Rights: Asia's shortcomings dramatized

Rights: Asia's shortcomings dramatized

Chandra Muzaffar, director of the human rights organization
Just World Trust, in this exclusive Inter Press Service column
uses Malaysia as an example of an Asian nation that has had its
human rights shortcomings dramatized in the international arena,
instead of its exemplary record in accommodating the many
religious differences within its population.

PENANG, Malaysia (IPS): A country's commitment to religious
tolerance and freedom must be measured by both its ability to
protect the religious sensitivities of its minorities and its
willingness to deal firmly with religious extremism.

It is significant to note the response of the Penang Education
Department and the State Minister of Education responded to
allegations that certain school principals were barring Hindu
girls from wearing the pottu, the red mark worn by Hindus on
their foreheads. The authorities immediately came out on the side
of the pupils.

By their action, the Malaysian authorities not only asserted
that a religious symbol with meaning for a particular community
would be protected, but also emphasized that different religious
identities are part and parcel of the mosaic of Malaysian society
-- of which 53 percent is Moslem, 19 percent is Buddhist, and the
rest is Taoist, Hindu, or Christian.

Contrast this with the rule introduced by the French
government which prohibits Moslem schoolgirls from wearing the
headscarf that most Moslems regard as an important element of
religious attire.

At the same time, however, craftily drafted regulation allows
girls from France's majority Christian community to wear their
religious symbols to school.

This covert discrimination against the Moslem minority in
France fits into a pattern of systematic harassment and
persecution of this community which has intensified in recent
months. Yet France is eulogized by liberals in both the West and
the East as one of the staunchest defenders of human rights in
the world.

Britain, another European country which liberals regard as a
marvelous inspiration for human rights and democratic rule, once
forced one of its loyal Sikhs citizens to fight a long legal
battle in order to keep his turban -- one of the articles of his
faith -- while in the service of a public institution in London.

Minority Sikhs working in certain public agencies in Canada,
which also perceives itself as an outstanding advocate of human
rights, have also had to defend their right to keep their turban
in the face of chauvinistic, discriminatory bureaucracies.

In Malaysia, on the other hand, both the government and the
people have always respected the rights of Sikh, (even though
they are members of one of the smallest religious minorities in
the country) to wear a turban whatever the public institution
they may be serving and whatever the public activity they may be
performing.

It would be wrong, of course, to conclude that Sikhs or other
religious minorities in Malaysia do not have some grievances. But
it is undeniable that in its concern for religious sensitivities,
and in its accommodation of, and respect for, different
religions, Malaysia has a distinguished record which few other
multi-religious societies can match.

Malaysia authorities have often acted with unflinching
firmness against religious extremists within the majority
community. In August 1978 and May 1979, for instance, the
Malaysian government acted swiftly against Moslem zealots who
demolished idols in Hindu temples.

There is no doubt that the uncompromising response of the
state to religious fanaticism has helped to keep inter-religious
ties on an even keel and to maintain political stability.

It is rarely noted that very few governments are prepared to
move vigorously against extremist tendencies, especially within
the majority community. The Indian government, for example, has
so far failed to take decisive action against rabid, bigoted
elements within the majority Hindu community who were directly
and indirectly responsible for the demolition of an illustrious
mosque revered by the Moslem in India.

Some of the majority community's leading intellectuals have
adopted principled positions on ensuring justice for the Moslem
minority in India. But its dominant political elite, mainly
because of electoral considerations, have continued to appease
those forces seeking to distort the teachings of Hinduism for
their own interests.

As a result, the Moslem minority feels threatened, even
besieged, and has begun to develop a persecution psychology -- in
spite of what India's secular constitution says about human
rights and cultural freedom.

In Pakistan, another Asian country that is predominantly
Moslem, the government has also been giving in to ultra-
conservative religious elements whose demands have adversely
affected both women's rights and the general populace's freedom
of conscience and expression.

While curbing religious extremism within the majority
community is a fundamental prerequisite for the enjoyment of
certain types of human rights, there is very little appreciation
of the importance of such action among human rights activists in
the West.

If human rights activists in the West have no empathy for
concerns such as the relationship between religious extremism and
human rights or religious sensitivities and human rights, one
cannot expect their counterparts in the East to show any
understanding of these issues.

Indeed, human rights activists as a whole have seldom
highlighted the achievements of non-Western, particularly Asian,
societies in protecting human rights and human dignity. The
tendency always has been to dramatize human rights shortcomings
within Asian societies.

While one should endorse any endeavor to expose gross
violations of human rights in our part of the world, it is
incumbent upon human rights activists to adopt a balanced
approach, weighing our minuses against our pluses in the sphere
of human rights.

A balance approach would also require a willingness to lay
bare the innumerable weaknesses in the concept and practice of
human rights in the West -- instead of the prevalent attitude
among many human rights activists of glorifying Western rights
and accomplishments in an unthinking, uncritical manner.