GROUP SPECIFIC RIGHTS – A NON-ESSENTIALIST APPROACH

Plamen Makariev

 Sofia University, Bulgaria

Throughout the recent years the traditional dichotomy “individual rights – collective rights” has been challenged by the idea of another kind: group-specific (or, in a different terminology – group-differentiated) rights[1]. By this are meant rights, which are more culturally relevant than the universal, fundamental human rights, but still, unlike collective rights, they are ascribed to individuals and not communities. In the international documents they are referred to by the elegant formula “individual rights, which are exercised jointly with the other members of the respective community”.

What is most characteristic for group-specific rights is that they guarantee conditions for the realization, maintaining and development of minority cultural identities. The claims for such rights follow the logic of recognizing the value of the cultural identity of national, ethnic and religious minorities – in the sense of the well known “politics of recognition”[2]. The latter presupposes a dialogical model of cultural identity. Without recognition, in the conditions of a humiliating or condescending attitude of the “Others”, it is impossible to build or maintain a positive self-consciousness, self-understanding, in other words – to achieve the self-confidence and self-respect, which are necessary for a proper cultural being.

It is remarkable that in Ch. Taylor’s famous article[3] the value of cultural identity is inferred from the value of the individual one, i. e. the value of culture as such is not taken as an “independent variable”. Consequently, the recognition of cultural identity in that sense does not lead us to respecting minority rights as collective, but rather as group-specific ones. However, this does not mean that Taylor’s methodology of dealing with minority cultures is immune against the essentialization of cultural differences.

This term has become popular as denoting the treatment of some social phenomena as manifestations of “hard” essences – not subject to historical changes, not intermingling with other social realities. From this point of view cultural identities are “discrete, frozen in time, impervious to external influences, homogeneous and without internal dissent”[4]. (Modood 1998 : 378) In our case, if the various cultural traits, are considered in an essentialist way, we should direct our policies so as to transcend these “manifestations” of the one and only “true”, e. g. Turkishness, or “true” Gypsiness and try to establish harmonious relations with the latter, i. e. with the minority cultures as “essences”, and not with the “phenomena” that “mask” them. This would mean to ignore the unique configurations of cultural characteristics, to put the rich variety of cultural life under common denominators, to approach in the same way very different concrete populations.

The “temptation” to conceive identity in an essentialist way manifests itself when we try to answer the question: what is the value of identity in principle, i. e. not whether it deserves recognition in this or that case (which is Ch. Taylor’s issue), but why we consider it important at all. Usually the answer is that to have an identity of your own means to live in an authentic way, to be true to yourself[5]. Or – to have a secure belonging to some social whole, being situated in a network of ties of solidarity with other human beings. Or – to overcome your mortality by being linked to something, which exists from immemorial times, and continues to exist into the indefinite future. Or – your actions to have a meaning which transcends the accomplishment of your individual interests, being part of a continuous, collective effort to make and remake your culture.[6] All these arguments refer to ultimate values, from which the value of cultural identity is derived. The latter is valuable as a means of their attainment.

It seems somehow natural, that in order to fulfill this “mission” identity should be nothing else, but sameness. It seems that only by enduring the influences and interventions coming from without, i. e. from alien factors, the cultural entity can remain true to itself, and eo ipso provide meaning to the individual lives of the human beings, who belong to it. However, precisely this approach brings us to the essentialist fallacy. If we insist on the “purity” of identity, this implies isolation from external “input” and resistance to novelty. As historical experience clearly shows, such an identity – isolationist and conservative – has rather poor prospects of survival. In other words, precisely the strategy of preserving identity in its original state dooms it to decline. This strategy is counterproductive. Besides, it is associated with attempts to overcome the inner diversity of culture, i. e. to base social activity on stereotypes. It is prone also to perpetuating cultural traits, which might have an obviously negative impact on the lives of the individuals belonging to the given culture. If , e. g. the traditional mores of a community play an indisputably important role in its life, i. e. they can not be considered as a “phenomenon”, but seem to be part of this culture’s “essence”, then they should be proclaimed inviolable to reform. Even if they are a source of tensions and conflicts within the community and between it and its social environment. And last, but not least, the essentialist view of identity ignores well known facts, which are an evidence of the “constructed” character of many cultural entities, or interprets these facts as cases of violation and falsification of identity.

