Tag Archives: citizenship

Who are the Rohingya?

28 Thu Sep 2017

Posted by in Opinion and Response

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The plight of the Rohingya in Burma has yet again surfaced and momentarily captured international attention. Tens of thousands of Burma’s Muslim minority, residents of the western Burmese province of Rakhine, are fleeing across the border into Bangladesh to escape persecution. Typically, global attention has been fixated on ameliorating the immediate human tragedy while ignoring the deeper causes for the periodic unrest. As a result, there has been the inadvertent yet inevitable conflation of several fissures such as separatism, a fear of Islamism, and Buddhist nationalism; it has largely escaped notice that the Rohingya are often the targets of not just the Burmese military but also Rakhine Buddhists. The previous round of violence in 2012, for example, was precipitated by the military government’s move to grant many Rohingya citizenship (although the cassus belli was the gang rape of a Buddhist woman).

The latest spiral of violence began on August 25 when over 150 Rohingya terrorists launched a coordinated attack on a military base that housed the 552nd Light Infantry Battalion and 24 police stations across Rakhine. The predictable military reprisal has left tens of thousands homeless and some reports suggest that half the Rohingya population may have fled Burma. Two observations need to be made here: the first is the obvious that the roots of this violence go far back to even before Burmese independence in 1948, and the second is that the nature of the conflict has been shaped by external political realities and evolved over time.

Early Arakan was ruled by Indian kings and the province served as a launching point for Mauryan Buddhist missionaries on their way to Southeast Asia. The Muslim kingdom of Mrauk-U was established in 1430 with the help of the Bengal sultanate, though Islam is said to have reached the region by the tenth century. Arakan was only peripherally a part of the Burmese empire until 1784 when Mrauk-U fell to Bodawpaya of the Burmese Konbaung dynasty. However, a predominantly Buddhist socio-cultural milieu pulled Arakan in a manner that political suzerainty did not.

With the British annexation of Arakan into the Raj after the First Anglo-Burmese War in 1826 came the first modern waves of Muslim migration to avail of new agricultural opportunities. Returning local peasants who had fled the wars found that their land had been given away by the British to Bengali immigrants. So severe was the migration that Muslims, who constituted barely 10 percent of the population of Akyab (northern Rakhine) in 1869, were well over 33 percent by 1931. A 1941 British Report on Indian Immigration noted with some concern that the rapidly changing demographics “contained the seed of future communal troubles” and had foreboding remarks on the Islamicisation of Arakan.

World War II crystallised the cleavages between the migrant Muslims and the local Buddhists as the former sided with the British and the latter with the Japanese. By the end of the fighting, Muslims found themselves concentrated in Akyab while the rest of Arakan was held by the Buddhists. The brutality of modern war in the jungle created wounds between the communities that never healed and rumours began to surface that Akyab may be ceded by the British to Bengal to become part of the future state of (East) Pakistan than join Burma. There is no evidence this was considered seriously but both Archibald Wavell and Mohammad Ali Jinnah briefly flirted with the idea before turning it down.

Interestingly, Rakhine Buddhists, who are of a different ethnicity yet same religion from the majority Bamar, began an armed agitation for independence the same time the Rohingya were rebelling for a separate state in 1946. Yangon managed to remove the sting from these groups by the mid-1950s but over 50 armed ethnic groups remain in Burma and have been the targets of periodic offensives by the military. Many of the grievances of the Rakhine were resolved by the 1974 Burmese constitution; Prime Minister Ne Win’s Revolutionary Council renamed Arakan as Rakhine with the understanding that Burma is a federation of ethnicities. The same reforms rejected Rohingya appeals as it was argued that the term ‘Rohingya’ does not appear in any British document during their 122-year rule over Burma. The closest word to the term was ‘Rooinga,’ derived from Bengali and referring to geography rather than ethnicity.

In the 2010 elections, the Rakhine Nationalities Development Party won 35 of the 44 seats in the state legislature; it also became the second-largest bloc in the national House of Nationalities, which they have used to give voice to Buddhist concerns across Burma.

