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Human Rights and Diversity: New Challenges for Plural Cub New Challenges (12mm) 23/11/07 16:09 Página 1 Eduardo J. Ruiz Vieytez and Robert Dunbar (eds.) Human Rights and Diversity: New Challenges for Plural Education and Culture Societies Socrates The democratic management of cultural diversity is the greatest political challenge for present-day European societies. The plural character of our societies forces us to rethink the basic political concepts, starting off from a new idea of HumanitarianNet inclusive and plural democracy. The application of human Other titles under the HumanitarianNet rights must be reconsidered in the light of present-day reality HumanitarianNet advances the work of universities in the so that democratic states are able to guarantee the benefit of Publication Series on Human Rights field of Humanitarian Development, in teaching, research, these rights to all persons through their identity and not in fieldwork, discussion, and dissemination. This academic field International Protection of Human Rights: Achievements and Challenges, Felipe Gómez Isa and Koen de Feyter (eds.) brings together interrelated disciplines, interweaving the spite of it, thus creating political spaces that are open to a sciences and humanities, to analyse the underlying causes of multi-identity coexistence. La protección internacional de los derechos humanos en los humanitarian crises and formulate strategies for rehabilitation albores del siglo XXI, Felipe Gómez Isa y José Manuel Pureza (eds.) and development. This thematic network links three types of partners: higher education institutions, research centers, and governmental and non-governmental organizations. At present, the network consists of over 100 universities, 6 research centers, and 9 J. Ruiz Vieytez and Robert Dunbar (eds.) Eduardo international organizations across Europe and the world. The six sub-groups which comprise the field are: Humanitarian Action; Human Rights; Migration, Diversity and Identities; Peace and Conflict; Poverty and Development; European Human Rights and Diversity: New Challenges for Plural Societies Identity and External Relations. University of Deusto 9 788498 301113 • • • • • • • • ISBN: 978-84-9830-111-3 NNewew CChallenges.inddhallenges.indd 2 115/11/075/11/07 111:35:431:35:43 Human Rights and Diversity: New Challenges for Plural Societies NNewew CChallenges.inddhallenges.indd 3 115/11/075/11/07 111:35:431:35:43 NNewew CChallenges.inddhallenges.indd 4 115/11/075/11/07 111:35:431:35:43 Human Rights and Diversity: New Challenges for Plural Societies Eduardo J. Ruiz Vieytez Robert Dunbar (Editors) Kevin HR Villanueva (Managing Editor) 2007 University of Deusto Bilbao NNewew CChallenges.inddhallenges.indd 5 115/11/075/11/07 111:35:431:35:43 No part of this publication, including the cover design, may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form or by any means, whether electrical, chemical, mechanical, optical, recording or photocopying, without prior permission of the publisher Illustration of front page: Javier F. Ferreras Copyright: • Eduardo J. Ruiz Vieytez and Robert Dunbar • Humanitarian Net • Basque/Spanish Edition: Diputación Foral de Gipuzkoa (Ruiz Vieytez, E.J. (dir.), Derechos Humanos y Diver- sidad. Nuevos desafíos para las sociedades plurales, Alberdania publishers, Donostia-San Sebastian, 2007) ISBN: 978-84-9830-792-4 Table of contents Introduction . 9 Eduardo J. Ruiz Vieytez Part I. Human Rights and Democratic Management of Diversity: Cha- llenges and Solutions . 17 Diversity, Immigration and Minorities Within a Human Rights Framework Eduardo J. Ruiz Vieytez . 19 Multiculturalism in Crisis? Sia Spiliopoulou Åkermark . 35 Managing Multicultural Society Democratically: Identities, Rights, Citizenship Javier de Lucas Martín . 51 Legal Solutions to Complex Societies: The Law of Diversity Francesco Palermo . 63 Part II. Linguistic and Religious Diversity: Cases and Models . 83 European Traditional Linguistic Diversity and Human Rights: A Critical Assess- ment of International Instruments Robert Dunbar . 85 Bringing Anxieties Together: The Impact of the New Linguistic Diversity on the Process of Normalization of Minority Languages Xabier Aierdi Urraza . 111 © University of Deusto - ISBN 978-84-9830-792-4 NNewew CChallenges.inddhallenges.indd 7 221/11/071/11/07 009:40:089:40:08 8 HUMAN RIGHTS AND DIVERSITY: NEW CHALLENGES FOR PLURAL SOCIETIES Traditional and New Linguistic Management: Political and Economic Implica- tions, the Case for Intercomprehension François Grin . 139 Religious Differences and Human Rights: Historical and Current Experiences from Southeast Europe Baskin Oran . 161 Note on contributors . 