113855601 Human Rights and Asian Values

7/28/2019 113855601 Human Rights and Asian Values

1/9

And those principles luive an afterlifein Teiiima Bell's work, it only as an in-stinctive recoil from the toss-of-the-dicechanciness that an immersion in pain-terly landscape can, foi" belter ov lorworse. ini|)ly.Temma Hell does not see insuibiliiyand confusion as part of the modernexpei ieTice, but her rejection is personaland idiosyncratic, and it has nothing lo

do with the imperious chill of a reac-

tionary gesuire. She keeps so close to theimmediacy of the act of painting that weexperience things right along with her.Her dogs, her poultry, her vine-coveredfence and ber arching tree seem castiallvdescribed, but they liave a weight, aforce. Beir.s exhibilion this spring, likemost of her others, included cozy inte-rior scenes, with children reading booksand cats sitting on tables heaped withptimpkins and squash. The \'ariet)'of her

interests and the lightness of her touchcould have led some people to miss theincisiveness of her thought. In the land-scapes, certainly, the slightest shil'i intone or touch conveys a topographicalsensitivity that bears ctimparison to Rui.s-dael and (^lurbet. Bell gives a contem-porary exuberance to an older kind otobjectivity. She reclaims the story-tellingrichness of landscape for our genera-tion. This is a major achievement.

W h a t L e e K u a n Y e w a n d L i P e n g d o n ' t u n d e r s t a n d a b o u t A s i a .

H u m a n R i g h t s a n d A s ia n V a l u e sB Y AMARTYA SEN

I n 177(i. just when theDeclai ation of Independencewas being adopted in thiscotmtry, Thomas Paine com-|>iained. in Common Sense, that Asia bad"long expelled" freedom. In this lament,i*aine saw Asia in company with muchof the rest of the world (America, belioped, would be different): "Freedomliatb been htmied roiuid die globe. Asiaand Africa have long expelled her. Eur-ope regards her as a stranger and Eng-land hath given her warning to depart."Foi " Paine, political Ireedoin and democ-I'acy were valuable anywhere, thoughthey were being violated nearly every-where.

The violation of freedom and democ-racy in different parts oi the world con-linucs today, if not as comprehensively asin Paine's time. Ihere is a difference,ihotigh. A new class of aiginiiciits haveemerged that deny the tniiversal impor-tance of these freedoms. The most pro-[ninent of these contentions is the claimthat Asian values do not regard freedomto be important in the way that it is re-garded in the West. Given tbis differencein value systemstbe argmnent rimsAsia must be faithfnl to its own system ofphilosophical and |)olitical priorities.

(liiltural dillerences and valtie differ-ences between Asia and the West wereA.M.\tirvA SF.N is Lamont University Pro-fessor and Professor of Economics andPhilosophy at Harvard L'niversitv.

An earlier vei'sion of this essay wasgiven as the Morgentliaii Memorial Lec-ttne at tlie Carnegie Council (jn Ethicsand International .Affairs on May 1. 1997.Ill }9'>7Oimrgie Cminnlim Elhic itiid hiliTiiiilninalAfjiiir\

Stressed by several official delegations atthe World Conference on Human Rightsin Vienna in 1993. The foreign ministerof Singapoie warned that "universal re-cognition of the ideal of human rightscan be harmful if tiniversalism is used todeny or mask the reality of diversity."The Chinese delegation played a leadingrole hi emphasizing the regional differ-ences, and in making sure that the pre-scriptive framework adopted in the dec-larations made room for regional diver-sity. The Chinese foreign minister evenput on record the proposition, appar-ently applicable in C.liina and elsewbere,that "Individtials must put the states'rights before their own."

I want to examine the thesis thatAsian values are less supportive of free-dom and more concerned with orderand discipline, and that tlie claims ofhuman rights in the areas of political andcivil liberties, therefore, aie less relevantand less appropriate in .Vsia tban inthe West. The defense of authoritarian-ism in Asia on the grotmds of the specialnature of/Vsian values calls for historicalscrutiny, to which I shall presently turn.But there is also a different justificationof authoritarian governance in Asia thathas received attention recently. It ar-gues for authoritarian governance in tiieinterest of economic development. EeeKuan Vew, the Ibrmer prime minister ofSingapore and a great champion of theidea of "Asian values," has defended ati-thoritarian arrangements on the groundof their alleged effectiveness in promot-ing economic success.

Does aiuhoritarianism really work sowell? It is certainly trtie that some rela-lisely authoritarian states (.such as SouthKorea, Lee's Singapore, and post-rcibrmChina) have had faster lates of eco-

nomic growth than many less authoritar-ian ones (such as India, C^osta Rica orJamaica). But the "Lee hypothesis" isbased on very selective and limited in-formation, rather than on any generalstatistical testing over the wide-tangingdata that are available. We cannot reallytake the high economic growth of Cbinaor South Korea in ,\sia as "proof posi-tive" that authoritarianism does better inpromoting economic growthany moretban we can draw tbe opposite conclu-sion on the basis of the fact that Bot-swana, tbe fastest-growing African coun-try (and one of the fastest growing coim-tries in the world), has been a oasis ofdemocracy in tbat unhappy continent.Much depends on the precise circum-stances.

