Dear Diego,

I'm sure that human rights are universal. Right to culture is one of them.

I think it's not good to oppose each other. Our task is to use everyone right to culture with respect to other people rights. On the other side it is very dangerously if multiculturalism is presented like and ideology usefull to forced introducing some values, traditions, habits, etc. which are contradictory toward to overwhelming culture on some areas. UN human rights protection system doesn't exclude regional systems. It's not a mistery that they are different, but they co-exist in legal way because they recognize rights of other systems and universal values. Should cultures use this patterns?

Best regards!

Querido Diego,

Great question. I am critical on both sides of the equation.

First of all, I am critical of the notion of human rights, along with many of the leading theorists of international law. I'll mention just one example, David Kennedy of Harvard who is quite critical of human rights. My own perspective as a global health specialist and cultural psychiatrist is that human rights are only as useful as one's ability to exercise them and that is dependent upon power and privilege. So it's all very nice to assert rights as a principle, quite another to ensure them as a matter of policy. And only a very few nations in the world ensure the rights of their citizens and even fewer the rights of foreigners, visitors, migrants, and refugees.

A broader critique is that human rights and their allied concerns are a kind of sop for neoliberalism, hiding the real horrors of hegemonies and monopolies and dressing up their injustices with a humanitarian face. That is why the serious left is critical of human rights.

I am for pluralism and living with difference - I am for the notions of porosity, divergence, syncretism and other ideas that argue for many, divergent voices in any society and in the world that enrich us and edify us. I am not comfortable with multiculturalism as a Canadian federal policy or in any other country. I am not comfortable with multiculturalism when that means privileging one group of people against another such as "affirmative action" due to past injustices. This engenders strong reactions and is ultimately self-defeating. That is why I perceive, depending on how one defines the two key terms - human right and multiculturalism, that they are either not in conflict or very deeply so. For example, if one sees human rights as universal then some interpretations of multiculturalism could be seen as tipping the scales in favour of one group against others. If one sees multiculturalism as a way of rectifying and redressing past omissions and commissions such colonization and Eurocentric assumptions, then one may be tempted to ironize the notion of universal human rights and suspend their application.

I do not hold by such self-serving definitions and am equally uncomfortable with each of these terms on their own and believe they are bound to be in conflict. We need new ways of imagining a better world, not new ways of continuing and maintaining parochial, partisan views of the world we already have. This won't make me popular with anyone but it's what I believe to be true and good.

Warm wishes for the season from southern Brazil,

Vincenzo Di Nicola

Université de Montréal &

The George Washington University

Human rights, whether civil, cultural, political, economic or social, are one and the same. Civil and political rights liberate man from fear and cultural, economic and social rights, free him from the need.

However, cultural rights did not receive the same attention and prestige accorded to civil and political rights, which took a great deal of public awareness, making it a second place in practice for economic, social and cultural rights.

There are some factors that have helped to blur cultural rights, including: the lack of a particular culture or tradition of one region of the world over another. Human rights are not or are directed towards one culture and exclude others. This means that culture has different dimensions: human, universal, legal, moral and private.

Multiculturalism is the multiplicity of visions and patterns of expression in societies, which is the enrichment of knowledge and the diversity of its tributaries in the framework of unity, as each society has its own cultural patterns and its own cultural heritage.

This contributes to the development of culture and cohesion of communities , so this diversity, despite the specificity of some local cultures, is consistent with the human rights system and contributes to the development of societies.

But we must not make the difference between cultures a means of dominating one culture over another, or acknowledging a culture of sublime and low, and global and local culture,

No more than non European Human rights. We have a contemporary situation where fear and populism pair off with xenophobia and bigotry... It is a time for thinking people everywhere to be vigilant and cautious, while also accepting leadership to keep us all from slipping into a cultural and social abyss.

Western human rights, however, seek to establish minimum standards for all human beings, but they are also willing or unwilling to export their opinions, customs, culture, values and lifestyles to other countries. And this will soon eliminate cultural diversity.

Are you suggesting that human rights, as a construct, has "diversity"? For instance, are you suggesting that if culture A believes that women should not work outside the home if married, that is OK simply different than culture B where women's rights to work outside the home is approved independently of their marital status?

I would think that this could quickly degrade into a situational ethic where under the flag of culture issues of human rights violations are acceptable.

