February 29, 2008
'Every Unsavoury Separatist is Gloating': Questions about KosovoPolitics
Via Crooked Timber (and also 3QD), there is a learned critique by Pratap Bhanu Mehta in Indian Express, of the recent “engineering” of independence for Kosovo by western European powers and the U.S.
The key paragraph in the argument for our purposes (i.e., with South Asia in mind) might be the following:
In the 19th century, there was a memorable debate between John Stuart Mill and Lord Acton. John Stuart Mill had argued, in a text that was to become the bible for separatists all over, including Jinnah and Savarkar, that democracy functions best in a mono-ethnic societies. Lord Acton had replied that a consequence of this belief would be bloodletting and migration on an unprecedented scale; it was more important to secure liberal protections than link ethnicity to democracy. It was this link that Woodrow Wilson elevated to a simple-minded defence of self-determination. The result, as Mann demonstrated with great empirical rigour, was that European nation states, 150 years later, were far more ethnically homogenous than they were in the 19th century; most EU countries were more than 85 per cent mono-ethnic. (link)
In his Column in Indian Express, Mehta keeps his focus sharply on Kosovo’s status within Europe, and also considers the seeming double standard as the Western powers disregard Russian objections to Kosovo’s independence, on the one hand, while they go out of their way to accommodate China’s (unconscionable) policy on Taiwan, on the other.
But there is obviously a question for South Asia here as well, and India in particular. Mehta briefly alludes to the history of nationalism in the Indian subcontinent when he invokes Jinnah and Savarkar, but his column raises questions for us as we think about the present too — specifically the questions over the status of Kashmir and Assam (maybe also Manipur and Nagaland, not to mention Punjab in the 1980s).
The debate between Acton and Mill Mehta invokes isn’t so much a “conservative” versus “liberal” debate — John Stuart Mill is considered one of the architects of the philosophy of liberalism, but in this case his views come out as less “liberal” than Acton’s. Mill supports thinking of nations as defined by race/ethnicity, but that approach can reinforce ethno-religious differences, rather than leading to an environment where different communities have equal status in a diverse nation. I tend to favor Acton’s approach, except perhaps in cases where minority communities face imminent violence, or genocidal suppression.
(Incidentally, Mehta builds his arguments on an essay called “The Dark Side of Democracy” in New Left Review, by Michael Mann; for those who have subscriptions, you can find the article here.)
amardeep on February 29, 2008 10:12 AM in Politics · T·r·a·c·k·b·a·c·k address · Direct link · Email post
And every state that's been slacking off in its duties to its alleged citizens is pissed off.
Interesting post Amardeep. Personally I think the major powers in Europe (France, Britain, Germany) are not averse to separatism happening in other European countries because Europe is moving towards centralization under the EU where the three powers mentioned before get to control things. So it doesn't matter for them if other smaller countries splinter because they will still be in the EU.
Kosovo's Independence and Sri Lanka
I know it's a bad tangent Amardeep, but Sri Lanka is a much more pressing example than Assam. Already the GOSL is using the Kosovar declaration of independence to shore up support for it's own 'reunification' project. Melanie Phillips, predictably, sides with the Putins and Rajapakse's of the world (i wonder what she would think of Rajapakse's back-slapping, oil exploration funds seeking jaunt to Tehran?)
Anyhow, whether you go mono-ethnic, or include more than one, who is doing the deciding? It's all going to depend on who is drawing the lines and their grasp of what mixtures will be benign and which will become volatile (if it's even possible to know).
Jay and Nayagan, thanks for remembering the Sri Lanka connection -- it occurred to me after I wrote this post.
On the question of who makes the decision, obviously that is something sorted out between local political movements, the state, and the international community. Though I do think it's important to think about these issues even if we are on the outside of these debates, because it is usually more complex than "there is a small ethnic minority in X country that wants the right to self-determination, so we should support that."
What's up with Assam?.
Just curious to know what's the basis of self-determination there?.
Ponniyin, all I know is that there is a group called ULFA, and they claim Assam was wrongly brought into the Indian union at the time of independence.
ULFA on Wikipedia; ULFA's home page
See also this Outlook article: 14 Spokes of a Revolution
From a pragmatic point of view I tend to support federation rather than independence for most multiethnic regions (e.g., what is the economy of the new Kosovo going to be based on? National pride doesn't necessarily pay the rent, not that Serbia was pumping loads of its GDP into Kosovar public works...). Except, of course, as you mention, in the face of potential imminent violence or genocide.
