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.