Monday, February 06, 2006

 

Political Philosophy and Cartooning

The recent controversy over the publishing of cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten and then subsequently others in France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain and Switzerland (in an apparent gesture of solidarity) raises some legal and philosophical questions.

The obvious legal issues relate to the extent to which the right to freedom of expression (in this case of the newspapers publishing the cartoon) is limited by the right to dignity and religious freedom implied by the assumption of multiculturalism in secular democratic societies usually in the West, but also in a modified form in countries like India. Media writers have, as might be expected, assumed both reasonable as well as unashamedly prejudiced positions on the matter. While the specific judgements about the application of the debate on the conflict between these two rights to the present controversy depend on the particular socio-cultural contexts in each of the countries mentioned above, the more universalistic 'lessons' emerging from this process are in the realm of political philosophy.

As a PhD candidate in law at Oxford University argued recently, the resolution of all such debates is simple if one has a strong moral position on the set of values that one believes in. Thus in this situation, if one believed strongly in classical liberal values in a Kantian sense, the right to freedom of expression would trump the right to religious freedom and dignity (perhaps). To those who hesitate to take such a strong moral position on their chosen value set, the philosophical difficulties begin to accumulate at this point.

Consider the case of Muslim Personal Law in India. If one supports the right of Muslims to not have newspapers blaspheme and (in their view possibly) ridicule what they consider sacred in their religion, it is likely that one will support the existence of a separate legal sub-system for a minority on the grounds that a Uniform Civil Code, rapidly imposed from above with no concern for evolving value systems, would violate the right to religious freedom by such minority groups (Incidentally, there are similar concessions available within Indian law to other minorities such as Christians).

However, this is an ostensibly problematic stance because, as the most obvious critique of this multiculturalist argument would suggest, these rights bestowed upon the minority group as a whole may lead to the violation of the other rights by minorities within the minority. For example it could be argued that bigamy and the inheritance and alimony laws in Muslim Personal Law potentially infringe the rights of Muslim women to dignity and freedom from exploitation (A noteworthy but slightly tangential statistic at this juncture- there are more cases of bigamy reported among Hindus than Muslims in India). Thus, trapped between the Scylla of multiculturalism and the Charybdis of universalistic human rights (in this case for Muslim women), the hesitant philosopher falls to his moral doom. Or does he?

The answer entails a re-examination of why it may be necessary at all to hold a strong moral position in a well defined set of values, such as liberal values, or contrarily under what conditions this neccessity could be reconciled with a more context-sensitive position. Kant has argued that the reason why a strong belief in a set of values is necessary is because such belief is based on one's own will. He goes on to argue that it is only one's own will, driven by rationality, that is rooted in truth, and so nothing other than one's will, for example the beliefs of others or empirical outcomes, can provide as true a moral position.

However, if all human beings shared the same rationality or rational process then how could one explain the vast differences in moral and even cultural (widely accepted morality) conditions that can be observed across different regions of the world? The answer according to some scholars lies even in the Kantian view that, although it is only will that permits the truest moral positions, rationality, which determines the functioning of will, varies depending on context/circumstances. Thus, if I grew up in a society of gorillas rather than a society of humans, then my rationality and thus will and true moral position would vary accordingly. So, could I not extrapolate to argue that if I grew up in India, where both multiculturalism as well as liberal values were permitted as a matter of public policy and/or law, but yet there was a constant dialogue around both values, my will leads me to the true belief in such a process of dialogue, contestation and dissent. Thus, it is indeed possible to reconcile 'contextual morality' with autonomous (not heteronomous) will.

In the burning issue of the cartoon controversy and the position of Islam and Muslims in different countries, it is thus in keeping with philosophical consistency to argue that:

1. It is wrong for Jyllands-Posten and others to have published the needlessly inflammatory and utterly non-newsy cartoon. This is especially true considering their blatantly biased take on 'freedom of expression'

2. The rights of Muslims in India to a separate personal legal code are acceptable under minority protection commitments of the State.

3. The rights of Muslim women to freedom from exploitation must be debated and pushed forward in a national dialogue with both Muslim and non-Muslim leaders, however keeping in mind the specific circumstances of the women's rights in each country and avoiding forceful reform from above and any other such sweeping moves that curtail minority rights.

The difference between a society where dialogue and dissent are prioritized over a universalistic imposition of liberal values and one where they are not, is the difference between countries like India and the USA. Only time will tell which one's position in the global political economy is more humane, considered and thus sustainable.

This page is powered by Blogger. Isn't yours?

Subscribe to Posts [Atom]