However, why (other than historic significance to the Serbs) Kosovo is provoking this degree of hand-wringing by outside governments (i.e., Russia) somewhat perplexes me. Was there as much hot air expended during Montenegro's relatively recent independence? Did the entire 1990s and the bloody partition of the Balkans embolden or objectively strengthen separatist movements the world over?
but that approach can reinforce ethno-religious differences, rather than leading to an environment where different communities have equal status in a diverse nation. I tend to favor Acton’s approach, except perhaps in cases where minority communities face imminent violence, or genocidal suppression.
there are lots of points in the middle. it is really hard to have a situation where "communities have equal status in a diverse nation." there are dominant communities, there are coalitions between communities, etc. there are many situations where the dominant community cede particular rights and spaces to smaller communities, but not the smallest communities. so actually the pluralism talk is predicated on being numerous enough and loud enough to make a racket, not some idealized principle of pluralism.
as for europe, the fact that the EU serves as a mega-state state with open internal borders probably is going to make issues like regionalism in spain less salient.
To any IR people out there (or anyone else who might know): Is there a database/catalog/table somewhere out there which will tell us which nations recognize which other nations?
In the abstract, if one group within a nation can't get a good enough overall deal that they actually want to secede, it's a bit difficult to see what the interest in coercing them to remain is. Nationhood is supposed to benefit everyone, not one group over another. That said, there can certainly be a lot of benefits to being in a big state as opposed to a small one--I think that a fair amount of poverty worldwide is attributable to people being (effectively) trapped within countries where not much is going on economically, there are poor institutions, etc. rather than their being able to move to (and fully participate in) a more economically dynamic locale (I'm assuming here that intra-national relocation is easier than international relocation, which is typically though obviously not alway the case).
Of course, there are always problems in application of a right to secede--what threshold of desire is necessary and how exactly to measure that, minorities within the secessionist group (e.g., Serbs in Kosovo), etc. Perhaps when political entities are formed, they should think about this potential issue and address it explicitly--e.g., perhaps the EU should have an explicit right for a member state to secede, perhaps with some penalty (e.g., pay X euros as an "exit fee."). Harder to know what to do with the bulk of existing countries though, most of whose constitutions don't address the issue.
"Go out of their way?" I can't speak for Europe, but as far as the US is concerned, a better description would be "barely tolerates." We're committed to selling Taiwan enough advanced weaponry to deter Chinese invasion, and just over ten years ago we sent a carrier battle group into the Taiwan Strait to make a point. I don't see any noteworthy inconsistency in Western principles here. Rather, the differences are related to two things: Taiwan is a part of China (the nation, not the state) in a way that is not comparable to Russia's relationship with Kosovo (or the Balkans in general). Second, of course, is the huge difference in power between China in Taiwan and Russia in the Balkans. And let's not forget that China waged a carefully-orchestrated, world-wide, decades-long campaign to influence other countries' stances on the relationship between them and Taiwan, while Russia has done little besides obstruct progress on diplomatic resolution of the Kosovo issue and make bombastic complaints after the fact. Call it craven to respond to power dynamics if you want, but I don't really see what the alternative is... what would handling Kosovo in a way similar to Taiwan (i.e., resisting formal independence but continuing to materially support them as a de-facto independent entity) have accomplished, other than preventing bloggers and pundits from making shallow claims of double-standards?
Similarly, America has consistently been willing to irk the Chinese by legitimizing the Dalai Lama and the idea of Tibetan sovereignty more generally. And we're a long way from taking their side in their territorial disputes with Japan and southeast Asian countries relating to rights to various sea resources.
>>if one group within a nation can't get a good enough overall deal that they actually want to secede, it's a bit difficult to see what the interest in coercing them to remain is.
Whenever people pay more importance to their group identity rather than their individual identity, they've already seceded. The rest is just a formality that's completed under the barrel of a gun.
M. Nam
Yes oftentimes, but sometimes that group identity might not be formed by their choice, but foisted upon them by others, right? So if, for example, the central government were to keep taxing province X and not spending any money on public goods there, it wouldn't be a lack of individualism that would cause the people in province X to get mad . . . .
