FRAMEWORKS FOR INTERCULTURAL UNDERSTANDING. ISLAM AS A CHALLENGE
This paper will not attempt to justify the need for intercultural understanding,
an extensive subject which presumes a polemic on "two fronts" - against
the liberalist thesis that public social life should be culturally neutral,
but also against the radical communitarian position of antagonism to alien
cultural presence. Here we will simply postulate the value of communication
between cultural communities, and proceed to examine possible frameworks
for intercultural understanding.
Mutual understanding becomes a problem when there is a clash of cultures
that differ significantly. The level and substance of "cultural strangeness"
vary greatly. There may be tensions in relations between cultural communities
even if there is a low level of cultural difference - when the latter serves
only as an occasion for the establishment of relations of the "in-group
vs out-group" type. In such cases there are usually also other factors
antagonizing the communities concerned. As an example, one can take the
problems of the Hungarian minorities in Romania and Yugoslavia, or of the
Catalan and Basque ethnic groups in Spain.
There is a cultural conflict proper when ethnic confrontation is combined
with religious, or “civilizational” differences (Huntington, 96). Cases
of the former type can be found both in modern societies and in societies
where traditional custom prevails. The relations between Irish Catholics
and Scottish Protestants in Northern Ireland are very typical in this respect,
as are those between Muslims and Christians in Nigeria, or between Muslims
and Hindus in India.
Interactions between communities, which are on different sides of the
dividing line between modern and traditional types of culture, are even
more problematic. This applies, for instance, to relations between the
Western and the Islamic worlds. The cultural contrast between modern and
traditional is a prime concern of disciplines such as intercultural communication,
which deal mainly with the interaction between business partners from the
US or Europe, on the one hand, and Asia or Latin America, on the other.
As regards the substance of the cultural difference examined in this
paper, it may be delineated best against the background of the concept
of culture from which we are proceeding. We will regard culture as a coherent
set of standards of behavior and codes of "deciphering" meanings (see Carbaugh
90:7). Hence in discussing interactions between cultures, we are not concerned
with relations between organized formations, such as states or political
parties but, rather, with situations of harmony or confrontation between
worldviews, attitudes, stereotypes. The "substance" of cultural conflict
comprises the reactions of non-acceptance of what someone around you is
doing that runs counter to your notions of proper or improper and, at that,
he? is doing it not by chance or misunderstanding, but with all the self-confidence
of a person following some unquestionable rules of conduct. We usually
share such reactions with "our like" - with people who have been formed
as individuals in the spirit of traditions identical to ours and who have
shared views. Insofar as one of the main functions of culture is to ensure
the predictability of actions and solidarity within the community (see
Bohannan 95:50), the behavioral discord that emerges in cohabitation with
cultural "otherness" could cause us considerable psychological discomfort.
Of course, a culture may tolerate a "foreign body" within its "fabric"
painlessly if it has sufficiently powerful mechanisms of self-reproduction.
In that case the "otherness" seems innocuous in any form whatsoever - as
long as it abides by some universal rules of human cohabitation. It doesn’t
matter if someone's dress or diet is peculiar, provided that the media,
entertainment industry, educational institutions and public administration
are constantly reasserting in countless ways one and the same invariable
ideas of good and evil, of beautiful and ugly, of human dignity, honor,
justice, etc. This creates the illusion of unproblematic multiculturality,
which is typical of the self-awareness of modern societies and fosters
the views of the relative insignificance of cultural differences.
The harmonization of interactions between cohabitant cultural communities
presupposes dialogical relationships between them. If we use Habermas's
term, their behavior towards each other ought to be of the communicative-action
type, i.e. to be oriented towards mutual understanding (cf. Habermas, 90).
Mutual recognition of validity claims is an important condition for the
establishment of such a relationship. Particularly important in this regard
are what Habermas defines as normative claims. Without respecting each
other's normative claims, the parties cannot live together in harmony.
Yet while those mutual claims can be harmonized through discourse in a
culturally homogeneous environment - the methodology of this activity is
expounded in detail by the so-called "discourse ethics" - interaction between
different cultural communities seems quite problematic in this respect.
