It's Still a Tomato
Call me a graduate of political science, but Blake Hounshell (quoting Ian Buruma) is on to something:
Author Ian Buruma, who is in Davos at the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum, has picked up on a tactic increasingly used by undemocratic countries such as China and Iran in defending themselves from international criticism: demanding that Westerners stop "imposing" their values on cultures that supposedly have a different understanding of what democracy means.
As Buruma put it me this morning, this is clearly self-serving hogwash. "It's much less a division between East and West along civilizational lines than some people like to see it," he said. "It's really a political division," he added, pointing out that the Indians and the Japanese, or even the Indonesians don't see things that way. Few people may buy the argument, Buruma said, but nonetheless it's an effective way of neutralizing the democracy issue because people don't want to be seen as dissing other cultures. "When people discuss this in terms of culture and civilization, then you get a lot of that pious stuff," he noted, referring to the kind of Kumbaya moments that former Iranian President Mohammed Khatami has made into a veritable Davos fetish. "People have the habit of expressing fine sentiments as soon as civilization and culture come up."
This also brings to mind coverage of Kenya's latest election-induced strife labeled as "tribalism". Completely neglected is the role the government played to keep a lid on the resentments it itself was stoking.
OK, sociologists and Amy Chua, how do you respond?
Sphere: Related Content
Barrapunto
CoRank Español
Delicious
Enchílame
Fresqui Ocio
Furl
Google Bookmarks
Menéame
Netscape
Newsvine
Stumbleupon
Technorati Favorites
Yahoo MyWeb
2 comments
No trackbacks
RSS 2.0
Bloglines
Live
MyAOL
Netvibes
Newsgator
Rojo