There is little general evidence, in fact,that authoi'itarian governance and thestippression of political and civil rightsare really beneficial in encouraging eco-nomic development. The statistical pic-ture is much more complicated. System-atic empirical studies give no real sup-port to the claim that there is a generalconflitt bet\veen political ligbtsand eco-nomic perfoi niances. Hie directionallinkage seems to depend on many othercircmiistances, and while some statisticalinvestigations note a weakly negative re-Kition, others find a strongly positive one.On balance, the hypotliesis that there isno relation between freedom and pros-perity in either direction is bard to reject.Since political liberty has a significanceof its own, the case for it remains un-tarnished.

There is also a more basic issue ofresearch methodology. We nitist notonly look at statistical connections, wemust examine also the causal processesthat are involved in economic growth


2/9

and development. The economic poli-cies and circumstances that led to thesuccess of cast Asian economies are bynow reasonably well understood. Wiiiledifferent empirical studies have variedin emphasis, there is by now a fairlyagreed-upon list of "helpful policies,"and they include openness to competi-tion, the use of international markets, ahigh level of literacy and educ ation, suc-cessful land reforms, and ptiblic pro-vision of incentives for investment, ex-porting, and industriali7aUon. Tliere isnothinj^ whatsoever to indicate that anyof these policies is inconsistent withgreater democracy, that any one of themhad to be sustained by the elementsof authoritarianism that happened tobe present in South Korea or Singaporeor C-hina. The recent Indian expei iencealso shows that what is needed forgenerating faster economic growth is afriendlier economic diniaie rather tliana harsher political system.

It is also impo rtant, in this context, tolook at the connection between politi-cal and civil rights, on the one hand,and the prevention of tnajor disasters.on the other. Political and civil rightsgive people ihe opporttmity to draw at-tention forcefully to general needs andto demand appropiiate public action.The governmental response to acutesuffering often depends on the pressurethat is put on it, and this is where theexercise of political rights (voting, criti-cizing, protesting , and so on) can makea real difference. I have discussed (inthese pages and in my book Ri'sourres.Values, and DnifUyjnnnit) th e r e m a rk a h l efact that, in the terrible history offamines in the world, no substantialfamine has ever occurred in any inde-pendent and democratic country witha relatively free press. Whether welook at famines in Sudan, Kthiopia,Somalia, or other dictatorial regimes, orin the Soviet Union in the 1930s, or inC;hina from 195H to 1961 (at the failureof the (ireat Leap Forward, when be-tween 23 and 30 million people died),or currently in North Korea, we do notfind exceptions to this rule. (It is truethat Ireland was part of democratic Brit-ain during its famine ol the lS4(ls, butthe extent of London's political domi-nance ovei" the Irish was so strongandthe social distance so great and so old.as illustrated by Spenser's severely un-friendly description of the Irish in thesixteenth centurythat the English ruleover Ireland was, for all practical ptir-poses, a colonial rtile.)While this connection is clearest inthe case of famine prevention, the posi-tive role of political and civil rightsapplies to the pievention of economicand social disasters generally. Whenthings go fine and everything is rou-

tinely good, this consecjuence of democ-racy may not be sorely missed. But itcomes into its own when things getfouled up. for one reason or another.Then die political incen tives provided bydemocratic governance acquire greatpractical valtie. To concentrate only oneconomic incentives (which the marketsystem provides) while ignoring politicalincentives (which democratic systemsprovide) is to opt for a deeply unbal-anced set of grotmd rules.

n.

I lurn now to the natme andthe relevance of Asian values.This is not an easy exercise,for various reasons. The sizeof Asia is ilsclf a problem . Asia is whereabout 60 percent of the woild's popula-tion lives. Whal can we take to be thevalties of so vast a region, with so mnchdiversity? li is important to stale at theoutset thai there are no quintessentialvalues that separate the Asians as agroup from people in the rest of theworld and which fit all parts of thisimmensely large and heterogeneouspopulation. The temptation to see Asiaas a single unit reveals a distinctly Etir-ocentric perspective. Indeed, the term"the Orie nt," which was widely tised for along time to mean essentially what Asiameans today, referred to the positionalvision of Etirope. as it contemplated ihedii'ection of the rising sun.

In practice, the advocates of "Asianvalues" have tended to look primarily ateast Asia as the region of their p artictilarapplicability The generalization aboutthe contrast between the West and Asiaoften concentrates on the land to theeast of Thailand , thou gh there is an evenmore ambitious claim that the rest ofAsia is rather "sinular." Lee Kuan Yewoutlines "the fundaineutal difference be-tween Wesieru concepts of society andgovernmenl and EasI Asian cone e[>ts" byexp laining that "when I say EastiVsians, Imean Korea, Japan . China. Vietnam, asdistinct from Scuuheast Asia, which is amix between the Sinie and the Indian,though Indian cuhtire itself emphasizessimilar values,"

III fact, even east Asia itself has muchdiversit). and there are many variationsto be found between Japan and Clhinaand Korea and other parts of east Asia.Various cultural influences from insideand otitside this region have affectedhtmian lives over the history of thislarge territory. These influences still snr-vive in a variety of ways. Thus, my copyof Houghton Mifilin's /l/fflrtH( describesthe religion of the 124 million [apanesein the following way: 112 million Shin-toist, 93 million Buddhist. Cultures andtraditions overlap in regitms such as east

