Quote of the Week

"...Those of you saying our politicians spend money like drunken sailors need to apologize to drunken sailors....Drunken sailors spend their own money."

-- Anonymous online comment on a news story about the penchant of politicians to be profligate with public funds.

Quote of the Week

1/25/2012 04:05:00 PM politics, reflections

The Moral Verdict of History

It was Rev. Martin Luther King who stated: “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.” There can be no truer statement.

Very often, the positions we take as individuals and society are shaped by today’s realities and exigencies. Our decisions are concerned with the here and now. We are less concerned about the verdict of history. We rarely ask: How will future generations judge today’s expedient decisions? Will our decisions stand the “moral test of time?”

The story of Richard and Mildred Loving is an example of why, as a society, we must consider the verdict of history in the decisions we make today.

Richard and Mildred Loving, an interracial couple, were arrested in their bedroom a few days after their marriage in 1958 for violating Virginia’s “Racial Integrity Act,” a state law banning marriages between white and non-white persons. At the time, the couple did not know that they were breaking any law. When the group of arresting police officers invaded their bedroom, the couple showed them their marriage certificate from another state, hoping that it would be a defence. It became the evidence the police needed for a criminal charge.

Richard and Mildred Loving were sentenced to one year in prison and banished from the state of Virginia for 25 years. Their legal appeal against this verdict ultimately reached the US Supreme Court which declared Virginia’s anti-miscegenation law unconstitutional. The landmark case of Loving v. Virginia marked a turning point in the civil rights movement in the United States. This was not just a legal verdict, it was a moral verdict. Fifty years later, the verdict of history is also clear. The authorities in Virginia were on the wrong side of history.

The positions that we take today on social and political issues will also be judged by future generations. Knowing this, such positions should be informed not only by the contingencies and exigencies of today but also by the key question: What will the verdict of history be? We cannot always be sure of the answer, but we must never cease to ask this question.

The Moral Verdict of History

1/21/2012 10:45:00 PM history, human rights

Cultural Relativism and Human Rights: Are human rights only in the eyes of the beholder?

I am teaching an undergraduate course on "Human Rights" this term and last week the topic was "Universalism vs. Cultural Relativism." As always, it was interesting to get the students' perspective on a debate that has long dominated human rights scholarship.

I began with a survey of the class of about 60 students. “How many of you here think human rights are universal?” Only 6 hands went up. “How many think that human rights are culturally relative?” 40 hands went up? “How many cannot make up their minds about this?” About 10 hands went up. Verdict: Most of my students think that human rights, despite the claim to universality, are in fact not universal. It’s a conclusion that proponents of human rights will find rather disheartening

But then, I tweaked the question a bit. “How many of you think human rights OUGHT to be universal?” 42 hands went up. “How may think human rights ought not to be universal?” Only 6 hands went up? Verdict: Although these students thought that the contemporary international human rights regime/movement is far from being universal, they nevertheless saw in it the promise and ideal of universalism. This offers some consolation. But whether this Universalist utopia can ever really be attained was the subject of another debate.

After the class, one of the students sent me the cartoon above. For him, it captured humorously but quite eloquently, the unending debate over the universality and cultural relativism of human rights.

Cultural Relativism and Human Rights: Are human rights only in the eyes of the beholder?

1/19/2012 01:46:00 PM education, human rights

“Genocide” and the politics of labeling

What qualifies to be called “Genocide”? These days, it depends on who you ask. Although the UN Genocide Convention is very clear on what constitutes genocide, controversies abound. Not every mass killing amounts to genocide and in fact, the term did not even exist before 1944 when Raphael Lemkin used it to describe Nazi policies of systematic mass murder of European Jews. Before then, Winston Churchill simply called it “a crime without a name.”

The United Nations Genocide Convention of 1948 which established “genocide” as an international crime defines genocide specifically in terms of acts committed with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a “national, ethnical, racial or religious group.” For some strange reasons, “political groups” are omitted. So, theoretically, all the members of an opposition political party in a country can be massacred by a ruling regime and it still would not amount to genocide.

“Genocide” and the politics of labeling

1/15/2012 11:04:00 PM

Quote of the Week

"I've worked in an economy that rewards someone who saves the lives of others on a battlefield with a medal, rewards a great teacher with thank-you notes from parents, but rewards those who can detect the mispricing of securities with sums reaching into the billions." – Warren Buffett

Quote of the Week

1/15/2012 06:09:00 PM