Such terms were not extended the Rohingya for a couple of reasons. The 1948 citizenship law clearly stated that only those whose ancestors lived within the borders of present-day Burma before 1823 would be eligible for citizenship, disqualifying the enormous wave of migrants that settled in Arakan under the British. While critics have argued that the 1982 law would have allowed a gradual, three-generation process of assimilation by recognising different classes of citizenship for those who moved to Burma before 1948 – associate, naturalised, and full – this was poorly implemented in the provinces due to the Rakhine fear of Islamicisation among the Rohingya.

Reports have surfaced at regular intervals of ties between Burmese Muslims and Pakistani intelligence, al Qa’ida, the Taliban, and Saudi Wahhabists. Fearing the introduction of jihadist tendencies in their country, the Rakhine have campaigned hard – politically as well as violently – against bringing the Rohingya into the Burmese fold. In fact, there was uproar in Burma when the military-backed Union Solidarity and Development Party tried to grant citizenship to the Rohingyas prior to the 2010 elections to counter the success of the RNDP in the polls.

As Anthony Ware of Deakin University has argued, the Rohingya-Rakhine hostility can best be explained by Michalis Michael’s theory of a double minority complex. In such a situation, the majority in a country feel as if they are a threatened minority competing for territorial survival and nationalistic autonomy. The Rakhine feel overwhelmed by the constant and centuries-old religious and territorial encroachment by their Muslim neighbours, their own minority status with respect to the ruling Bamar majority, and the international media that is hell-bent on ignoring their concerns for the sake of political correctness.

The minority Rohingya view of history is that Arakan was never Burmese until 1784 and the Muslim Mrauk-U kingdom validates their claim to the region. According to the Rohingya, the population influx from Chittagong was not of new migrants but the return of Muslims who had fled Burmese occupation. With the demographic and military power balance skewed against them, the Rohingya feel intensely insecure in a Burmese national narrative they neither wish to partake in nor belong.

Although it is easy for outsiders to proffer solutions to the Rohingya imbroglio, this is ultimately a question for the Burmese themselves: for the Buddhists if they can live with their Muslim neighbours as part of their nation or at least imagine Burma as a multi-national state, and for the Rohingya, if they can let go of Islam’s perpetuity clause on real estate, its harsh exclusivity practices, and belong to an infidel nation without making demands for special considerations and rights. Even then, this question may continue to fester as Burma’s demographic composition alters and may have to be revisited in a generation. After all, democracy does not reward who is right but only who is more plentiful. In that case, all we would have accomplished is to kick another problem on to our descendants.

Lectures from Peripatos: On National Character

16 Thu Feb 2012

Posted by in Theory & Philosophy

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Historians of nationalism studying the modern period have been quite preoccupied with the idea of the nation as an imagined, limited, and sovereign political community.[1]  Despite convincing evidence of the categories in which they conceive of the nation having existed since at least the time of the Ancient Greeks, they insist that the formation of national character, for example, is the achievement of a modern state and its resources and bureaucracy.  It is quite apparent in Aristotle’s works, however, that the Greek philosopher gave much thought to the formation of national character, the creation of good men and of good citizens.  Yet there remains in his works ambiguity about if it was possible to have national character such that the whole community actually shared a similar nature.  On the one hand, Aristotle speaks of institutions that would inculcate values in people to make them responsible citizens and yet on the other, he delineates virtues or excellences that are largely of a personal nature.  If one were to follow the former argument, Aristotle ignores individual tendencies and perhaps even liberty, while the latter position seems to indicate that Aristotle contradicts himself when speaking of national character. Furthermore, it can be asked that if every person were to seek eudaimonia, would the resulting community not resemble a unity anathema to even Aristotle?

