribution”, giving examples of how Buddhism contains traces from Hinduism, something which will develop even further given the increased communication between the different religions on the island in recent decades. Here one should also highlight the fact that there has actually been a Buddhist tradition among Tamils. Economic development and business can also create bonds between people.

References

Appelby, R. S “Retrieving the Missing Dimension of Statecraft: Religious Faith in the Service of Peacebuilding” in Johnston (ed.) Faith-Based Diplomacy: Trumping Realpolitik. New York: Oxford University Press<
Bartholomeusz, Tessa J. (2002) “In Defense of Dharma- Just War Ideology in Buddhist Sri Lanka”, London: Routledge
Cheng, Wei-Chi (2007) “Buddhist Nuns in Taiwan and Sri Lanka: a critique of the feminist perspective” , New York: Routledge
Gomez, L.O. (1992) “Nonviolence and the Self in Early Buddhism” in Kraft, K. (ed.) Inner Peace, World Peace: Essays on Buddhism and Non-violence. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, pp. 93-48.
Hanh, T.N. (1987), “Working for Peace”, in Kotler, A. (ed) Being Peace, Berkeley, CA: Parallax Press, pp. 61-80.
Hanh, T.N. (2003), “Creating True Peace”, New York: Free Press, pp. 1-10
Harris, E.J. (2003) “Buddhism and the Justification f war: A Case Study from Sri Lanka” in Robinson, P. (ed.) Just War in Comparative Perspective. Aldershot, Hampshire: Ashgate, pp. 93-108
Hurgensmeyer, M. (1995) “Violence and the Mind of God” from “The Role of Religion Preventing Deadly Conflict”, Tantur Ecumenical Institute, Jerusalem 14 Aug 1995
Johnston, D. and Cox, B. (2003) “Faith-Based Diplomacy and Preventive Engagement” in Johnston, D. (ed.) Faith-Based Diplomacy: Trumping Realpolitik. New York: Oxford University Press
Jones, K. (1989) “Finding the Higher Third” in The Social Face of Buddhism. An Approach to Political and Social Activism, London: Wisdom Publications, pp. 86-105
Seneviratne, H.L. (2003) ”Religion and Conflict: The Case of Buddhism in Sri Lanka” in Johnston, D. (ed.) Faith-Based Diplomacy: Trumping Realpolitik. New York: Oxford University Press
Tambiah, Stanley Jeyaraja (1992), “Buddhism Betrayed? Religion, politics and violence in Sri Lanka”, Chicago; University of Chicago Press
Thompson, H.O. (1988) “Buddhism” in World Religions in War and Peace. Jefferson, Northe Carolina: McFarland & Co, pp. 91-105.