If there is one thing I hate in discussions about international human rights violations, it's that one turd who whines that we have to no right to put our Western values on other cultures.
Bam! Conversation over.
Or is it?
Enter Ann Marie Mayer and her book "Islam and Human Rights." In the text Mayer mainly focuses on Islam but her arguments have wider application.
She starts out by addressing the claim that the West has committed atrocities of its own and is therefore is in no position to judge others:
"If the hypocrisy of the foreign policy of a scholar's home government disqualified that scholar from pursuing study of other societies and cultures, most such study would be barred."
She continues:
"To believe that Islam precludes Orientals from claiming the same rights and freedoms as people in the West is to commit oneself to perpetuating the Orientalist tenet that Islam is a static, uniform system that dominates Oriental society, the coherence and continuity of which should not be imperiled by foreign intrusions such as democratic ideas and human rights."
And further:
"Assertions that governmental resistance to international human rights represents a defense of traditional culture and morality have been made by governmental spokespersons in international conferences in attempts to defend governmental records of human rights violations."
Mayer points out that among scholars and practitioners of Islam there is hardly a consensus on religious interpretation.
Here are three of my favorite quotes:
"As an Argentinean observer of the attitudes of American cultural relativists has noted, their position implies that countries that do not spring from a Western tradition may somehow be excused from complying with the international law of human rights. This elitist theory of human rights holds that human rights are good for the West but not for much of the non-Western world."
"The result is a vague warning against "ethnocentrism," and well-intentioned proposals that are deferential to tyrannical governments and insufficiently concerned with human suffering."
"Because the consequences of elitism is that certain national or ethnic groups are somehow less entitled than others to the enjoyment of human rights, the theory is fundamentally immoral and replete with racist overtones."
How I wish I had read her work when one of my classmates used the "Western values" argument to kill a conversation about female genital mutilation.
Instead I just gave him the stink eye and said, "Oh, please."
Next time Cultural Relativist. Next time.
Bam! Conversation over.
Or is it?
Enter Ann Marie Mayer and her book "Islam and Human Rights." In the text Mayer mainly focuses on Islam but her arguments have wider application.
She starts out by addressing the claim that the West has committed atrocities of its own and is therefore is in no position to judge others:
"If the hypocrisy of the foreign policy of a scholar's home government disqualified that scholar from pursuing study of other societies and cultures, most such study would be barred."
She continues:
"To believe that Islam precludes Orientals from claiming the same rights and freedoms as people in the West is to commit oneself to perpetuating the Orientalist tenet that Islam is a static, uniform system that dominates Oriental society, the coherence and continuity of which should not be imperiled by foreign intrusions such as democratic ideas and human rights."
And further:
"Assertions that governmental resistance to international human rights represents a defense of traditional culture and morality have been made by governmental spokespersons in international conferences in attempts to defend governmental records of human rights violations."
Mayer points out that among scholars and practitioners of Islam there is hardly a consensus on religious interpretation.
Here are three of my favorite quotes:
"As an Argentinean observer of the attitudes of American cultural relativists has noted, their position implies that countries that do not spring from a Western tradition may somehow be excused from complying with the international law of human rights. This elitist theory of human rights holds that human rights are good for the West but not for much of the non-Western world."
"The result is a vague warning against "ethnocentrism," and well-intentioned proposals that are deferential to tyrannical governments and insufficiently concerned with human suffering."
"Because the consequences of elitism is that certain national or ethnic groups are somehow less entitled than others to the enjoyment of human rights, the theory is fundamentally immoral and replete with racist overtones."
How I wish I had read her work when one of my classmates used the "Western values" argument to kill a conversation about female genital mutilation.
Instead I just gave him the stink eye and said, "Oh, please."
Next time Cultural Relativist. Next time.
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