However, the real sticky question in large chunks of the West is often the reverse. What happens when you've got minority communities who are actively hostile towards the majority within which they reside? Not all minorities in Britain or Denmark are bombers/magazine-rioters BUT, too many of the latter category tend to be minorities... and often it's because of differences in the cultural value of "Tolerance/Free Speech" vs. "Heresy/Licentiousness"....
Secondarily, the problem of minority / majority culture pops up in lots of little ways as well. Just to pick an incredibly trivial example covered many moons ago on Sepia Mutiny -- many White westerners move into a suburban single family home because they anticipate living amongst a large number of similar, suburban, single families ("location, location, location" is another way of saying "your neighbors, your neighbors, your neighbors").
Waddya do when a *highly* extended family or even multi-family Desi / Mexican / whatever buys up one of the houses in the hood? Legally, there shouldn't be much recourse BUT socially, it's hard not to see how it creates a little friction....
In the abstract, if one group within a nation can't get a good enough overall deal that they actually want to secede, it's a bit difficult to see what the interest in coercing them to remain is. Nationhood is supposed to benefit everyone, not one group over another. That said, there can certainly be a lot of benefits to being in a big state as opposed to a small one--I think that a fair amount of poverty worldwide is attributable to people being (effectively) trapped within countries where not much is going on economically, there are poor institutions, etc. rather than their being able to move to (and fully participate in) a more economically dynamic locale (I'm assuming here that intra-national relocation is easier than international relocation, which is typically though obviously not alway the case).
there are many reasons you don't want minorities to secede, right?
1) they have a bare majority in areas where the dominant group is a bare minority, so you don't want to "lose" your own co-ethnics
2) they live in areas with lots of natural resources and you run a command economy and so think that that'll be good for business. e.g., in saudi arabia aramco is screwed if the shia dominated gulf coast secedes, so they treat the shia like dogs to keep them in their place
3) domino effect. this is the standard argument that indians always make. if kashmir secedes, of course old delhi will give the india union the heave-ho and punjab will fragment into 10,000 pieces. cuz, you know.....
but, your second point is a good one. the economic history for example strongly suggests that the united states secession from the british empire didn't affect trade that much, and cultural relations had a lock-in effect where the USA was adding a crap-load of land inputs into the british system (also, a release valve for overpopulation). i.e., the argument is that the opening of the american frontier was critical in the dramatic economic takeoff of europe in the 19th century. but that's all economics. at the end of the day, people have identity issues which aren't predicated on material success, they want to do stupid things because a primitive non-existent supernatural entity tells them too. don't explain anything about how infant mortality will drop because of greater economics of scale in a bigger market, if the unclean ones touch your food you'll go to hell!
anyway, all this crap about equality of cultures and peoples is kind of irrelevant. it's all animal conflict in the end, right? the harvard gym has women only hours in large part because there are some muslims who believe that their big-man-in-the-sky tells them men and women shouldn't interact too much lest they get down and dirty (which is bad, you know). "liberal" people take this into account and are "sensitive," because it's their "cultures" and we must respect their "customs and traditions." if i demand that people with a lot of piercings should be banned for a few hours because they really irritate and offend me, and make me uncomfortable, will big deal. i don't believe in a non-existent entity that must be "respected" because it is my "culture." the reality is that i'm one animal. if there's critical mass of people irritated by the sight of the pierced, then things would change. just like we accept restaurants demanding a particular "look" from their servers.
What happens when you've got minority communities who are actively hostile towards the majority within which they reside?
numbers matter. e.g., americans can tolerant the amish cuz the aren't too many. but trust me, if there were buggies clogging up the freeways in LA there'd be some complaints. the amish communities have also been given a pass by legal authorities in many ways, so there are problems with child sex abuse and what not. too bad, but hey, there aren't many amish, so the price of tolerance is minimal....
many White westerners move into a suburban single family home because they anticipate living amongst a large number of similar, suburban, single families ("location, location, location" is another way of saying "your neighbors, your neighbors, your neighbors").
white people are racist. they should be driven from the face of the earth. so it doesn't count. if black, brown and muzzies want to self-segregate they are celebrating their Kulture. if white people want to hang with their own kind they are Racist!
p.s. if the white people have Kulture, e.g., jews, they can also promote ethnic consciousness. unless those j00z are in israel, in which case, they are Racist.