Asia and even within countries suchJapan or China or Korea, and attemat generalization about "Asian valu(with fbrcefiil and often brutal imcations for masses of people in thisgion with diverse faiths, convictions, acommitments) cannot btit be extremcrude. Eveu the 2.8 million peopleSingapore have vast variations of ctural and liistorical traditions, despthe fact that the conformism that chacterizes its political leadership and official inlerpretation of Asian valtievery powerful at this lime.Still, the lecognition of helerogenein the iraditions of Asia does not sethe i.ssue of the presence or the abseof a commitment to individual ireedand political libert)' in Asian cultuThe traditions extant in Asia diamong themselves, but they may shsome common characteristics. It hbeen asserted, for example, thattreatment of elderly members of family (say, aged parents) is more sportive in Asian cotintries than in West. It is possible to argue about tclaitn, but there would be nothing vpeculiar if some similarities of this kor cither kinds were u> obtain across diverse ctiliuies of Asia. Diversities uenot apply u every field. The questthat has to be asked, rather, is wheer Asian countries share the commfeattire cjf being skeptical of freedand liberty, while emphasizing o rder adiscipline. The advoc ates of Asian pticularism allow internal heterogenewithin Asia, but in the context oshared mistrust of the claims of politiliberalism.

A iuhoi'itarian lines of rsoning often receive inrect backing from certstrains of thought in West itselt. 1 here is cleariv a teudeiicvAmerica and Europe to assume, if oiui[)ii( itly. the primacy of political frdo m and democracy as a fundamenand ancient feature of Western cultureone not to be easily found in Asia. This a contrast, it is alleged, betweenaiilhoritarianism implicit in. say, Concianism and the respect for liberty aautonomy allegedly deeply rootedWestern liberal culture. Western promers of personal and political freeck)mthe non-Western world often see suan analysis as a necessary preliminto bringing Western values to Asia aAfrica.

In all this, there is a substantial tdency to extrapolate backwards frompresent. Values that the Europeanlightenment and other relatively recdevelopments have made widesprecann ot really be seen as part of the Wern heritage as it was experienced o


3/9

inilk'niiia. In answer lo tlie qticstion, "aiwliat date, in what circumstances, thenotion ol' individual liberty ...firstbe-came explicit in the West," Isaiah Berlinhas noted: "Ihave t'ound no conviii-


4/9

ance of some will lead to intolerance forothers). Again, arguments lor some tol-erance can be seen plentifully in earlierWestern writing.s. without being supple-mented by arguments lor universal tol-erance. The roots of modern demo-cratic and liberal ideas can be sought interms of eonstitutive elements, ratherthan as a whole.

I n the terms of such an analy-sis, the question has to beasked whether these constitu-tive components can be foundin Asian writings in tbe way they can befound in Western thougbt. The presenceof these components must not be con-fused witb the absence of tbe opposite,that is, with the presence of ideas anddoctrines that clearly do not empbîsizefreedom and tolerance. The (luunpion-ing ot order and discipline can be toundin Western classics as well. Indeed, it isby no means clear to me that Confuciusis more autboritarian than, say, Plato orAugtistine. The real issue is not whetli-er these non-freedom perspectives arepresent in Asian traditions, but whetherthe freedom-oriented perspectives areabsent from them.This is where the diversity' of Asianvalue .systems becomes qnite central. Anobvious example is the role of Buddliismas a form of tbought. In Buddbist tra-dition, great importance is attached tofreedom, and the traditions of earlierIndian thinking to which Buddhistthoughts relate allow mucli room forvolition and free choice. Nobility of con-duct has to be achieved in freedom, andeven the ideas of liberation (stich as mok-

sha) include tbis leattire. fhe presenceof these elements in Buddhist tboughtdoes not obliterate the importance ofthe discipline emphasized by (ônfttcian-ism, but it wtiuld be a mistake to take(Confucianism to he the only tradition inAsiaor in ('liina. Since so much of tbecontemporary authoritarian interpreta-Lion of .Asian values concentrates onConfucianism, tbis diversity is particu-larly worth emphasizing.Indeed, the reading of Confucianismthat is now standard among authoritar-ian champions of Asian values does lessthan jtistice to Confucius's own teach-ings, to which Simon Leys has recentlydrawn attention. Clonfticius did not rec-oninuMid Ijlind allegiance to tbe state.When Zilu asks bim "how to serve aprince," Conhicius replies: 'Tell bim tbetruth even if it offends him." The cen-sors in Singapore or Beijing would takea very different view. Conlncins is notaverse to practical caution and tact, buthe does not forgo the recommendationto oppose a bad government. "When tbe

[good] way prevails in tbe state, speakboldly and act boldly. When the state

bas lost the way, act boldly and speaksoftly."

Indeed, Confucius clearly points tothe fact that the two pillars of tbe imag-ined edilice of Asian values, loyalt\' tofamily and obedience to the state, canbe severely in conflict with eacb other.Tbe Governor of Sbe told Confucius,"/\inong my people, there is a man ofunbending integrity: when his fatherstole a sheep, he denotinced him." Totbis. Confucius replied: "/Vinong my peo-ple, men of integrity do things differ-ently: a father covers up for his son, ason covers uj) for his fatherand tbereis integrity in what tbey do."