How can such a discourse proceed if the participants do not share a
common life-world, if there are contradictions between their background
moral values? To evaluate a validity claim, both the "hearer" and the "speaker"
must have at least minimum intercultural competence with regard to one
another. Otherwise the "speaker" will not know what to refer to in his
argumentation, in order to make it acceptable to the "hearer”. And how
could be decided, in cases of contradiction between normative validity
claims, who ought to give way, i.e. to make a compromise with his interests
in the name of ‘understanding” (“Verstaendigung”)? Each party might sincerely
claim, that its interests are more substantially bound to the controversial
normative matter. How can each of them judge whether the Other’s claim
is right, provided that a judgment by analogy with one’s own attitude to
this matter of practical discourse cannot be reliable, due to the cultural
difference?
* * *
The problem of intercultural understanding may be studied from various
aspects, applying the methods of cultural anthropology, social psychology,
pedagogy, linguistics, literary theory, history, theology, philosophy,
etc. A new, synthetic discipline has also been gaining ground in recent
years: intercultural communication. Here we will confine ourselves to a
philosophical case study: a study on the attempts of Islamic scholars to
present the status of women in typical Muslim societies as morally justified
in the eyes of the non-Muslim and, in particular, of the modern, Western
world.
We believe that, notwithstanding the diversity in the treatment of
this issue from an Islamic perspective (it is even difficult to talk of
a single perspective that is exclusively representative of the entire Islamic
world), several common features of the argumentation may be identified.
A study of those features could help clarify the mechanisms of intercultural
understanding as an element of intercultural communication.
Here we will consistently evaluate the positions at a meta-level only,
i.e. we are concerned not with the truthfulness or acceptability of a given
thesis, but only with the technique of its justification. Our critique
will not focus on the content of the statements under consideration, however
provocative some of them might sound to the average European or North American
reader. Still, we hope that an elaboration of the mechanisms of intercultural
understanding – which we are aiming at – would be instrumental against
manipulative argumentation of positions, whose content is unacceptable
to the general public.
This particular choice of case study (the attempts to justify - from
an Islamic position - as understandable and morally acceptable to the surrounding
world a controversial feature of Islamic culture) is also indicative of
the methodology of our paper, albeit in another respect. We will not be
dealing with the unilateral examination of an alien culture. No matter
how well someone comes to know the respective culture's internal mechanisms
of functioning, he would, at best, attain predictability of the respective
community's behavior, levers for its manipulation. Yet this certainly does
not mean understanding the culture as such.
Monological attempts to "understand" an alien culture could be an expression
of an imperialistic, colonialist attitude - Edward Said offers a classical
analysis of this position in “Orientalism” (cf. Said 95: 3-5), showing
how in this particular case "understanding" may be manipulative to the
point where reconstruction is substituted for knowledge of the subject.
Monological "understanding" could also take the form of bona-fide misconception
- as the manifestations of the Subject-centered Reason (Habermas 87:294)
typical of Modernity. Either way, however, the alien culture is treated
as an object that is unilaterally controllable by the subject, even if
this is done with the best of intentions. The "Other" is not given the
opportunity to speak of himself alone, to represent his own interests.
He is denied maturity and autonomy that are equal to those of the subject.
Apart from being unfair, such an approach to an alien culture is ineffective
in establishing constructive intercultural relations. Without truly equal
partnership, harmony in cohabitation is impossible.
In their overwhelming majority, the ideas about intercultural understanding
follow the same pattern: presentation of the external, empirical differences
as an effect of identical fundamental causes. Understanding the "Other"
means to recognize "behind" his or her actions, (which might be incongruent
with your ideas of proper and improper), the same cultural motives, which
you follow yourself, but which are manifested in a different form.
From a social psychological perspective, R. Brislin examines intercultural
understanding on a somewhat different plane. According to Brislin, the
main purpose of this act is to achieve "isomorphism of the attributions"
which the parties make concerning the same action of one of them. "This
term refers to the ability to make the same attributions as the other person
in the interaction" (Brislin 93:41). By "attribution" Brislin means the
explanation attributed to a given action by the doer, insofar as s/he is
aware why s/he is acting in this particular way, as well as by an outside
observer (who might also be a recipient of the action in question). There
is understanding only when those explanations are identical.
