"'Citizenship must take account of [cultural] differences'. (Will Kymlicka)
To what extent should we allow group rights in Canada, and for what reasons?
What are the dangers of over-riding individual rights with group rights? "
-an essay topic from an obscure university that I shamefully call mine
INTRODUCTION: THE GLOBAL TOSSED SALAD
In this post-modern and changing world, in the midst of a quietly seeping chaos, people are thinking about who they are more and more. Identity politics is on everyone's mind: is one a rich person? Is one a celebrity? Does one own a home? Or is one on welfare? All these normative descriptions play a role in deciding how one is treated in society and life. In the face of post-war migration and globalization, people are emphasizing identity politics to prevent their own existence from being drowned in this world of tossed salads. The vast amount of people dispersing into foreign nations have dramatically altered the political structure of many countries, thus creating new problems to be solved. In this essay, I will attempt to access the significance of group rights, individual rights, and the result of their interaction within our modern society. In doing so, I will review the group rights of minorities in the foreign state, the threats posed to them and their culture, and also their threats to individual rights. Even though I will advocate that both group and individual rights are necessary to a nation, it stands to say that these two concepts cannot be compromised, and cause more problems than it can solve.
GROUP RIGHTS: WHAT ARE THEY AND WHY ARE THEY?
Everyone belongs to a group, be it that one is Chinese, Caucasian, disabled, or female. And the truth is everyone wants some sort of advantage for belonging to any one group in life. Group rights support these different categories of life and attain privileges for its members. Most group rights have evolved in order to obtain equal treatment in society, much like the post-war suffragettes who struggled for the right to vote. Now with the rise of the gays and lesbians' outcries, the modern feminists' philosophies, the disabled's demands, and vast amounts of immigrants all popping up in society, it seems like anyone who is anyone wishes to be treated in a special way just for being alive! But even though it may sound like group rights is a loophole through which anyone can get access of special advantage, group rights are essential to the equality of a liberal nation. Especially in Canada, where it is known for its mosaic of diverse races, group rights determine the equal treatment of its many classes of citizens and ensure no one is excluded from an active life due to discrimination.
CITIZENSHIP OR ASSIMILATION?
For most new immigrants in Canada, 'citizenship' is the word on their mind. Citizenship, in a developed country such as Canada, is viewed as "expanding categories of rights (not duties), equally bestowed on expanding categories of persons, without consideration of their inherent characteristics." [1] as codified by T.H. Marshall in 1992. But what does becoming a citizen of a new nation mean to their own cultures, to which they have become so accustomed? Most immigrants, after acquiring citizenship, do not enjoy equal rights. Even these "liberal states" in which its people seem so indifferent to cultural preferences have official languages, holidays, or church relations that privilege the ethnic majority over the minority. Will Kymlicka has argued that equality of citizenship rights alone cannot integrate immigrants as well as other culturally different groups (1995). All they can expect legitimately are "polyethnic rights" which would merely exempt them from certain laws that disadvantage them. This exclusion from the national community makes them vulnerable and stigmatized minorities. The second or third generation of these minority citizens will be treated no differently. If a Chinese person, born and raised in Canada without having lived anywhere else, died in a car accident, he will still be reported as "Chinese boy killed in car crash." Even had the politically correct "Chinese-Canadian" been used, this hyphenated citizenship is still giving this victim a normative description, thus possibly affecting the way he is treated by the media, etc.
Knowingly or unknowingly, the right of citizenship renders the minorities to assimilate to the majority culture as a condition for citizenship, and even though most nations are claiming to have adopted the "liberalized citizenship regime", they still do not proactively protect the cultures of those immigrants. The majority of liberal states (with exception of those in North America) have not granted special group rights to their immigrants, adhering instead to the individual rights principle of non-discrimination. It is important to recognize that with the presence of other cultures within the nation threatening the national identity and individual rights (which I will talk about later in the essay), imposing a policy of assimilation will be a necessity to ensure the stability and sovereignty of the nation. In light of these two revelations, being discriminative citizenship and assimilation, group rights could be one effective method to prevent yet another Holocaust.
GROUP RIGHTS: THE THREATENING FORCE
The simple definition of individual rights is stated as having no recognition of group rights because individuals would be hurt.[2] One very good example of this is seen in the FLQ crisis, which I will later use to show the dangers of over-riding individual rights with group rights. The modern state of Canada is engaged in liberal politics, and liberal politics stresses identity-less politics or non-discriminative clauses. They will therefore support different cultural identity but only if it is consistent with the sovereignty of the state and protection of individual rights.[3]
These liberals believe that it is important to sustain a national identity for several integral reasons, and group rights threaten them all. First of all, in the absence of a national identity, the realization of liberal values is jeopardized, and group rights further segregate this identity. Secondly, a shared national identity is the vital condition under which the politics of the common good can attain widespread support and advance on the grounds of social justice.[4] Lastly, this identity is required in order for citizen of a state to avoid alienation from their state and community, yet group rights define differences and create boundaries, making compromise strenuous when conflicts arise between interests. It is only when citizens have a sense of belonging that they will prevent segregation and clashes between individual and group rights. This idea of unity and stability in a liberal constitution using a national identity is defended by John Stuart Mill in Representative Government, in which he states "Free institutions are next to impossible in a country made up of different nationalities...the united political opinion, necessary to the working representative government, cannot exist [in the absence of this shared national identity]."[5] To summarize this argument then, group rights, is therefore seen as a threat to the concepts of a liberal state, to the greater good of national progress, and to the unity of the nation by segregating its citizens and making conflicts difficult to negotiate.