Elias Cânetti observed that, in luider-standing the teachings of CConlucius, wehave to examine not only what he says,hut what he does not say. The siibtlc-ty involved in wbat is often called "tliesilence of C'onfucius" seems to have e.s-caped bis austere modern interpreters,who tend to assume that what is notexplicitly supported must be implicitlyforbidden. It is not my contention that

cins was a democrat, or a greatof freedoin and dissent. Yet

there is certainly good reason lo ques-tion the monolithic image of an autbor-itarian (ônfuc ius tbat is i:bam[)i


5/9

object of his government is described as"noti-injiiry, restraint, impartiality, andmild behavior" applied "to all creatures."

A slioka's championing ofegalitarianism and univer-sal tolerance may appeartin-Asian to some commen-tiiiors, but bis views are firmly rootedin lint's of analysis already in vogue inintellectual Buddhist circles in Indiain tbe prtxcding centtiries. In this ton-text, however, it is interesting to lookal an olbe r authoi" whose treatise on gov-ernance and political economy was alsoprofoundly intluential. I reier to Kau-tilya, the author of Arthnshastra, whichtan be translated as "economic science,"though it is at least as much concernedwiili practical politics as with eccmomics.K;uitilya was a contemporary of AristoUc.He lived in the fourth century B.C., andworked as a senior minister of emperor(Jiandragiipta Matu ya, Ashoka's grand-father, who bad established the largeMaurya em pire across the subcontinent.K;iutilya's writings aie often cited asproof tbat freedom and tolerance werenot valued in tbe Indian classical tradi-tion. Tbcrc are two aspects of the im-pressively detailed account of economicsand politics to be foutid in Arthashastrathat tend to suggest tbe view that tbereis no support bere for a liberal democ-racy. First, Katitilya is a cons eque ntialistof quite a narrow kiud. Wliile the ol>)('(tivcs of promoiing die happiness ofibe subjects and tbe order in the king-dom are .*itrongly backed np by detailed|)olicy advice, tbe king is seen as a be-nevolent autocrat, whose power, albeitto do good, is to be maximized tbroiighproper organization. Thtis, Arthashastrapresents ideas and suggestions on suchpractical suljjects as famine preventionand administrative effectiveness thatremain relevant even todaymore than2,000 years laterand ai tbe same timeit advises tlie king abotit bow to get hisway, if neces.sary through tbe violation oftbe freedom of his adversaries.

Second, Kautilya seems to attacb lit-tle importance to political or economicequality, and bis vision of tbe gooct soci-ety is sirongly stratified ac cordin g to linesof class and caste. Even tbough his objec-tive of promoting bappiness applies toa l l . his other objectives clearly have anincgalitarian form and content. There isan obligation to provide tbe less fortu-nate members of the society the supportibat tbey need for escaping misery andenjoying lifeK;uitilya specifically iden-tifies as (be duty of ibe king to "providedie orphans, tbe aged, the infirm, theaflli( ted, and ibe belpless with mainte-nance," along with providing "subsis-tence to helpless women when tbey arecarrying and also to the [newborn] chil-

dren they give birth to"; but this obliga-tion is very far from valuing the freedomof these people to decide bow they wisbto live. Tbe tolerance of heterodoxy isnot to be found bere. Indeed, tbere isvery little tolerance in Kautilya, excepttolerance for the upper sections of thecommunity.WTiat, tben, do we conclude fromthis? Certainly Kiuitilya is no democrat,no egalitarian, no general promoter ofeveryone's freedom. And yet, when itcomes to tbe characterization of whatthe most favored peoplethe upperclas.sesshould get, freedom figuresquite prominently. The denial of per-sonal liberty of the upper classes (tbe so-called "Arya") is seen as unacceptable.Indeed, regular penalties, some of themheavy, are specified for the taking ofsucb adults or cbiidren in indentureeven tbough the slavery o \' the existingslaves is seen as perfectly acceptable. Tobe sure, we do not find in Kiiiitilya any-thing like Aristotle's clear articulation ofthe importance of free exercise of capa-bility. But the focus on freedom is clearenough in K;iiitilya as far as tbe tipperclasses are concerned. It contrasts witbthe governmental duties to tbe lowerorders, wbicb take die paternalistic formof state assistance for the avoidance ofacute deprivation and misery. Still, in-sofar as a view of tbe good life emergesin all this, it is an ideal that is entirelyconsistent with a fieedom-vahiing ethi-cal system. Its domain is limited, to besure; hut tbis is not wildly different fromthe Greek concern with free men asopposed to slaves or women.