Since by rule a particular action is part of a continuous process of
interaction, we usually have two parallel flows of attributions, which
influence the real interaction and which are, even in the easiest intercultural
relationship, only partly isomorphic. Indicatively, this concept of intercultural
understanding presents the latter in its entire complexity.
It is very tempting to apply the pattern of "fundamental similarities
- different empirical manifestations" to the value hierarchies that are
at the core of moral orientation within different cultures. Arguably, the
ultimate values are identical, or at least similar, across the world, but
are merely interpreted and applied in a different way depending on the
geographical and historical circumstances. In his book on religious tolerance
Jay Newman, for example, coins the term "trans-cultural values," citing
love, justice, peace, economic prosperity, wisdom, progress, self-realization,
duty, honor (see Newman 82:66-67). Those values may be regarded as an ideal
of what ought to be, and cultural differences, as an expression of different
views on the ways of realizing the ideal.
This position may fit into the conceptual background of both cultural
evolutionism and cultural relativism. The author quoted above tends to
apply the former, insofar as he assumes that any society or religious group
may be rated higher or lower by a "scale of civilization," depending on
"how much or how successfully its ideal values have been realized" (Newman
82:68). As the quote shows, Newman assumes that the degrees of realization
of one and the same ideal in different cases can be commensurable. Although
two or more cultural communities may use alternative means towards one
and the same end, it is possible to evaluate their progress at a given
moment.
This relation between end and means, however, may also be interpreted
in the spirit of cultural relativism. If one acknowledges the possibility
that the alternative means towards an end might be radically incommensurable,
the attempts to divide cultures into relatively advanced and relatively
backward along the road to civilization would prove unjustified and even
harmful, insofar as they fuel ambitions for the domination of some societies
over others. If, for instance, we take human dignity as a common ideal
in a modern and in a traditional value systems, we will see that the actual
behavior that abides by this ideal is entirely different in the two cases.
Respect for the dignity of the modern person is manifested foremost in
the guarantee of his or her individual autonomy - inviolability of his
or her private life, freedom of choice, responsibility in the light of
universal norms of behavior?. A person's dignity in a traditional environment
is, by contrast, measured mainly in the person's belonging to his community.
Precisely the independence of an individual from particularistic interests,
which is a condition for the realization of his or her dignity in Modernity,
is counter-indicative for human dignity in traditional society. The closer
someone's status is to the ideal of dignity in the one dimension, the further
it is from the same ideal in the other dimension. In that case, how can
one compare the progress made towards the end by either of the two means?
Yet irrespective of whether the scheme of the relation between cultural
differences and similarities is applied in an evolutionist or relativist
context, it works equally well. In both cases it is possible to achieve
validation of normative claims - as long as the claims to tolerate cultural
practices that contradict our beliefs are justified by means of values,
which coincide with some of our own moral regulatives.
If our critique that, say, arranged marriages are incompatible with
the human dignity of the young people involved, is countered by a simple
reference to the respective ethnic community's traditions, this will not
contribute to intercultural understanding. What moral binding power could
alien cultural traditions have for us to make us accept a situation that
runs counter to our criteria of socially acceptable behavior? Yet if, instead,
we are offered arguments that show a culture-based difference in the very
understanding of human dignity and justification of the thesis that in
"that" cultural context this virtue is asserted precisely by the practice
of arranged marriages, that will be a step towards mutual understanding.
Naturally, we are talking about cogent argumentation, not about declarative
short-circuiting of the facts with the argued thesis. We should have the
freedom to challenge each argument - in the case discussed above, we might
very well fail to agree with the proffered justification of arranged marriages
and remain firmly in opposition. Nevertheless, this would have been an
attempt at intercultural communication.
How is the said scheme of validating normative claims applied by authors
who are trying to "open up" Muslim culture, making it more understandable
to the outside world? In the huge variety of positions and argumentative
techniques, one can identify a selective approach to the universalistic
justification of the specific features of the Muslim way of life: not everything
in Islam can be and is worth defending.