179 © University of Deusto - ISBN 978-84-9830-792-4 NNewew CChallenges.inddhallenges.indd 8 221/11/071/11/07 009:40:089:40:08 Introduction Eduardo J. Ruiz Vieytez The limitation of democratic principles to the interior of each of the States that comprise international society has carried with it an inevitable adulteration of these principles. The dominant liberalism of the last two centuries has not only legitimized the structuring of political power in nation-States but has done what- ever possible to extend this division to all areas of the planet and to organize the present-day international community around it. This has meant that within the framework of each national society, the political structures were seriously condi- tioned by the dominant parameters of identity in each case, which at the same time has meant that human rights, theoretically universal, cannot be applied ex- cept through canons of interpretation which each dominant group has imposed in its respective space. In this sense, discerning the authentic meaning of certain human rights is a need that has been felt for a long time, inasmuch as all countries incorporate, to a greater or lesser degree, different sources of diversity. While this is true, it is no less true that, once the ideological conquests of liberalism and social- ism seem to have been consolidated, the greatest challenge now faced by refl ec- tions on human rights is that of cultural or identity justice. The present-day pano- rama in which, starting with societies that are already plural, there are important movements of population which increase diversity, demands a deep reframing of our most basic concepts of coexistence and the adaptation of the idea of democ- racy to a multicultural reality. The idea of diversity implies the assumption of differences between human beings, between groups of people identifi ed by more or less concrete elements: cultures, languages, religions, values or beliefs, life directions, physical aspects, capacities, and so forth. They exist despite a series of differentiating criteria, in- volved in the defi nition of social groups, that are not necessarily relevant as regards the organization of public space; while, on other occasions, the criteria that mark these differences are relevant only to the extent that they refl ect inferiorities or disadvantages that affect certain groups exclusively, regardless of their position in one or other specifi c society. Nevertheless, there are also certain elements that form a substantive part of what we call collective identities and which, considered in themselves, do not imply a situation of disadvantage or inferiority with respect to other human beings. They are factors like language or religion which constitute © University of Deusto - ISBN 978-84-9830-792-4 NNewew CChallenges.inddhallenges.indd 9 115/11/075/11/07 111:35:441:35:44 10 HUMAN RIGHTS AND DIVERSITY: NEW CHALLENGES FOR PLURAL SOCIETIES an important part of the identity of individuals and the groups in which they are integrated, which at the same time affect the regulation and arrangement of the public spaces, and which, in effect, do not by themselves imply an objective factor of disadvantage or, for that matter, of superiority. For this type of element to have socio-political consequences it is necessary to place it in relation to the structures that organize our political life. To the extent to which the exercise of democracy and human rights, of politics in fact, is compartimentalized in differentiated legal entities (which we identify as States), the majority or minority nature of these ele- ments within each specifi c entity is what in fact conditions the position of those who share them. States have successfully adopted, and possibly required, certain specifi c iden- tity elements as referential (offi cial, dominant or simply majority, according to the case), which implies that they have constructed their legal and political system, the organization of public space, from or through the perspective of a specifi c identity. In the best of cases, some States, through conviction or (more habitually) neces- sity, have adopted a plurality of referential elements, which in any case constitute a closed group, explicitly or implicitly, of such elements. With the generalization of formally democratic procedures, political dynamics have led to a position where, in each State, it is the elements characteristic of the majority of the population which have received privileged treatment, in some cases, in addition to others which are or were the heritage of certain, especially powerful minority groups. Nevertheless, this way of constructing politics, around sovereign entities that are territorially and personally exclusive, leads to the existence of minority communities which, being part of the State (in a formal or factual sense), see elements of their identity subor- dinated to those that are referenced by a State in which,
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