Well, there should be legal recourse if there's some sort of contract in place between homeowners in an area, right? And, if landowners anticipate your issue, there will be! It's not as if the contractually coordinated usage of adjacent plots of land is inherently bad (i.e., we may want to but some limits on it, but seems odd to ban it altogether)--in fact, quite the opposite (e.g., coops, condos, etc.).
17 · razib said
Not just amish, Mormons are an example too. But it's not just numbers, there is a lot of arbitrariness in the application of laws. There was an interesting article on this on Slate several months ago as part of a series on tolerated lawbreaking.
You could mention almost the entire NE of India if you want to discuss separatist movements (though the question of separate from what exactly is relevant -- many Nagas will tell you their "greater Nagaland", which includes portions of Burma, predates modern-day India by decades. Anyway. If you are looking for something on the front pages now, try the revival of calls for a separate Gorkhaland sate (within the Indian Union) which encompasses Darjeeling, Kurseong, Kalimpong and other portions of what is currently W. Bengal.
It's at this point a fruitless exercise to try and bring separatist movements and states into one formula or policy. The facts surrounding each are simply different. In Assam, for example, ULFA, whatever its ideological pronouncements has largely become more or an organized crime racket. Many groups now recognize that the way to political power is through highlighting some sort of difference, whether it be based on caste, clan, religion, ethnicity, etc. I'd argue that the desire for power in a democracy has surpassed the belief in the principle of democracy.
Not just amish, Mormons are an example too. But it's not just numbers, there is a lot of arbitrariness in the application of laws.
what laws do mormons violate? they're pretty oriented toward following american laws. remember that they were persecuted for their polygyny, utah was basically american occupied territory until the church finally rejected the practice.
Of course the fact that they are well educated and well-off also doesn't hurt.
if there were enough, and the "hindu majority" thought it was being marginalized, of course it would matter. jews came under fire in europe often because they were well off and educated, and were perceived to be taking the "rightful" place of gentile elites. as regards jews, haredi jews in the USA and canada are examples of exemptions and tolerances for deviation which one might be concerned with if they were numerous. remember that many hasidic sects in new york city don't give their children a really good command of the english language. at least the amish are bilingual (i lived in an amish area, they don't speak english with with a german accent).
diversity is acceptable in a liberal national system in small doses. when there's a lot of balance you basically have pillarization, the elites divide up the public pies and reinforce segregation. the netherlands used to be like that before the collapse of christian sectarianism. most people are not cosmopolitan in their inclination. they feel comfortable "among their own kind." you have enough large groups of people who are comfortable with their own kind and the polity is divided up at the joints of these ethnicities. additionally, when the elite/dominant ethnicity gives privileges to some minorities it solidifies aspects of those minorities into a particular form. that's amartya sen's complaint with how the british gov. negotiates with bangladeshies; sen is pissed that it seems that they are interacting with people who would totally islamicize the identity at the expense of the bengaliness which he shares with them. welcome to multicultural britain amartya, it isn't cambridge anymore and most of your fellow citizens are righteous tards!
Again speaking very abstractly, if you're setting up a business, you often get better terms from investors if you give them an "exit" right (perhaps with some penalty, but--they may value quite a lot the right to take some money back and walk away), rather than locking them in for some indefinite period (other times, maybe not so much). So, it seem sensible that if you're asking people to join up with others and subject themselves to majority rule along a number of dimensions (probably other things will be constitutionalized, etc.)--i.e., form a "nation," then they might well want the right to "exit" if they feel that the deal just isn't working out (again, they might agree up front to take some sort of a "hit" for exiting). Taking MoorNam's point, they might want this on an individual basis (which why we think so poorly of nations that don't let people leave) but also perhaps on a group basis (given that political decision-mechanisms of the sort used by democracies are inherently about preference aggregation across at least some dimensions).
I don't know, Razib--I'd think that in a classical liberal state, diversity doesn't cause much trouble at all--the key is to make as little as possible subject to democratic control, and as much as possible subject to consent/contract, and then there's not so much reason to fear other groups. Admittedly, most real countries have a hard time with this, which is worth taking into account, but I would tend to think the greater the degree of contractualism, the less the concern with non-homogeneity.
rob, but it isn't like a business, right? the social contract model is nice to get to some abstract issues, but it's pretty unreal. social contract theory is good for emphasizing points in a nice stable democracy. but it gets you no where in a more shaky scenario. a nation is not an employer, and you aren't laid off as a citizen. and most people don't earn their citizenship, they're born into it. in any case, czechoslovakia was partitioned peacefully, in large part because of bizarro political machinations at the elite levels. if you look closely at that you might see a boundary condition where the parameters are set up so peaceful dissolution of multi-ethnic unions are options.