The traditional way of legitimating scripture-based reforms of socio-cultural
practices is by interpreting and reinterpreting scripture itself. If an
author thinks that a particular practice ought to be changed, s/he tries
to convince his or her readers that it is not directly prescribed by the
word of God but ensues from the latter's misinterpretation or distortion
by the interpreters. This reformist approach is manifested in one way or
another in the development of any religion. Here, however, we will cite
two not so trivial argumentations as a case of justifying changes in the
Muslim way of life.
Zia Goekalp's approach to reforms in Islam is quite simple. He distinguishes
two sources of the shari'ah: "one is scripture (nass) and the other - local
practice, mores, custom or convention ('urf)" (Khuri 98:307). Only the
divine element of shari'ah is sacred and not subject to change. The socio-cultural
one is transitory and ought to be adjusted to the times and changing conditions.
The algorithm offered by another Islamic scholar, Fazlur Rahman, is
more complicated. According to Rahman, the sacred text of the Qur'an has
been offered to mortals in a concrete form, which corresponds to the specific
historical conditions in Arab society in the age of the Qur'anic revelations.
Were it not adapted to the needs and capacities of the people to whom it
is addressed, the scripture would not have attained its divine purpose.
Yet this means that one should distinguish between the principles enshrined
in the Qur'an, which are sacred and eternal, and their concrete formulation,
which is transitory and cannot be valid for other historical ages and peoples
unless it is adapted accordingly.
The interpretation of the Qur'an must be updated by analogy. "The relationship
between the eternal principles and Arabian life early in the seventh century
(C.E.) must be precisely the same as that between the former and the various
strands of Muslim life today" (Khuri 98:310). This means that the interpreter
must have excellent knowledge of the situation during the original propagation
of Islam and must be capable of, so to speak, back translation - from the
empirically available text of the scripture back to its principles - in
order to subsequently reproduce the relationship between those two levels
with regard to the contemporary socio-cultural situation.
After an author has argued his or her thesis what in the Muslim way
of life can get and warrants moral justification to the outside world,
s/he faces the harder task: to present the cultural specificities in question
as a realization of universal - to quote Jay Newman, "trans-cultural" -
values. Contemporary studies usually focus on one or several historical
factors which explain why the Muslim notion of a particular universal value
differs from, say, the Western one. The practices which, to the outside
observer, are in contradiction with a given value, are actually in harmony
with the latter but - due to certain contingent historical circumstances
- take a different form.
The traditional character of Muslim societies is cited as the primary
factor in this respect. Indeed, from the perspective of Modernity it is
easiest to understand cultural specificities that ensue from the difference
between traditional and modern society, because one can proceed from the
latter's own history. When European or North American readers study the
Islamic mores, they cannot refrain from analogies with what they know about
the not too distant past of their own civilization. If we abstain from
the evolutionistic inclination to evaluate cultural specificities by level
of development, to "rate" cultures as superior and inferior - in which
case any similarity between someone's present and someone else's past suggest
that the former is "lagging behind" the latter - the possibility of reasoning
by analogy with our own history helps understand the other's specificity.
The category of "community" is particularly important in this respect.
As is known, one of the main differences between traditional and modern
societies is that relationships of what F. Toennies defined as Gemeinschaft
prevail in the former, and of Gesellschaft in the latter (see Toennies
57). Then what could be so unusual and incomprehensible to us in the Muslim
way of life, if the latter gives priority to a type of relationships which,
albeit by now less significant, are still present in our social reality.
Admittedly, the validity of universal values differs in content when seen
from the "angle" of exclusivistic communal solidarity, but what could be
wrong about those relationships from our point of view?
The traditional nature of Muslim societies contributes to their cultural
specificity also with regard to the social role of religion. Islam is notorious
for its claims to regulate every sphere of social life in depth, in minute
detail - to maintain "a congruence of the fanum/sacred and profanum/profane
sphere" (Trautner 99:I). Prima facie, this is a phenomenon all too familiar
from the general history of religion, some sort of naive mysticism - an
inability to distinguish between the natural and the supernatural - which
attests to the primitive nature of communal mentality. This seems to be
one of the "pains of growth" of any civilization from which society, in
the course of its development and secularization, eventually breaks free.