I have been discussing insome detail the political ideasand practical reason pre-sented by two forceftil, btitvery different, expositions in India re-spectively in the fourth and third ren-turies B.(;., becatise their ideas baveinfluenced later Indian writings. I donot want to give the impression thatall Indian political commentators tooklines of approach similar to Asboka's orKautilya's. Qtiitc the contrary. Tb ere aremany positions, before and after Kautilyaand A sboka, that contradici tbeir respec-tive claims, just as tliere are otbers thatare mo re in line with Ashoka or Kautilya.The importance of tolerance, eventhe nee d for its universality, is eloque ntlyexpressed in different media: in Sbi;-draka's drama, in Akbai's political pro-nouncements, and in Kabir's poetry, toname just a few examples. The presenceof these contribtuions does not entailthe absence of opposite arguments andrecommendations. Tbe point, rather, isthat the heterogeneity of Indian tradi-tions contains a variety of views and rea-sonings, and they inchide. in different

ways, arguments in favor of tolerance,of freedom, and even (in the case ofAshoka) of equality at a very basic level.

A mong the powerful exposi-tors and practitioners oftolerance of diversity' inIndia, of course, we mustcount the great Moghul emperor Akbar,who reigned between 1556 and l(i()5.Again, we are not dealing bere with ademocrat. He was, instead, a powerfulkingwh cjemp basi/ed tbe acceptability ofdiverse forms of social and religious be-havior, and who accepted buman rigbtsof various kinds, including freedomof worship and religiotis practice, thatwould not have been so easily toleratedin parts of Euro pe in Akbar's time.Consider an example. As the year1000 in the Muslim Hijra calendar wasreached in 1591-92. there was excite-ment about it in Delhi and Agra {nottmlike wbat is bappening now, as tbeCbristian year 2000 approaches), Akbarissued various enactments at tbis junc-ture of history, and tbese focused interaliaon reiigiotis tolerance, including thefollowing:

No Tiiiiii should be inlerfererl with onaccoiiiil of religion, and anyone [is] lo beallowed to go over to A rel igion he pleased.

R o b e r t L i t t e l l 'sH C C I I Tb r i n g s t h e K G B b a c h . . .t h e r i v e t i n g n e w

f r o m H i e A m e r ic a n l e C a r r e ""IfUttelldidniinvent t h eAm erican s p y /nevel.iiesheuid j ^ ^h a v e . " / " T o m C l a n c y J r aA s g o e d a s ^t h r i i l e r w r i t in g g e t s . "WasMngten Post

NEW IN kwdcovER THE OVE RLO OK PRESSto order cal l 914-679-6838


6/9

If a Hindu, wht-ii a child 01 oihciwisc, hadbeen made a Muslim againsi his will, he isto be allowed, if he pleased, lo go back lothe religion of his fathers.Again, the domain of tolerance, whileneuiral with respect to religion, WHS no tuniversal in other respectswith respectto gender equality, or to cqualitv' be-tween yoiinf^er and older people. Ak-bar's enactm ent went on to argiic for theforcible repatriation of a yoimg Hinduwoman to her father's family it she hadabandoned it in pursuit of a Muslimlover. In the choice between stipportingthe young lovers and the yoimg wom an'sHindu father, old Akbar's sympathies areentirely with the father. Tolerance andequalit)' at one level are combined withintolerance and inequality al anotherlevel. And yet the extent of general tol-erance on matters of belief and practiceis quite remarkable. It may not be ir-relevant to note, especially in the lightof the hard sell of "Western liberalisTn,"that while Akbar was making thesepronotincements on religious tolerance,the Inquisition was in full throttle inEurope.

IV.

I t is imp ortant to recognize thatmany of these historical lead-ers in Asia not only empha-sized the importance of free-dom and tolerance, they also had cleartheories as to why this is the appropri-ate thing to do. This would apply verystrongly to Ashoka and Akbar. Since theIslamic tradition is sometimes seen asbeing monolithic, this is particularlyimportant to emphasize in the case ofAkbar. Akbar was a Muslim emperor w'howas deeply interested in Hindu philoso-phy and culture, and he also took muchinterest in the beliefs and practices ofother religions, including Christianity,Jainism and the Parsee faith. In fact, healso attempted to establish something ofa synthetic religion for India, the DinlUihi, drawing on the different faiths inthe cotintry.

There is an interesting contrast herebetween Ashoka's and Akbar's forms ofreligious tolerance. Both stood for reli-gious tolerance by the state, and bothargued for tolerance as a virttie to bepracticed by all. But Ashoka combinedthis with his own Rudtlhist pursuits (andtried to spread its "enlightenment" athome and abroad), while Akbar tried to"combine" the distinct religions of India,incorporating the "good points" of dif-ferent religions. Akbar's court was filledwith Hindu as well as Muslim intellectu-als, artists, and musicians, and he triedin every way to be non sectarian and iairin the treatment of his subjects.

It is also imp ortant to note that Akbarwas not unique among the Moghul em-perors in being tolerant. In many ways,the later Moghul emperor, the very in-tolerant Anrangzeb, who violated manyof what we would now call the humanrights of Hindus, was something of anexceptioti to the Moghul rule. The ex-ponents of Hindu politics in contem-porary India often try to deny the toler-ant nature of mucli of Moghul rule, butthis tolerance was handsomely acknowl-edged by Hindu leaders of an earliervintage. Sri Aurobindo, for example,who established the famous ashram inPondicherry, specifically idendfied thisaspect of the Moghul rule: "[T]he Mtis-sulman domination ceased very rapid-ly to be a foreign rule The Moghidempire was a great and magnilicent ccjii-struction and an immense amount ofpolitical genius and talent was employedin its creation and maintenance. It wassplendid, powerful and beneficent and,it may be added, in spite of Aurangzeb'sfanatical zeal, infinitely more liberal andtolerant in religion than any medieval orcontemporary European kingdom orempire."