I'd think that in a classical liberal state
classical liberal states started disappearing with widespread suffrage. american classical liberalism, fusionist conservatism, made popular headway because of an alliance with angry white southerners after the 1960s. it isn't a generalizable model. ordo-liberalism is probably the best you could get.
i put "hindu majority" in quotes though. india is so fragmented that hindu elites might not be too happy if the majority started looking closely at the ethnic and caste composition of the ruling groups.
and as much as possible subject to consent/contract, and then there's not so much reason to fear other groups.
my general response: minarchism is metastable in a multi-ethnic society. eventually there'll be an equilibrium shift when one group perceives a "takings" angle. e.g., in malaysia the chinese accept redistribution of wealth to malay elites because otherwise they assume the malays would kill them (i'm oversimplifying, but the see what happens now and then in indonesia where redistribution doesn't occur and they remember riots in the late 1960s).
Well, not exactly, no, but doesn't a home owner's association's governing contract blend into a municipal charter in terms of function (e.g., municipal zoning vs. home-owner's association requirements)? I think there are a lot of insights in models like Tiebout's, which look at different blends of taxation and public goods at the municipal level across competing municipalities being a good thing. Similarly, it seems non-utopian to think that (1) given immigration, nations compete in the long run like municipalities and (2) nations could build secession rights into their "governing contracts," aka constitutions.
Assam?
Nagaland, a place where Indian governance is hardly valid in practice, sure, but what does Kosovo have to do with Assam? Assam is hardly monoethnic or monoreligious nor does it have popular separatist sentiment. ULFA has become a marginalized terrorist organization -- its desperate attacks and kidnappings to maintain power and finances have long since turned locals off and made them see the hypocrisy of such a group.
India should pay attention to the needs of its outlying and troubled states, or separatist movements can gain ground. But their situations and motivations would be much more complicated than previously ethnic-war-torn status-less Kosovo.
Hm, this isn't a well thought-out argument -- but isn't one possible "justification" for Kosovo's independence that its erstwhile state inflicted massive ethnic cleansing and brutalization on the state's majority population (the Albanians)?
The question with regards to Assam then is, has the federal Indian government massively supressed, and ethnicly cleansed various ethnicities in the region? I suppose one could dredge cases of abuse by the Indian Army, but given that the "Assam Rifles" are one of India's better known paramilitary outfits, one wonders how this would play out. Regardless, nothing on the scale of Serbia and Kosovo back in the late 1990s right?
Couldn't one conceivably develop a framework for international recognition of separation IF AND ONLY IF genocidal-level attacks are imposed by the federal government on a local region? Opens up a can of worms, I guess, but that's how I've been thinking of the Kosovo thing. For example, I can totally understand why Southern Sudan wanted to separate (once upon a time -- note, the govt. in Khartoum is trying to pull a Darfur there as well), and of course Darfur.
As for multiethnic societies.. perhaps we need to take an Alexander the Great approach to the issue: force interbreeding of various ethnicities to create subsequent generations only loyal to the state, not to their ethnicities :P Of course, eventually such forced intermarriage would over generations create a new "mono-ethnic" state..
white people are racist. they should be driven from the face of the earth. so it doesn't count. if black, brown and muzzies want to self-segregate they are celebrating their Kulture. if white people want to hang with their own kind they are Racist!w
Somewhere HMF is saying yes,yes,yes!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
what's wrong with women only hours in a gym if the men are not overtly complaining about it?