Yet perhaps the vehement resistance which secularization encounters
in the Muslim world and which creates the impression that the latter is,
in a way, ultra-conservative, ought to be explained with, inter alia, a
deeper cultural difference vis-a-vis the West. Let us remember that the
general opposition between the material and the spiritual world is not
self-evident, but dates back to Plato. Adopted by Christianity and asserted
especially by St Augustine's De civitate Dei, it steers Western civilization
towards development in the spirit of a dualistic, in this sense, worldview.
Whereas Islam is characterized by a holistic view of being, which is too
conceptualized by the theoreticians of this religion to be attributed to
some sort of ignorance. Contemporary scholars, for instance, offer entirely
articulate arguments in favor of the thesis that "it is not human reason
that judges the status of the law [i.e. Of Muslim law, the shari'ah], but
the law that directs the use of reason" (Khuri 98:302).? After all, today
it is difficult to find firm believers in the absoluteness of Reason anyway.
In postmodern discourse it is preferred to talk about a plurality of rationalities.
In this context the claims on a society, in which Muslim law has the status
of an immediate embodiment of the Divine Will, to conform its legislation
to the standards of Reason, look like an attempt to impose on it an alien
rationality.
Another factor that places the Muslim way of life in a rather different
relation to universal values is that the Muslim countries are at a geopolitical
disadvantage in regard to the West. Considering that the majority of these
countries have been subject to colonial rule and that today all are the
target of attempts at domination in one form or another, it is hardly surprising
that a defensive position towards any modernization initiative is commonplace
in Muslim societies. Such initiatives are often seen as a threat to the
cultural identity of those peoples. This is due, inter alia, to the fact
that so far most political regimes, which have committed themselves to
modernizing reforms have followed a course of despotism and corruption,
thus reasserting their subjects' conviction that modernization brings moral
corruption.
All this has asserted a selective attitude to universal moral regulatives,
with a preference for those that close, isolate the in-group from the rest
of the world. A corporativistic morality, which applies the ethic standards
of behavior differently to "us" and "them", is maintained. Consequently,
Islam appears to be amoral or, at best, with a morality of its own, which
is radically different from the universally acceptable, as a result of
which people from the Muslim and those from the non-Muslim world are apparently
not bound by any mutual moral commitments whatsoever.
So far we have discussed in principle a scheme of moral justification
of the specificities of the Muslim way of life from the perspective of
universal values. Let us now demonstrate how it is applied in practice.
How facts are harmonized with values by correcting apparent incongruities
through reference to the above-mentioned or other factors of their type.
As noted at the beginning, this paper will focus on the issue of the status
of women in Muslim societies - a problem that has sparked acute value-related
conflicts between the West and the Muslim world.
The traditional rhetoric that justifies the underprivileged status
of Muslim women in the public sphere lacks conviction for the outside observer.
The opportunity of women to perform an important mission in the family,
assigned to them by God - to keep the home as a "center of peace, civility,
tranquility, and love, a safe haven and protection from the brutality of
the outside world" (Haddad 98:5) - is cited as moral "compensation" for
their isolation from public life. At that, women have an opportunity for
full self-realization as individuals, because at home they can best realize
their inborn feminine virtues, such as gentleness, compassion, intelligence,
understanding. These virtues are invaluable in rearing children, but at
the same time make women vulnerable in the outside world - a scene of conflicts
and tensions, which require a masculine strength of character.
From the outside point of view, such considerations are cold comfort
for the unequal status of women in public life. It turns out that women
are incapable of coping with the big issues in life, and insofar as they
might be useful in any way, that is to provide "logistical support" to
men, to bring up their children and deal with the everyday issues of family
life. By the scale of universal values, this type of human existence is
hopelessly inferior.
That is the case, however, only if we ignore the special significance
of the home and the family in the Islamic cultural context. Contemporary
authors, who expound the Islamic position on the issue, conceptualize it
with the help of a category that is universally comprehensible, insofar
as it has been investigated in detail in international social sciences
- on a sociological and socio-psychological, as well as philosophical plane.
This is the category of "community."
As noted above, the role of the community in the Muslim way of life
differs from that in the modern world. Richard Khuri characterizes this
role by means of the category of "positive freedom." The latter implies
a relationship between the group and its members, which binds, restricts,
but also gives the individual a distinct identity - an identity without
which the individual cannot be positively free. The Muslim community (which
is called by Khuri "enabling community") has treated its members "as integral
persons so that it is taken for granted that the Muslim must be able to
express his whole being no matter how encompassing this may be, within
the framework laid out by the community"? (Khuri 98:129).