And, even in the case of Aurangzeb,it is useful to consider him not in isola-tion, but in his familial setting. For noneof his immediate family seemed to haveshared Atirangzeb's intolerance. DaraShikoh, his elder brother, was much in-volved with Hindu philosophy and, wiihthe help of some scholars, he prepared aPersian translation of some of the Upan-ishads, the ancient texts dating fromabout the eighth century B.C. In fact,Dara had much stronger claims to theMoghul throne than Aurangzeb, sincehe was the eldest and the favorite son ofhis father, the emperor Shah |ahan,Aurangzeh fought and killed his brotherDara, and imprisoned his father. ShahJahan, for the rest of his life (leavinghim, the builder of the Taj Mahal, togaze at his creation in captivity).

Aurangzeb's son, also called Akbar,rebelled againsi his father in 1681 andjoined hands in diis enterprise with theHindu kingdoms in Rajasthan and laterthe Marathas. (Akbar's rebellion was ulti-mately crushed by Aurangzeb.) Whilefighting from Rajasthan, Akbar wroteto his father, protesting his intoleranceand his vilification of his Hindu friends.Indeed, the issue of the tolerance ofdifferences was a subject of considerablediscussion among the feuding parlies.The father of the Maratha king. RajaSambhaji, whom the young Akbar hadjoined, was none other than Shivaji,wht)m the present-day Hindti politicalactivists treat as a super-hero, and afterwhom the intolerant Hindu party ShivSena is named .Shivaji took quite a tolerant view of

religious differences. As the Moghul torian Khafi Klian, no admirer of Svaji in other respects, reports: "[Shivmade it a rule that wherever his followwere plundering, they should do harm to the mosques, the book of Gor the women of anyone. Whenevecopy of the sacred Quran came intohands, he treated it with respect, gave it to some of h is Mussulman follers." A very interesting letter to Aurzeb on the subject of tolerance is attuted to Shivaji by some historians (sas Sirjadim ath Sarkar, the autho r ofclassic Shivaji and His Times, p u b l i sin 1919), though there are some douabout this attribution. No matter wamong AuLangzeb's Hindu contemraries wrote this letter, the ideas in itinteresting. The text contrasts Aurazeb's intolerance with the liberal pcies of earlier Moglmls (^\kban JahanShah Ja ha n) , and then says: "If Yourjesty places any faith in those booksdistinction called divine, you will thbe instructed that God is the (iod ofman kind, not the God of Muslims aloThe Pagan and the Muslim are equallyHis presenc e in fme, the tribute demand from the Hindus is repugntojustice."T he subject of toleran ce much discussed by mwriters during this perol' confrontation betwthe religious traditions and their assated politics. One of the earliest wrion this subject was the eleventh centIranian writer Alberuni, who cameIndia with the invading army of Mmood of Ghazni and recorded his resion at the atrocities committed by invaders. He proceeded to study Indsociet), culture, religion, and ideas translations of Indian mathematical astronomital treatises were quite inential in the Arab world, which in twas deeply influential on Western mematics), and h e also wrote on the sject of the intolera nce of the tmfami

.. . ill all TiiaTiiu-rs an d us age s, |tl ic Hdus] difler i ioin us to such a degree as frighten their children with us, with odress, and our ways and nistoTiis, and asdcclart" us to be deviTs hreed. and odoings as ihe very oppo.site of all thatgood and piop er. By the bye, we must cofess, in orde r to be jusl , that a simidepreciation of foreigners not only prevaamong us and (he Hindus, bul i s commto all nations towards carh othci\The point of discussing all this nis to demonstrate the presence of cscious theorizing abotit tolerance freedom in substantial atid iniporparts of the Asian traditions. We coconsider manv more illustrations of


7/9

Again, the championing of de-

1 have been emphasizing. It

Asian authoritarians and VVesternlianvinists.V.

I wonld like to conchide witha rather different issne, whichis sometimes linked to thedebate about the nature andThis linkage, iliough quite artillcial,be rheioiically quite effective. Thus

I his fac t is certainly undeniable, and itis what this

The people whose political and oilierights are involved in this debate are notiti/ens of the West, but of Asian cotin-

countries and to the pressures gener-ated by business groups lo be on goodterms wilh the ruling governments inAsia. It is not that there has been morebark than bite; there has been very littlebark, too . WTiat Mao once described as a"paper tiger" looks increasingly like apaper mouse.But even if this were not the case, andeven if it were true that Western govern-ments try to promote political and civilrights in Asia, bow can that possiblycompromise the status of the rights ofAsians? In (his context, the idea of "hu-man rights" has to be properly under-stood. In the most general form, thenotion of human rights builds on ourshared htnnanity. These rights are notderived from citizenship in any coun-try, or membeisbip in any nation. Theyare taken as eiilitlements of every hu-man being. These rights differ, there-fore, from constitutionally c reated rightsguaranteed for specifiecl people (suchas American citizens or French nation-als). The htnnan right of a person not tobe torture d is affiiniecl indep ende ntlyof the couniry of vvliirh this person isa cilizen, and also irrespective of whatdie go\erninent of that conntryor anyother countrywants to do. Of course,a government can dispute a person'slegal right not to be tortnred, but that