Aren't there female only gyms like lucille roberts, curves...
maybe some female students wanted it for non religious reasons too?
re: the harvard gym hours thing, it's being blown a bit out of proportion. it's something like 6 hours a week as an experiment, at some secondary gym -- and I believe was supported by more than just some muslim women. anyway, the execution of the idea was terrible (at the very least, they should've picked off-hours and and compensated men by having equal men-only hours), but the idea being "accomodating minorities" is slightly different from the subject of this thread -- harvard's a private university that has a reasonably large *international* body of students; indeed, i believe the primary interest here was from muslim women studying from abroad. these are already some smart, liberal (for the islamic world -- otherwise they wouldn't be halfway around the world) athletic gals (think, rugby, tennis teams and martial arts), who aren't american. for a university to do this in an equitable manner, to offer alternatives for transient student members from a different society, isn't quite the same as a state mandating the same to appease minority members of its population.
execution was terrible, as I said, but from a pragmatic point the idea's not entirely terrible as far as giving american educations to girls from abroad is important from a soft-power POV, and thus allowing some leeway to their cultural prejudices. i don't in principle agree with the whole idea, but at the same time, it's nothing too outrageous (speaking as an alum).
Multi-cultural activists are often pseduo-liberal and that scares the wits out of me.
well, like I said, I don't agree with the idea in principle, but from a practical standpoint it's pretty minor. as a university, the international students who come there accept that it is co-educational, including dorms. Indeed, neighboring universities like MIT and BU have women's dorms! And Wellesley's a women's-only college, imagine that! Clearly these women's dorms are the first in a wave of accomodationism in America, and so's Wellesley (I always knew they were islamists..).
Less snarkily, it's pretty minor compared to what other universities already do. The brouhaha partly erupted because a) people read the crimon, and some crimson columnists love finding minor campus issues to blow up into MAJOR PROBLEMS and b) it was terribly implemented and not equitable. In a country where women's-only gyms are proliferating (ever wonder why?) and was even the subject of a recent simpson's episode, it has hardly the first wave of 'appeasement' to realize that perhaps, just perhaps, gyms are qualitatively different environments than the classroom. Appeasement would be something far more drastic than this; something that's pretty unlikely to happen. Here it was an attempt by some international, athletic muslim girls (who obviously accept the premise of liberal education, otherwise they wouldn't be living in coed dorms and attending coed classrooms halfway around the world) to find a more comfortable environment. In fact, they discovered other, non-muslim, girls on campus who agreed with them!
Fyi, I'm mostly playing devil's advocate here; but I really, really don't think this is a good example of 'appeasement'. Just an easy way for the rightwing blogosphere to try and link two of their favorite evil tropes: "the damned east-coast liberal elites" and "liberals enabling muslim appeasement" :P
Amardeep,
I could be wrong, butI don't think Assam situation is as serious as that of Kashmir and was surprised at the inclusion.
ROFL.. nice to know this.. I see that in Muslim students in Australia are asking for rescehduling lectures to fit with the prayer times..
link
International Muslim students, predominantly from Saudi Arabia, have asked universities in Melbourne to change class times so they can attend congregational prayers. They also want a female-only area for Muslim students to eat and relax.
That will be the next step. good job..
41 · melbourne desi said
I read a quip somewhere that the Religious Right ought to start casting its agenda in multicultural terms if it wants to get its demands for religious accommodations passed through.
Can you imagine Harvard creating these women-only hours if a Christian group said the Bible demanded it? But a Muslim group argues that this a way to celebrate diversity and accommodate a marginalized minority and voila, this becomes something that progressive would support.
Melbourne Desi, come on. Single sex education does currently exist, already, in the US and in other countries, including Australia, and was the norm until sometime in the 1960s. There are any number of rationales for it, from removing distractions, to improving confidence, to controlling harassment - and many studies show that the biggest beneficiaries, especially in academic improvement - are often boys and men. But the rationales apply to both sexes, in grade school, high school and college. Women-only graduate schools also exist in the US. And the rationales come from both 'liberals' and 'conservatives', and 'religious' as well as 'secular' perspectives. Something does not become wrong merely because some of the people who are asking for it are religious conservatives of a certain religion, nor does it become right because people arguing against it call themselves 'secular'. The argument should be framed in terms of choice - for all.
It would have been illegal segregation if it was a blanket policy across all university gyms, and if women were prohibited from accessing the gyms at other times, and were restricted to those times and those gyms only. Currently, what I see is that women have a choice - they can go to the co-ed gyms, and they can also go to the same-sex gyms during the same-sex times. This expands the choices available to everyone. Nobody, male or female, has a right to 'see' others working out, or in work-out gear - so I don't see what right of others is being violated if same sex gyms are made available to those who prefer them, for whatever reason, religious or secular - and whether those asking for that choice are international students, or domestic students, men or women - as long as all students have a genuine choice to opt in or opt out of either system.