Group rights will always be in conflict with individual rights because when one group gains special treatment for being of a certain race, gender, or background, many individuals are losing equal treatment in turn, except for those in the group. It is dangerous to over-ride individual rights with group rights because any group is made of individuals, and there are a lot more individuals than there are groups, so how can one say a collective number of individuals is more special than the rest simply because they are a group? That is saying individual A is better than individual B because individual A has people to support him/her in the theory that he is better. In Canada, this sort of conflict is seen very often since the east coast is haunted by one large group called "Les Canadiens." Quebec's long struggles to gain group rights and stand out as a distinct culture gave Canada more than its fair share of the dangers of group rights over-riding individual rights applied to the people in the nation. Here is one crucial example.
GROUPS RIGHTS VS. INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS: THE FLQ CRISIS
During the 1960s and onto the 1970s, "La R憝olution Tranquille", or the Quiet Revolution, broke out in Quebec and was followed by a series of extremely violent acts known as the FLQ (Front de Lib廨ation du Qu嶵ec) crisis. The Quiet Revolution was a push for rapid change in Quebec in response to the dominant economic control of the anglophone minority. The Quebec government made economic developments, education reforms, built health plans, pensions, and welfare systems. But underneath it all, the real dimension was an intensified drive for the "Frenchification" of the Quebec Society. They were fighting back from drowning in the anglophone management and increasing amount of immigrants who threatened their Quebec nationalism. Then the violence began. "Few fanatics dreamed of liberation through armed revolution. By 1963, sporadic bombing incidents occurred in Montreal and elsewhere in the province, usually by individuals acting alone or in small groups." [6] Kidnappings, murders, and continual bombings of symbolic English buildings and monuments followed these acts. The conflicts later evolved into the first Quebec Sovereignty referendum in 1980. During this time of chaos, the Gendron Report was filed in demand for economic equality and further support the francophonization of Quebec. The Liberal government's 1974 Bill 22 made French the official language of Quebec. It stated:
" The francization programs which must be adopted and applied by business firms wishing to obtain the certificates mentioned above must ＃ relate especially to: a) the knowledge that the management and the personnel must have of the official language b) the francophone presence in management " [7]
I believe that the case of civil segregation between "Les Canadiens" and the Canadians of Canada is enough to show the dangers of over-riding individual rights with group rights. Clearly, many citizens of Canada was hurt by the Quiet Revolution as well as the FLQ crisis, just as Bill 22 must have inconvenienced many anglophone of the region, to say the least.
IS THERE A KEY TO THIS DEADLOCK?
It is evident that group rights and individual rights are both needed, but they cannot be compromised. So how does a society reconcile these rights? If an individual is to be free, they must first know that their culture is not at risk, even in a liberal sense. There must be a balance between self-government, polyethnic rights, and individual rights. However important group rights are, special representation in parliament is not feasible and highly undesirable, for, inside group rights reside individual rights; how is one group going to compromise the individual rights of its members?
It is my belief that there are no such thing as "group rights" because only individuals have rights. Groups have policies, laws, regulations, rules, codes and similar artifacts for balancing the rights of individuals within the groups. Therefore legitimate group policies must derive from individual rights, and thus individual rights must be ultimately transcendent. After all Equality Rights under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms states:
" Every individual is equal before and under the law and has the right to the equal protection and equal benefit of the law without discrimination and, in particular, without discrimination based on race, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, sex, age or mental or physical disability." [8]
And group rights are organized to protect those rights and provide for the collective welfare of the individuals. Establishing group policies is an entirely legitimate way for individuals to manage the inevitable conflicts that arise between and among individuals, so that the rights of all individuals are protected to the greatest extent possible. I believe a benevolent group should not have rights over individuals beyond the authority to handle differences or conflicts that arise. Individual rights not in conflict with the rights of other individuals should remain paramount, even within a group. If a group begins to assume too much authority over individuals, it's their right (nay, their duty!) to attempt to change the group's policies.