I do not mean this. I want to say that along with human rights norms, lifestyles also is export and spread . for example the way of dressing, how children interact with parent or even loneliness.

I live in a highly diverse community where ethnic, cultural, racial, religious, and other kinds of diversity are celebrated. In this place, referenced as an academic island in a sea of conservative thinking, it is too easy to forget that social disapproval of such things as dress codes, women's economic independence, non-traditional sexual identities can (and do) morph into discrimination, alienation, isolation, and can lead to human rights violations or even violence.

The idea that people must "go along to get along" flies in the face of the facts of human diversity. But, at least here in the USA right now, it seems that we are slipping back into an intolerant mind set. Those of us inside the islands of tolerance must be mindful of the German academics' experiences between 1926 and 1940.... It is a time to be vigilant.

The traditions and customs that lead to human rights violations are undoubtedly indecent. But all traditions do not lead to human rights abuses. I mean the later thing. For example, the traditional costumes of the Japanese people gave their place to western dresses. Or in other countries the form of celebration is in the form of Western celebrations. And I do not understand how this traditions and customs can lead to human rights violations?

I never suggested that all traditions lead to human rights violations. I am a globalist who rejoices at the World's diversity. It is only the excuse of "tradition" or "culture" to exploit others that I object to...in any society. In "Trumpville USA" the idea that we have a "Christian Culture" (which is only partially valid.) has been used as a phony excuse for male dominance, white dominance, class distinctions, fear and hostility towards immigration, and the dumbing-down of our society. This notion has led even to the rejection of time-tested truths and scientific facts by large numbers of poorly educated and vulnerable people.

This is just as disgusting and wrong as the exploitation of young girls for FGM in Somalia, inter-class and inter-religious competition in many nations, and the long lists of atrocities against women, children, the elderly, the poor, and refugees by powerful people who claim to be defending their cultures and traditions.

Those of us who have benefited from education and a dose of privilege must stand together to protect those who have not had such advantages. We must orchestrate our collective minds and wills to to good for society...when we can support traditions and cultural distinctions we should. When we confront traditions and cultural distinctions that oppress or harm people, we must be courageous. It is a moral imperative that extends way beyond science....

Human rights are universal, where “multiculturalism” is a transitional phase towards cultural globalism in units of generational time.

The science of rights: Book Scientific Proof of Our Unalienable Rights

I agree with Michael T Takac that multiculturalism is a transitional phase towards cultural globalism. One more point I have to add that human rights does not include only balancing between cultures; but it also includes balancing within cultures.

Cultures have to integrate all the parts of a society. In modern ages too, issues of caste-ism, racism, regionalism, sectarianism seems within different societies and in different countries.

Societies have to empower all, at the place of exploiting some people by other some people.

This I see on the basis of societal justice where each person should have equal (no less no more) rights to survive and compete.

Very sadly, the turn of events in most European countries shows that Europe regards human rights based on double standards. The whole idea behind multiculturalism, support for the presence of distinct cultural or ethnic groups within a given community , is not very well observed by the EU countries. As a case in point, the dire situation of certain ethnic groups is indicative of the fact that Europeans do not practice what they preach about the human rights, especially in the area of multiculturalism.

Concept of Human Rights has began to spread from Europe, therefore it clear that it will have influence of European culture and thoughts on its primary stages.

Multiculturalism, is assumption to conformating where cultural, ethnics, customs and traditional values are multipllied and Human rights form the bases for equal opprotunity where justice and respect of people must adopted whereas relevant international laws must applied. Therefore, EU countries must ahered and spearedhead human rights where multiculturalism should not neglected.

The contemporary world is characterised by the existence of a large number of different cultures, which often interconnect within one state. The term “multiculturalism” appeared in Switzerland in 1957 to characterise the structure within the country, since Switzerland is a state where four languages are spoken and several different religions are manifested. However, at the beginning of the 1970s, the term “multiculturalism” received a slightly different content and became the marker of the multicultural state, which accepted the migrants, having already many of them, and at the same time this state respected the other cultures.

Multiculturalism is also the antithesis of “melting pot”. In a melting pot it is expected that immigrants and minorities will denounce their past or minority status and seek t be like the ruling class. Multicultural celebrates difference and contributions of minorities and dissent. Cultures grow stale and uninspired when the social goal is a melting pot.