Personally, I prefer co-education, including gyms and swimming pools, and have always been in co-educational institutions all my life. (Though many public pools do have same-sex, or certain-age, hours.) Yet my experience also enables me to appreciate the arguments people put forward for same-sex education. My question is, as long as I can choose to be in co-ed settings, why should the choice not to be in them be denied others, especially in a private setting? I am absolutely opposed to any blanket, across-the-board bans, but anything that expands choice should be OK. Now I realize there can be a slippery slope, and similar logic can be applied to racial segregation. So my is conditional - certainly not a blanket endorsement.
Actually, yes I can imagine this. After all, a pro-abstinence student group recently started at H :) While a good number students are of the standard 'liberal', non-religious type, the university *does* attract and get students of a surprisingly varyied and diverse set of ideological and religious backgrounds (and depth of religiousness, including christianity). more than you'd think given standard caricatures. you'd also be curious to note that it wasn't just some muslim girls interested in this. Also, btw, this was no 'demand'. A request was put in, and the athletics dept. is experimenting to see if it's worthwhile or useful.
All this is to say, this is not the right example to use for whatever point everyone's trying to make here regarding "accomodating minorities" etc. There are much better examples out there than to deal with harvard's peculiarities and interesting (but wildly unrepresentative) student population.
This whole argument is the 'separate but equal' policy. And I can not but be disgusted by it.
My last comment on this topic.
Yeah, this is funny. Let's think through a similar example. A group of vegetarian students are upset that they can't get "vegetarian only" food in university cafetaria. (I have known a few people in India who don't goto restaurants that serve veg and non-veg dishes because they have the idea that the hotels use the same utensils to cook both veg and non-veg food and apparently this is polluting). Imagine if people with a similar mentality form a pressure group in Harvard and make the cafetaria that was serving all kinds of food before to now offer PURE VEGETARIAN only food for one day in a week, is that OK?. There are definitely places around Harvard where others can goto get their choice of food.
There seem to be a lot of ardent fans of the Islamofascist theory of "accommodation" (hey, scare quotes!) on this thread.
Not just restaurants, who would've thought that the university even supports self-segregation of students who are vegetarian into their own residences? Outrageous!
49 · Ponniyin Selvan said
Vegetarianism is seen by most Americans as a leftwing phenomenon. I think even meat-eating liberals in the USA see virtue in vegetarianism and would support making programs that make it easier to be vegetarian. The observation we're making is that the left has long advocated a particular lifestyle and fights the American right tooth and nail to see that modern values prevail over so call traditional values. But, under the guise of multiculturalism, the left is willing to accept things they otherwise would not accept.
Here in NYC, the left has been very suspicious of charter schools, arguing it can easily become a vehicle for religious indoctrination. However when a Muslim group organized an "Arabic" charter school staffed mostly by Muslims advocating Islamic education, the left was very receptive. In fact the left has accused those who oppose this charter school of being islamophobic. Traditional resistance to charter schools here is replaced by a multiculti embrace of diversity.
If you want NY Times Editorial Page to support your ideas or programs get a spokesman w/ a foreign-sounding name and have him argue for it in multicultural terms.
BARACK HUSEIN OBAMA!!!!
What's your point?. I don't see a relation between the two cases.
Umm, Harvard subsidises this by providing only men who want to be vegetarian with their own housing. Far more of an investment than 6 hours out of 60 odd in a fringe gym. That's my point.
I don't think anyone would object if Muslim women (or any other group who need a women-only gym) start their own gym and restrict it for women. It is the question of requiring others to accomodate your religious beliefs at their expense.
Ok, so the problem with the gym issue is that Harvard allowed these women to use an existing gym, instead of just building an entirely new one devoted exclusively to women. Good to know :)
BTW, it is very common in India for gyms and swimming pools to have women-only hours (check out many of the gyms in the high rises in Bombay, for example), and this was true even without the clear Muslim oppression.
If you have read what I quoted, the report says it was founded for that purpose. There is nothing wrong in Harvard (being a private school) founding a Muslim only gym and permitting all kinds of restrictions.
But. I don't think you (or I) can decide what is a fringe gym and what is not?. I'd like to goto a nearby gym which is closer to my dorm trekking in footlong snow in the middle of Feb and if I was denied entry I'd get angry and (I think) rightly so.