While in contemporary Western society the boundaries between private
and public life are, in general, also boundaries between spheres of community
and Gesellschaft-type relationships, in the Muslim world the community
has a tangible presence in the public sphere too. This civilizational specificity
is used astutely by Islamic authors, who do not omit to stress that the
Islamic family structure "is predicated by divine design as the paradigmatic
social unit" (Haddad 98:19). In that case the woman's important role in
the family also proves to be socially significant in general. Taking care
of the "health" and viability of the family, building the character and
value system of the young generation, the woman guarantees the cultural
reproduction of society. In this context, the business activities of the
man seem insignificant in their limitation and one-sidedness compared to
the existential depth of the woman's mission. The fulfillment of this kind
of tasks demands the woman's powerful individual presence in the community
which, in its turn, is sufficient to justify the need of a high social
status of women, as well as the prestige and self-confidence of a full-fledged
member of society.
When discussing the justification of the important social role of women
from an Islamic perspective, one should keep in mind that the arguments
rule out gender rivalry in general. The leading position of men in both
public life and family is not called into question even in the boldest
variants of emancipatory discourse (see Haddad 98:20). The level at which
women can seek self-realization is not that of competition among individuals.
The female and male roles in community life are assumed to be mutually
complementary with, however, the "power-related" actions of dramatic decision-making,
taking responsibility for the fate of the community in the clash with external
circumstances, wholly confined to the sphere of male competence.
How do all those considerations fit into the debate on the cultural
specificities of the Muslim way of life which, from the Western perspective,
are in contradiction with universal values? For lack of space we will not
provide a representative picture of the clash of arguments in this sphere,
but will confine ourselves to a concrete problem - that of the honor of
women. This problem is a textbook case of a value conflict between civilizations.
To the Westerner it is incomprehensible why a religion should impose a
number of limitations on women's behavior, which are not self-evidently
justified and, by rule, do not apply to men. This seems to be a typical
case of injustice, of discrimination against women.
In traditional Islamic discourse, which does not take into account
the opening up of Islamic culture to the world, the limitations in question
are associated with familiar interpretations of scripture that present
women as inferior to men, as particularly sinful, sensuous creatures -
as temptresses by nature, incapable of controlling their lusts sufficiently.
Those interpretations are called into question by many contemporary scholars
(cf. Esposito/Haddad 98; Schoening-Kalender 97; Luckau 91; Brink/Mencher
97). Insofar as there are attempts to harmonize the status of women typical
of Islam with moral regulatives respected elsewhere too, those attempts
stress the specific role of the community in the Muslim world and, albeit
to a lesser extent, of the cohesion of religion and morality, as well as
the defensive position towards the global imposition of Western culture.
It is thus shown, for instance, that it is entirely wrong to approach
the question of the honor of Muslim women by analogy with the situation
in individualistic European or North American societies. In the latter
women are as free as men to choose how they will behave. A woman’s decision
in this respect binds none other than herself. For the Muslim extended
family, however, the behavior of a woman who belongs to them is representative
of their mores. An immoral, defamatory action would disgrace each of the
other members of the community. This would be catastrophic for the community's
prestige and would affect its status in society and, eo ipso, the future
of all its members.
Considering that so much is at stake, shouldn't we approach with understanding
the Muslim world's particular sensitivity to women's abidance by the moral
norms? If a woman's dishonor would have such grave consequences and affect
so many other people along with the woman herself,? isn't it justified
for one and all to try to minimize the risk of women's disgrace? In this
context, aren't the pedantic restrictions on women's behavior more acceptable
from an outsider's point of view - restrictions that aim to rule out even
the slightest element of sexual provocation on the part of women and that
seem like a gross intervention in their private life. Yet if we assume
that those restrictions are necessary, we must also acknowledge the right
of anybody to watch over their application.