If we come back from the overtly philosophical issue of identity to the more politically relevant issue of rights, we should take into account another important factor, which makes even more difficult to justify claims for group-specific rights by referring to an essentialist notion of cultural identity. The rights that the people, belonging to a cultural minority really need, can not be defined only on the basis of their identity in its culturally “pure” form. These rights have to correspond also to specific dispositions and sensitivities of the people in question, which are conditioned by contingent historical facts (e. g. whether there is a record of violence in the history of the relationships with the majority, and if yes – to what extent; or, as another factor, the demographic ratio between the minority and the majority, resp. other minorities – e. g. whether we are dealing with a small minority among several others, or with a single large minority; or, as a third example, the extent to which the minority in question is integrated in society, which also depends largely on historical circumstances, etc.). From an essentialist point of view all these idiosyncrasies should count as phenomena, i. e. as not belonging to the essence of the community’s identity. In reality, however, as elements of the minority’s collective memory, and of the consciousness of its members, they matter a lot for the justification of claims for group-specific rights.

Considerations of this kind motivate attempts in recent political philosophy to develop a weaker version of the identity-concept, amounting to replacing the very concept of identity by a related one, which can serve as a standard for attaining in social life the ultimate values, mentioned above, without providing ground for essentialist interpretations. For instance, W. Sweet proposes to replace “cultural identity” by “cultural integrity” and consequently – “sameness” by “consistency”.[7] If we take into account that “consistency” implies among others coherence with the cultural community’s own past, we’ll see an important commonality between “integrity” and “identity”. The difference is, however, that unlike “identity”, “integrity” allows for consistency also with the community’s environment, including openness to novelty. The argumentation in W. Sweet’s article demonstrates that “cultural integrity” can satisfy the requirement to provide for the attaining of values like authenticity, solidarity and commitment to a cause, which transcends one’s individual being. It does so, however, not at the expense of engaging with an isolationist and conservative cultural strategy.

Basing group-specific rights upon a more flexible vision of culture certainly helps to avoid the essentialist fallacy, but raises new problems. The very notion of consistency is a rather slippery ground for minority policy. What criteria do we have for consistency, and who should decide in which case we have consistency between cultural traits , and in which – not. Let us take an example from the recent history of minority issues in Bulgaria.

Until several decades ago there were three Islamic minority populations in Bulgaria, which had, consequently, Muslim names: ethnic Turks, Pomaks (islamized Bulgarians) and a part of the Roma (Gypsies). The communist regime, striving towards ethnic homogeneity of the population, tried in different campaigns to replace these names by Bulgarian (mostly of Slavonic origin) ones. Leaving aside all other interesting aspects of these events, let us consider the following question: in which case was this change consistent with the existing cultural traits of each of these minorities, and in which – not. In reality most of the Muslim Roma accepted this “novelty” rather easily – and now their descendants laugh at the very thought that their grandfathers and grandmothers bore names like Hassan and Aysha. Some of the Pomaks welcomed the change, but the larger part did not, and restored their Muslim names at first instance, after the fall of the regime. With little exceptions, the Turks resisted the intervention in their private lives vigorously, in many cases the authorities had to use force, and after dramatic events the names were formally changed, but this change was reversed almost universally after 1989.

Now, what can we say about cultural integrity and consistency in these three cases? The simplest comment would be that the transition from Muslim to Bulgarian names was almost completely consistent with Roma culture, was little less so with Pomak culture, and was entirely inconsistent with ethnic Turkish culture. However, someone might say that this change was equally inconsistent with all three cultures, but cultural integrity was weaker in the Roma case (and was easily reconstructed into a new one, at the expense of violating its consistency with its past), it was stronger in the Pomak community, and strongest in the Turkish one. And logically, as a third alternative, it might also be claimed that the replacing of the Muslim names was fully consistent with all these cultures, but the Roma people were most open to novelty, the Turks were too pigheaded (had false consciousness), or in other words, had a wrong, essentialist view of their culture, and the Pomaks were somehow in-between.

So, how can we judge whether a given novelty would fit into the integrity of the respective culture, or would disrupt it? If instead of integrity we value identity as sameness, there would be no such problem. It is obvious which change would alter substantially the character of a culture, and which not. In order to preserve the identity, only insignificant changes can be “allowed”. By replacing “identity” with “integrity” we avoid this essentialist conservatism, but consequently we confront the problem of deciding what novelty is consistent with a given culture and what – not. Taking into account the infinite variety of culture, it is not realistic to expect that general, “objective” criteria of consistency can be formulated. My suggestion in this respect is that the decision should be taken in each concrete case by the people, belonging to the community in question, i. e. by the persons to be affected by the change.

In terms of minority group-specific rights, this would mean that the claims for such rights should not be justified in the light of universal standards, accepted as automatically valid for the concrete cases in the respective countries. If it were so, we would encounter endless problems (of the kind that we just described) concerning cultural integrity. Instead, the claims should be formulated ad hoc by the minority in question.