CONCLUSION: FINDING THE HAPPY MEDIUM
In conclusion, group rights in Canada is definitely necessary due to its mosaic ethnicity, to protect the culture of those minorities, to prevent discrimination and exclusion from an active life, and to ensure assimilation and other oppressive regimes does not occur. However, group rights should hardly ever over-ride individual rights (except in rare cases which I shall make room for). The individual is what makes up the group, similarly, individual rights come before group rights. To recap, I have accessed the significance of group rights, individual rights, and the result of their interaction within our modern society, and found that these two rights have a paradoxical relationship in that they must exist together, yet they cannot compromise. I have also reviewed the group rights of minorities and their status in a foreign state, the threats to them and their culture, and also their threats to individual rights by forming group rights. I discovered that minorities and their group rights threaten the identity of a sovereign nation, its unity and stability, thus causing great civil segregation and violence, in turn harming the individual rights of the nation's citizens. Because of this, group rights are only effective if properly balanced with polyethnic and individual rights, which remains most important.
POST-ESSAY RAMBLE
I realized, after hours of research for this essay, that the ability of human beings to think and reason might possibly be a curse! One day, I was lying in a crib thinking about bubbles and clouds, the next day, poof, I am engaged in the never-ending struggle of politics. Politics is like an atom -even when one thinks that it can no longer be any simpler, there are still components and questions invisible to the eye. And like politics, all its sub-topics are one huge, obscure paradox -the simpler one think it is getting, the deeper the complexity is evolving. The issue in hand of group rights versus individual rights is of the same frustrating nature. The more I seek a solution to solve this problem, the deeper I fall into the bottomless pit. People cannot get along with each other as it is, even savages, putting something like group rights and individual rights into the equation is like adding heat to the fire!
[1] Christian Joppke "How immigration is changing citizenship: a comparative view", Ethnic and Racial Studies,
pg. 629, Vol.22, No. 4, July 1999. (Routledge Journals, Tayler & Francis Ltd. 1999)
[2] Dr. Barbara Arneil, as cited during Nov. 16, 99 Lecture "Identity Politics and Liberal Multiculturalism"
[3] Ibid.
[4] Andrew Mason "Political Community, Liberal-Nationalism, and the Ethics of Assimilation", Ethnics: An International Journal of Social Political and Legal Problems, pg. 263, Vol. 109, No. 2, January 1999. (The University of Chicago Press. 1999)
[5] John Stuart Mills, Considerations on Representative Government, pg. 309. Cited in Andrew Mason "Political Community, Liberal-Nationalism, and the Ethics of Assimilation" Ethnics: An International Journal of Social Political and Legal Problems, pg. 264, Vol. 109, No. 2, January 1999. (The University of Chicago Press. 1999)
[6] Section on Quebec Conflict paraphrased and/or quoted from Joseph V. Monteville, Conflict and Peacemaking in Multiethnic Societies, pg.201-204. 1990 (Lexington Books, D.C. Heath and Company/Lexington, Massachusetts/Toronto. 1990)
[7] Section 29 c. 6 of Bill 22 cited in William C. McCready, Culture, Ethnicity, and Identity: Current issues in research. Pg. 369, 1983. (Academic Press, New York, New York. 1983)
[8] Section 15 (1) under Equality Rights of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms cited in Janine Brodie, Critical Concepts: And Introduction to Politics pg. 398, (Prentice-hall Canada Inc., Scarborough, Ont.1999)
Works Cited (paraphrased) or Quoted:
2. Montville, Joseph V. "Conflict and Peacemaking in Multiethnic Societies" (Lexington Books. D.C. Heath and Company. Lexington, Massachusetts/Toronto. 1990)
3. Thompson, Richard H. "Theories of Ethnicity" (Greenwood Press Inc. Westport, Connecticut. 1989)
4. McCready, William C. "Culture, Ethnicity, and Identity" (Academic Press Inc. New York, New York. 1983)
5. Mason, Andrew "Political Community, Liberal-Nationalism, and the Ethics of Assimilation" pg.261-286 printed in "Ethnics: An International Journal of Social Political and Legal Philosophy" Volume 109, Number 2, January 1999. (The University of Chicago Press, 1999)
6. Anderson, Elizabeth "What's the point of Equality?" pg. 331 Ibid.
7. Joppke, Christian "How immigration is changing citizenship: a comparative view" pg. 629-652 printed in "Ethnic and Racial Studies" Volume 22, Number 4, July 1999 (Routledge Journals, Taylor & Francis Ltd. 1999)
8. Ali Jennifer and Grabb, Edward "Ethnic Origin, Class Origin and Educational Attainment in Canada: Further Evidence on the Mosaic Thesis" pg. 3-17 printed in "Journal of Canadian Studies" Volume 33, Number 1, Spring 1998. (Trent University Press, Scarborough, Ontario. 1998)
9. Will Kymlicka's Home Page: http://qsilver.queensu.ca/~philform/ (1999)
10. Course notes from Political Science 100.Sec. 001: Professor Arneil. "Identity Politics and Liberal Multiculturalism" November 16th's Lecture, 1999
1. Brodie, Janine "Critical Concept: An Introduction to Politics" (Prentice-hall Canada Inc. Scarborough, Ontario. 1999)