will not amonnt to disputing what mustbe seen as the person's human right notto be tortnred.Since the conception of human rigbtstranscends local legislation and tlur citi-zenship of the individual, the supportfor htunan rights can come from any-onewhether or not she i.s a citizenof the same country as the individualwhose rights are threatened. A foreign-er does not need the permission of arepressive governmeni to ii\ to help aperson whose liberties are being vio-lated. Indeed, insofar as himian lightsare seen as rights that any person has asa human being (and not as a citizen ofany parliculai' con niry ). ihe reach of ih ecorresponding duties can also inchideany human being (irrespective of citi-zenship).This basic recognition does not sug-gest, of course, tbat everyone must in-tervene constantly in protecting andhelping others. That may be both inef-fective and unsettling. There is no es-cape from the need to employ practicalreason in this field, any more ihau inany olhei' field of hiinian action. L'bic]ui-tous interveniionism is not particular-ly fruitful or attractive within a givennation, nor is it across national bound-aries. Th ere is no obligation to roam thefour corners of the earth in search of

Is it ever wise to improve on perfection?

Fujiyama 2*"" Ceramic Penand still only $39 ^*h cead this ad for an even better deal!F olk wiMJom h.is it that it's -^elddm wist' to fix what isn't broken andto iittempt to im prove on perftvlion. It is therefore with same trep-idation that we introduce t l ie h'ujii/ania 2'"' Cerninic Pen, ("son offu'jiyama'") after iiavinj; sold over 15(1,000of the original in thf laslfew yc'iirs. Many believe that the Fiijiynnni 2"" Ceramic Penmadeill Asia and with a cartridge that is the finest product of Germanstat ionery technologyis the most handsom e and best-writ ingpen in the world. Fuj iyama 2"" has stunning hi-lacquer gun-motal finish, fine gold-plated accents and snappy clip. It haperfect heft and feel and, of course, just like its predecessor,i t wr i te s l ike a dre am . And w i th i t s new cush ionedTurhiii^ri['"'\wh\ch lets you write for hours without tiring,thi s pen has now be en br ou gh t to th e ed ge of the2 1 s t c e n t u r y .

The most remarkable thing about the Fuiitfama 2' "Ceramic Pen is its price. We are the exclusive imp ortersand distributors of Fujiyama stationery in tbe LJnitedStates and are therefore able to bring you this updat-ed m odel still af the sam e old price of just 539.95. But we hav e an even better deal: Buy twofor $79.90, am i ive'U send you a third one, with our compliitients absolutely FREE! Discardthose tacky ballpoint pen s and those clumsy felt tips. Write smoothly an d easily, give characterandgtKxJ appearance to your writing. And make a reallygreat buy, an even greater one if you takeadvantage of our 3-for-2 "better deal". Get with itget your hujn/niiui 2"" Ceramic Pciif>) today!

Fujiyama2"" CeramicPedisjiJi d'jecinf hvitfti. Mnmjiiiiiv cnilaS it Ihfitltimale writ-ing machine." Ileoiitaius a la r y fG f r m an- m a li eceramic-ball cartridge.11 lioliif lots of ink,i'jj(ity/( (il irrile main/ Iti-

(t'j's luid jiii'iuo.'^. Ai a n ad dedseri'ice, we include two extrarefill cartridges wilh each pen.

f t>r customer servia ' i imt wk^Lsale on .1> please call41!v54;V6675. VU" can app ly y ou r co mp an y logi) ti)Rij iy tmia 2 '" I ' tr i ' i on niiii inmm tj iuntit i l 's of Ul] units .hX)R FASTEST SFRVICE, ORDHKTOL L FR EE (800) 797-736724 Hours a Day, 7 Days a Week.Flease give order #1049C988 for Fujiyama 2 ' " 'Ceramic PiVifsJ. We need daytime phone # for allorders. Add $4.95 standard shipp ing/ins uran cecharge (plus sales tax for California delivery).You hav e 30-day refund and one-y ear w ar-rantv . We do no t refund sh ipp ing ch arg es. 185 Berry Street, San Francisco. CA 94107


8/9

liberties to protect. My claim is only thatthe barriers of nationality and citizen-ship do not preclude people from tak-ing legitimate interest in tlie rights oft)thers and even from assuming someduties related to them. Tlie moral andpolitical exam ination that is central todetermining how one sliould act appliesacross national boundaries, and notmerely within them.To conclude, the so-called Asian val-ues that are invoked to justily authoritar-ianism are not especially Asian in anysignificant sense. Nor is it easy to seehow they could be made, by the tncreforce of rhetoric, into an Asian causeagainst the West. The people whoserights are being disputed arc Asians,and, no matter what the West's guilt maybe (there are many skeletons in manyclosets throug hout the world), the rightsof Asians can scarcely be compromisedon tbose grounds. The case for libertyand political rights turns ultimately on

their basic importance and on theirinstrumental role. And this case is asstrong in Asia as it is elsewhe re.Th ere is a great deal that we can learnfrom studies of values in Asia and Eur-

