Culture vital in the question of rights and wrongs in Asia

Culture vital in the question of rights and wrongs in Asia

Stephanie Lawson comments on cultural rights in the context of
the debate on Asian values.

SINGAPORE: Human rights debates in the Asia-Pacific region
have long been dominated by perceptions of essential differences
between "Asia" and the "West", especially in relation to the
basic cultural values through which various approaches to human
rights are determined.

In opposition to the assumed value of individualism, which is
seen as the basis for civil and political rights, it is
commonplace to hear arguments from political leaders in the
region in support of the collective values reflected in ideas
about economic, social and cultural rights.

Indeed, the latter are very often presented as an indivisible
cluster of human rights, separate from and superior to civil and
political rights.

This is at odds with the official position adopted by most
political leaders around the world which converges on acceptance
of the universality and indivisibility of all human rights -
including civil, political, economic, social and cultural.

It is clear, however, that such agreement is superficial and
that some of the most important protagonists give priority to one
or other set of rights. In support of their respective positions,
participants in the debate have canvassed an enormous range of
philosophical, moral and practical issues as well as the role of
cultural traditions in forming personal and collective values.

What has been missing from much of this debate, and indeed
what has been largely obscured by the debate itself, is any real
consideration of what is meant by "economic, social and cultural
rights" - at least beyond basic economic development imperatives.
And since the word "culture" has so often been invoked in the
debate, it deserves special attention.

There are many different meanings and nuances evoked by the
word "culture", and a newspaper article would have insufficient
space even to begin an adequate discussion of all of these.

However, there are some important, basic questions that can at
least be raised, especially in the context of the "Asian values
debate" and in light of some of the problems generated by
economic development - which has presumably been carried out in
the name of economic, social and cultural rights.

These questions concern: whose culture, whose rights and,
especially, whose cultural rights? Such questions hardly exhaust
the issue of culture in relation to human rights and development,
but they do alert us to some of the most basic problems.

The first two questions have particular relevance to the
position and interests of contemporary political elites. For
there is no doubt that many of the general arguments put forward
about the nature of "Asian culture" by these elites in fact
support their authoritative positions at the top of the state
hierarchy.

The question of "cultural rights" is certainly related to
these issues, but here one must also take account of efforts to
spell out what these rights might actually mean at the level of
everyday life.

Among the cultural rights highlighted in the Algiers
Declaration, and supported by Unesco, are the rights of minority
peoples. These communities are, in fact, often defined as a
minority by virtue of a cultural heritage which is different from
that of other larger groups around them.

The rhetoric of the "Asian values" debate, however, generally
subordinates the legitimate interests of such groups to a wider,
collective "national interest" based on that very Western
construct - the modern nation-state.

But the question of whose "cultural rights" are at stake in
the pursuit of rapid economic development as a matter of national
interest has become more than just a rhetorical issue for many
hundreds of local communities throughout the Asia-Pacific region
from India to Taiwan and Japan and from New Zealand through to
Central Asia.

Among these communities are the Orang Asli of Malaysia whose
members are, of course, culturally distinct from the majority of
Malays as well as from other significant ethnic communities in
the country.

Caught up in the rush to development, communities such as
these often have few if any "rights" when it comes to the
destruction of their homes, villages and farmlands - and then,
inevitably, forced relocation to an inferior site where they have
to start all over again, often with grossly inadequate
compensation for what they have lost.

As suggested above, all of this has usually been justified by
reference to the importance of economic development projects and
the overarching "national interest".

However, such relocations, which can be nothing short of
devastating for the integrity (cultural or otherwise) of these
communities, have sometimes been carried out to make way for
nothing more than yet another golf course.

Even where a relocation has been for some other more worthy
development objective, the question of the specific cultural
rights of the local communities, not to mention their own more
general economic and social rights, have rarely been considered
as having any great importance in the wider scheme of things.

Violations of the rights of small cultural communities by
other powerful groups is nothing new in human history. Neither
has it been confined to the developing countries of Southeast
Asia - as any Australian aborigine or native American would be
quick to point out.

Yet the constant violations that we see throughout the region
sit so oddly with all the rhetoric about the importance of the
cultural aspects of human rights in the "Asian values" debate
that it is certainly worth highlighting.

Dr. Stephanie Lawson was in ISEAS, Singapore in September this
year as a Visiting Fellow from the Australian National
University. From Jan 1, 1998, she will be Professor of
International Relations (Asia-Pacific) at the University of East
Anglia, Norwich, United Kingdom.