Of course, this solution raises in its turn another sort of problems. What does it mean that the people affected should decide themselves what group-specific (culture-related) rights they need. Is it only a matter of their specific sensitivity, of their collective psyche – a matter of their “taste”? Isn’t such an approach a too arbitrary and subjectivist one. And isn’t it possible that some representatives of the minority (e. g. belonging to some kind of community leadership, or to the community’s intellectual elite) usurp the role of its speakers and formulate claims for rights on its behalf. What can guarantee that the claims of this sort are an authentic expression of the attitudes of the minority’s members. Can such an expression be realized via public opinion polls, or by voting?

I think that the authenticity that is needed in this respect should not be guaranteed by arrangements of political nature – e. g. by organizing some forms of will-expression in “vertical” dimension, i. e. mediated by elected or appointed representatives, leaderships, etc. The very idea of group-specific rights is in contrast with the tendency to mediate the relations between the ordinary community members and society as a whole by some kind of leadership.

A possible “mechanism” of rational will formation and expression, “immune” against manipulations, is public deliberation. The theories of deliberative democracy represent this mode of decision making as a rational discussion among free and equal citizens, which yields solutions that are in the interest of all people affected. Actually, the discussion has the form of exchange of reasons, which aim to justify one or another alternative of regulating social relations as serving best the general interest.[8] The compelling “force” in this process of decision making is not the will of the majority (as in the traditional democratic procedure), nor the will of the persons, who happen to have the better leverage of whatsoever sort to influence the other participants in the decision making (as is the case in the ordinary bargaining), but the “force of the better argument”. This means that it should be enough to demonstrate rationally that a given solution suits best the general interest, to compel everyone to accept it, at least in public.

Of course, public deliberation can serve minority communities as a means of claims making only in a social environment in which this kind of decision making is universally accepted. This presupposes a mature public sphere and advanced democracy in general. In such conditions, the deliberation within the minority communities would have the status of functioning of sub-publics.

The differentiation of the public sphere into an interaction among a plurality of sub-publics is a theme, which has been under consideration for some time. Authors, who criticise deliberative democracy for being unfair to underprivileged (in terms of gender, race or class inequality) groups in society, regard the sub- (or even counter-) publics as a possible means of developing alternative modes of argumentation[9]. In a very different vein other authors present views about the capacity of culturally “internal discourse”, in combination with cross-cultural dialogue, to legitimate transcultural norms, such as e.g. universal human rights[10].

In my interpretation, a cultural community can function as a sub-public, which formulates claims for group-specific rights in a rational way, always open for novelty (including modification of old claims), and inclusive for the positions of all people affected. The rational consensus among the latter can differentiate between those social changes which are consistent with the minority’s culture, and those which are not. Equipped with such protective “mechanisms”, minority communities can get involved in processes of cultural development and mutual enrichment between cultures without risk for their cultural integrity. In such a way the values of authenticity, solidarity and the like can be respected in the minority-majority relations, without resorting to an orthodox, essentialist “identity politics”.

LITERATURE

Abdullahi Ahmed An-Naim, Toward a Cross-Cultural Approach to Defining International Standards of Human Rights, In: Abdullahi Ahmed An-Naim (ed.), Human Rights in Cross-Cultural Perspectives. A Quest for Consensus, University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia, 1992

Benhabib, Seyla, Toward a Deliberative Model of Democratic Legitimacy, In: Benhabib, S. (ed.) Democracy and Difference. Contesting the Boundaries of the Political, Princeton University Press, Princeton, N. J. 1996

Fraser, Nancy, "Toward a Discourse Ethic of Solidarity," Praxis International 5/1986

Gutmann, Amy, (ed.) Multiculturalism. Examining the Politics of Recognition, Princeton University Press, Princeton, 1994

Gutmann, Amy, Thompson, Dennis, Why Deliberative Democracy is Different, Social Philosophy and Policy, 17/2000 (1)

Kymlicka, Will, Multicultural Citizenship, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1995

Modood, Tariq, Anti-Essentialism. Multiculturalism and the Recognition of Religious Groups, The Journal of Political Philosophy, Vol. 6, No4 1998

Sweet, W. Universal Human Rights and Cultural Integrity, In: Collected Papers of the International Conference on Human Rights and Dialogue of Civilisations, Mofid University Publication Institute, Qom, 2001

Taylor, Charles, The Politics of Recognition, In: Gutmann, Amy, (ed.) Multiculturalism. Examining the Politics of Recognition, Princeton University Press, Princeton, 1994