ope, but they do not stipport or sustainthe thesis of a grand dichotomy (or a"clash of civilizations"). Our ideas of po-litical and personal rights have takentheir particular form relatively recent-Iv, and it Is hard lo see them as "tra-ditional" commitments of Western cul-tures. There are important antecedentsof those commitments, but those ante-cedents can be found plentifully in Asiancultures as well as Western cultu res.The recognition of diversity within dif-ferent cultures is extremely imp ortant inthe contemporary world, since we areconstantly bombarded by oversimplegenerali/alions about "Western civiliza-tion," "Asian values," "African cultures,"and so on. These unfounded readings ofhistory and civilization are not only intel-lectually shallow, they also add to ihedivisivenessof the world in which we live.The aiuho ritarian readings of Asian val-nes that are increasingly championed insome quarters do not survive scrutiny.And the grand dichommy between Asianvalues and Europea n values adds litde toour imderstanding, and mnch to theconfounding of the normative basis offreedom anci clemocracv.

W o l f i n W o l f s C l o t h i n gBY IAN BURUMA

Man Without a Face: The Autobiographyof Com m unism 's G reatest Spym asterby Markus Wolf with Anne McElvoy(Tim es Books, 35 2 pp., $25 )

\ \eii the most revolting re-gimes usually have at leastone dapper little charmer in their highest ranks, thetype of guy who gives wickedness a hu-man face, a well-mannered, well-dressed,well-edncated diner with the devil. SuchfiguresAlbert Speer, say, or Zhou En-laihold a special fascination for nuunpeople. They pertbrm a triple function.For a start, they make it easier to jus-tif)' one's own fellow-liavelling follies.If Maoism was good enough for a niceman like Zhou, why then should I feelbad about having admired the littlered book myselP Or, a variation on thetheme: if Maoism was good enough fora nice man like /lion, it can't have beenall bad.Then there is the glamour attachedto the elegant rogue. The snave gang-ster with impecca ble m ann ers and a finelibrary is a sexier, tnore mysterious fig-

ure than the uncouth thug. The exqtiis-itc extetior, hiding a heart of darkness:What greater frisson can one desire?And the third reason for onr fascinationwith these smoothies is that they makeus wonder what such sophisticates arcdoing in the com pany of gangsters, mur-derers and oppressors. The perplexity,of course, is naive. .-Xfter all, why sbonldmurderers or oppressors be men with-out breeding or taste? Hans Frank, theNazi slaveTnaster in Cracow, is said tohave played Cho pin beautifully. Still, onrbelief in the redeeming power of culturekeeps us wondering.Not every member of the formerEast German Ministry of State Security(Stasi) was a gangster, but most were cer-tainh' less than couth. This is why thesubject at hand, the man whose facewe now know well. General Markus

"Mischa" Wolf, stands out. He is theSpeer, the Zhou, the Dapper Don of the

Stasi. By most accounts this smoothesope rators, who was East G ermany 's master for almost lbrty years, is excelcompany . So what n ' a . s this nice, thongfui, cultivated, handsome maii dowith all those fat-necked "heads of ccrete"?

T here is a magical momin Marcel Ophuls's Novber Days, his dociunenabout the fall of the BeWall, when he interviews Wolf al great spy's dacha. Wolf waves away suggestion that he knew anything abthe building of the Wall, or about ture in Stasi jails, or abont blackmaipeople. ., 11 that was done by others. Wolt, was a gentleman doing his dOpluils then decides, quite deliberatto play the |ewish caicl. Both men gup in Ciermany, wilh |ewish fathers, wwere forced lo escape the NazisWofather, Friedrich, took his family to Mcow; Marcel's father. Max, took his fily to Hollywood. Ophuls tries to shaWolf by comparing him lo Klaus BarThe ploy doesn't work. Wolf simply nies that lie ever used, or countenanthe use of, violence. Quite the contrhe says. The trouble with him is he was always too naive, too trustHe smiles sweetly, accepts a cigaresits back and prepares to laimch an amusing anecdote about comproming an enemy of the people with a gOphuls watches him qtiietly, sadlv, we hea r the nuisic from one oi'father's IIolK-wood movies. "Listento you," he says, "I think to myself. Mcel, how lucky you are. Our fathers the same ideas. Who wasn't on left in the Weimar Republic? But hlucky I am that the film director. MOphuls, decided to move West instof East."

But this lets Wolf off the hoo k too ily. It suggests that he w'as entii'ely a tim of circmnstanccs, a man whose was plotted for him, a helpless refutrapped in Stalin's empire. Yon almforget that there were many other cmimist relugees who left the Soviet b(if they hadn't been killed iii sopurge), and few, if any, of them becStasi generals. Yet the idea rather ticWolf's own fancy. Yes, he says, Opmight well have a point. Wolf, in book, which serves no one so wellhimself, is always the humble servana kind of moral force mojemr: suporders, the higher call of dut\\ pattism, idealism, and so forth. But heregives Ins tale a particular spin, cleaimed at hooking oiu' sympathies: ithe argiunent of A/// Withuiil a Facthe story of Markus Wolf is the story good |ew who spent his whole life fiing fascism.


9/9

Documents

113855601 Human Rights and Asian Values