So, what was wrong was Harvard dedicating (far less than) 5% of its gym resources (6 out of 60 = 10% of a small gym's resources, which works out to less than 5% of the total gym resources) for this accommodation, instead they should have spent far more to build out a new gym, and somehow that would have been fairer? Personally, I do think blanket accommodation of random requests is a bad idea (and I also think religion, in general, is given more weightage than desirable in this respect), but this particular allowance seems pretty minor, and was attempted in a manner as to cause very little disruption, and it appears that they did a reasonable job given how little the students at Harvard (except one Mr. Nick Wells, it seems) seem to be upset by this (although there are all sorts of righteous upholders of liberty outside Harvard who are eagerly standing on principle) are complaining. And if the trial doesn't seem to benefit enough of the student population, Harvard will rescind it in any case, so the policy will succeed only if the resources are being used efficiently.
And the gym is not Muslim only, it can be used by all women during this time.
I agree, I shouldn't have imposed my value judgment on deciding whether others' demands are reasonable.
So, accommodation for laziness in picking a place to exercise - better not burn too many calories - is ok :)
I don't see the point in comparing Bombay and Harvard. You could also argue that men are not allowed to see non-related women in Saudi arabia.
What is the "culture" you want to be part of, (I think ) is the question. In order to accomodate other "cultures" I hope Harvard does not lose its "culture".
So far everyone (atleast in this blog) who defended the idea qualifies it with a caveat that personally they think it is a bad idea. :-)
I think people come out of their "politically correct" blinkers they would see how ridiculous this idea is.
Getting back to the topic at hand, though, the essay is indeed very well written. Thanks for the post, Amardeep. I had a question about one sentence though:
I am, by no means, a political scientist, but isn't the nation state formulation (as opposed to a pure state construct) inherently inimical to ethnic and cultural diversity?
This is one of the big reasons why I have always thought that thinking based on national boundaries is completely arbitrary, and that fact has become even more marked in the last century with the haphazard drawing up of lines in the middle east, South Asia, and Africa, in the frenzied leap to independence as the imperial powers lost their hold. Of course, the next frontier will be the evolution of countries as non-native cultures become prominent participants through waves of immigration, as is happening most markedly in the US, and to a lesser, but still significant, extent in Europe.
The acceptance of democracy and rights as a system of governance has raised to the fore the question of how the conflicting tugs of political unity and humanitarian demands for self-determination will be resolved. And how this will play out against the spectre of poverty, which is often the leading reason for rebellion against real or perceived discrimination/neglect by the ruling powers. I guess this will be the next broad evolution of political systems over the next 500 years or so (will Babylon V be the answer?) - if some loony doesn't unleash a nuclear bomb before then.
It is a slightly more pertinent comparison than saying that this would mean that Harvard now has to schedule Muslim only classes. That is not what they are doing.
That's not what I said.
Americanofascism is the answer.
New term in town.. "Americanofascism" on the lines of "islamofascism" / "islamophobia" .
people who want to have both males and females working out in the gym at the same time are "Americanofascists". :-)
Universities do a whole lot of things to make things comfortable for a variety of student lifestyle choices: keeping libraries open at odd hours, running shuttles for students who work late, setting up support systems for women and minorities, and so on. I see this accommodation as similar, if something can be done that actually and tangibly helps a reasonable number of students without inconveniencing the rest of the student body (hence the trial period), there is no harm. (Even though, I know that the looming specter of Islamism scares the boldly politically incorrect. But not Nick Wells, what he wants really is for Harvard to do more for Muslim women, not less).
Newsflash: 54 out of 60 hours in the small gym are this way, as are the big gym. People who refuse to entertain the request because it is made by people with "foreign sounding names" and might be supported by the Times editorial page are the Americanofascists.
64 · Rahul said
I'm not opposed to women's only hours in gym. Its a very good idea grounded in commonsense.
I think its absurd to oppose Conservative sensibilities when it is advocated by the right but to support it, if it is couched in multicultural rhetoric.
I'll be interested to see the reaction at the gym when the Muslim women are working out if a blind woman member turned up with a guide dog.
Guys, this is way off topic.
I'm also disappointed that the thread has turned into the usual Muslim-baiting crap.