This brings us to a somewhat different understanding of certain cases
of sexual aggression in Muslim countries, which look like gross disrespect
for women's dignity - like actions whose express purpose is to humiliate
women. This applies to sexual harassment in cases when, for instance, a
woman is not dressed appropriately for the particular situation or when
she appears in public without being escorted by a male relative if, by
convention, she should have been. In such situations abuse may be seen
as a sanction against socially undesirable behavior. This, of course, cannot
justify aggression from the perspective of Modernity, but could nevertheless
contribute to intercultural understanding.
Such an attitude to women takes an extreme form when sexual abuse is
used as a weapon in a conflict between communities. One of the most brutal
ways of humiliating a "hostile" community is to rape women, which belong
to it. This is regarded as an extreme form of hostility virtually everywhere,
but has special meaning and significance in an Islamic cultural context.
There is sufficient evidence of clashes of this type between Muslim and
non-Muslim communities too, e.g. in the conflicts in former Yugoslavia.
At that, the Muslim population was usually the object rather than the agent
of such aggression, which attests to a sort of "intercultural competence"
of the other party.
Along with more intensive community life, the cultural specificities
of the Muslim world are explained - in an effort to justify them in terms
of universal values - by an emphasis on the holistic nature of Islamic
morality. Unlike the European-type morality, where analytical distinctions
are made and an internal differentiation is developed, in Islamic morality
the ethic regulatives are in total unity with the religious ones and constitute,
along with the latter, a monolithic set of rules of conduct. Hence the
conservative and uncompromising nature of Islamic morality. "When a section
of the moral edifice is allowed to be broken the whole structure weakens
and gives in easily to pressure. And thus tolerance of an evil leads to
other evils" (Abdul-Rauf 79:35). The author argues his thesis by referring
to a scale of moral compromises typical of the Western world, which starts
with apparently insignificant, harmless ones such as female public exposure
and premarital love, and rises steadily, without crossing any visible boundary
between acceptable and unacceptable, to such a moral absurdity as, according
to Abdul-Rauf, uni-sex marriages (ibid.).
* * *
So far we have described a technique applied by some authors in their
quest for moral justification of the specific features of the Muslim way
of life to the "outside world." We have seen how those specific features
are presented as realization of universal values, which, however, is determined
by specific historical circumstances and therefore differs at the empirical
level from the realization of the self-same values in other cultures with
a different history. We have shown how those authors associate restrictions
on women's behavior that appear absurd to the outside observer, with universal
values such as honor, dignity, duty, solidarity, purpose of life, etc.
Yet how convincing are such associations? Aren't they a superficial, propagandist
construct? How could the success of such attempts to justify normative
(in Habermas's terms) claims be evaluated in general?
The examples discussed above show that formal logic cannot be counted
on in such cases - it is virtually impossible to strictly deduce cultural
standards of behavior from universal values. Besides, we certainly cannot
trust some sort of intuitive convincing power of the argumentation. The
situation of intercultural communication itself greatly impedes an intuitive
understanding of the Other's position and makes it difficult to establish
what in this position is convincing and what isn't.
We mentioned at the beginning that Jay Newman presents cultural differences
as an expression of different strategies of realization of the same ideals
- of the so-called "trans-cultural values." This approach can arguably
be applied to evaluate arguments of the type under consideration. One can
compare the end (some universal value) and the means (alternative sets
of cultural standards), and judge which means are adequate to the end,
and to what extent. Newman cites cases of obvious incongruity between historical
undertakings and the values in the name of which they have been allegedly
launched. How could the attack on Poland in 1939 be adequate to Nazi declarations
that the Third Reich was aspiring towards peace; or how could torture and
burning on the stake be adequate to the Spanish Inquisition’s claims that
it was guided by love for thy fellow (see Newman 82:70)?
Anyone with some knowledge about the history of the events cited by
Newman ought to realize that it is possible to provide certain arguments
that the means were indeed adequate to the end in both cases. It is a historical
fact that Nazi Germany accused Poland itself of aggression and presented
the attack as justified resistance. It is also known that by causing physical
suffering to the heretics the Inquisition arguably helped them to atone
for their sins and thus save their souls. One could always claim that under
particular circumstances a given action or standard of behavior is in harmony
with the universal regulative. In Newman's examples the means are so plainly
inadequate to the ends only because of the historical distance from the
events in question. If we take a closer look at the contemporary world,
we will realize that it is far from easy to identify inadequacies similar
to those cited above. Who could say for sure today, whether the Western
military campaigns against Iraq or Yugoslavia were to the benefit of world
peace, as claimed by the governments that waged them, or actually pursued
entirely different goals.
Newman hopes that a mere "critical examination" (ibid.) is enough to
distinguish adequate from inadequate means of realizing an ideal. This
presumption seems rather optimistic. We believe that more powerful tools,
e.g. publicity, ought to be used for the purpose. If anything can expose
the demagogy of a claim that a particular cultural practice is in harmony
with universal values, this is the free public clash of arguments "for"
and "against." Of course, by publicity here we mean the discursive formation
of the opinion and will of citizens (Habermas, 90), not the propaganda
brainwashing machine used in totalitarian societies. Given certain conditions,
which are formulated in their idealized form by Habermas in the book quoted
above - rationality and "openness" of the process of communication, equality
of participants, presence of a potential for self-transformation in communication
- publicity ("Oeffentlichkeit") could be relied on to winnow just from
unjust normative claims.
Yet this general possibility should not be taken for granted. Contemporary
studies of publicity tend to overrate the homogeneity of the public sphere.
The legitimating potential of public opinion drastically declines when
the latter proves deeply divided in some respect. Even if, having taken
our cue from Habermas and his idealizations, we ignore the possibilities
for "faking" publicity, which ensue from the unequal distribution of the
resources for participation in the public sphere, we should take into account
the influence of cultural differences on the latter. Exclusion mechanisms
are triggered almost automatically in regard to the representation of cultural
"Otherness" in the public sphere. This is quite clear in the Western discourse
concerning Islamic culture too. The latter has little if any possibility
to represent itself in the Western public sphere. And this is not due only
to lack of good will and material resources. There is also a deep mistrust
and even suspicion of the normative claims of "the other side," an odd
ring to its moral pathos, an apparent irrationality in the distribution
of value priorities in the other culture.
How could one find a way out and use the otherwise huge legitimating
potential of publicity to clarify the relation of the specific Islamic
cultural practices and the universally accepted moral values. We think
that a direct campaign against the heterogeneity of the public sphere has
little chance of success. It would be more feasible to focus on intensifying
and advancing in-group dialogical discourse. If the problem of "opening
up" Islamic towards modern culture becomes a standing and significant issue
of free discussion in the Muslim world, and this process is accompanied
by an analogical development "on the other side," it will be possible to
evaluate not the validity of the others' normative claims directly, with
all their "intransparency," but the formal, procedural quality of the public
discourse that has produced them.
To establish whether public opinion-making in another culture is fair
- i.e. whether each person is free to uphold his or her position in a way
that enjoys full respect, whether the end result of a debate on a given
issue is the product of a reasonable exchange of arguments - you do not
necessarily have to go into the specificities of the others' cultural life.
In that case, if "the other side’s" in-group discourse meets the general
formal criteria, you would be able to conclude that the normative claims
formulated by this discourse really express the relation between the others'
cultural practices and universal values, and are not yet another propaganda
bluff. This will be a crucial step towards bringing empirical differences
under the common denominator of fundamental similarities - which is the
scheme of intercultural understanding promoted in this paper.
Of course, healthy skepticism demands consideration of the following
question: isn't this approach to intercultural understanding yet another
expression of cultural imperialism? Isn't this an attempt to impose a Western
discursive procedure on Islamic culture? Will the Islamic position on any
issue of interaction with other cultures be authentic if it is formulated
by applying alien rules? Wouldn't it be legitimate to refuse to apply free
and rational discourse to the elaboration of such a position simply because
this procedure is against Islamic mores?
The fact that there are numerous publications on the problems of intercultural
relations, which seriously and conscientiously promote the cultural "opening
up" of the Islamic world "from within," suggests that in this particular
case both sides have the will for meaningful and open dialogue. Admittedly,
however, dialogue cannot start "from scratch" in principle. It is a higher
form of interaction between cultures, which presumes the fulfillment of
certain terms, the most important one of them being, it seems, that both
parties should have attained at least a minimum level of cultural self-reflection.
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