There is in fact no contradiction in Aristotle’s thoughts on national character and individualism for Aristotle divides character, as he does with virtue or the soul, into different parts or spheres. In the case of the character of the subjects of a nation, Aristotle sees it as divided into a public part and a personal one.  For Aristotle, that part of the individual that contributes towards national character is a subset of what is required to be a good person.  National character for Aristotle does not mean what modern historians would understand it as, namely, a distinguishing set of characters that marks the all equal members of community apart.  For him, national character has more to do with the character of citizens of a state that have been similarly educated and come from a similar upbringing.

Nation

What is Aristotle’s concept of a nation?  Following Anderson, a nation is a community, but as Aristotle opens his Politics, “every state is a community of some kind” (1252a1).  Unlike many of his contemporaries, and indeed unlike many modern political theorists, Aristotle believes that the statesman, king, householder, and master are separated not only by a degree of magnitude but in fact degrees of complexity as well and differences that thereby arise.  Furthermore, for Aristotle, the state “is clearly prior to the family and to the individual, since the whole is of necessity prior to the part” (1253a19).  As further proof that the state is a creation of nature, Aristotle argues that “the individual, when isolated, is not self-sufficing…he who is unable to live in society, or who has no need because he is sufficient in himself, must either be a beast or a god” (1253a25).  In the Physics, Aristotle explains that “those things are natural which, by a continuous movement originated from an internal principle, arrive at some end: the same end is not reached from every principle; nor any chance end, but always the tendency in each is towards the same end, if there is no impediment” (199b16).  “Hence it is evident that the state is a creation of nature, and that man is by nature a political animal. And he who by nature and not by mere accident is without a state, is either a bad man or above humanity” (1253a3).  Thus Aristotle’s understanding of nation is in accordance with modern understandings of the term.  Therefore, Aristotle’s use of the word, “state,” or “nation,” can be understood to mean what modernists call the “nation-state.”  The question now is if this nation-state can have a unique character that is formed by the likeness of its citizens.

In his Politics, Aristotle states that for a successful constitutional state, the natures of the citizens must be equal and not differ at all (1259b4).  To this end, he suggests that “the citizen should be moulded to suit the form of government under which he lives…for the exercise of any faculty or art a previous training and habituation are required; clearly therefore for the practice of excellence. And since the whole city has one end, it is manifest that education should be one and the same for all” (1337a12).  This does not mean that Aristotle does not see various groups within a community, each striving towards its own interests.  Each group—artisans, farmers, traders, and labourers—exists within a polis and contributes differently in its flourishing (1321a5).  Furthermore, each group contributes differently in its running as well.  Eventually, all groups break down to their common unit, the citizen (1274b40).  The purpose of a successful state is to ensure that the citizen achieves eudaimonia.  After all, the happiness of the state and that of the individual are the same.  As the philosopher explains, “there remains to be discussed the question, whether the happiness of the individual is the same as that of the state, or different. Here again there can be no doubt—no one denies that they are the same” (1324a8).  Aristotle also indicates that group behaviour or characteristics are not improbable despite individual differences.  As he explains the nature of different types of government, Aristotle states,

A people who are by nature capable of producing a race superior in the excellence needed for political rule are fitted for kingly government; and a people submitting to be ruled as freemen by men whose excellence renders them capable of political command are adapted for an aristocracy: while the people who are suited for constitutional freedom are those among whom there naturally exists a warlike multitude (1288a9).

It is therefore possible in Aristotle’s framework for a group of people to acquire similar characteristics by dint of their state-provided education.  As he elaborates in the Nicomachean Ethics, “though it is worth while to attain the end merely for one man, it is finer and more godlike to attain it for a nation or for city-states” (1094b9).  Thus, in a way, Aristotle sees that a group of people, a community, may have a similar nature that identifies them or distinguishes them from other groups.  However, this means that any other community that wished to also do what was best for itself might very well choose the same constitutional model and result in another group with a similar nature.  Although Aristotle does not see other non-Hellenic states possessing the same wisdom (he quotes a poet saying, “It is meet that Hellenes should rule over barbarians” (1252b8)), it is probable and even highly likely that other wisely ruled Hellenic communities would aspire to emulate their common good as Aristotle saw it. In extension, this divides the world between Greek and non-Greek, which is probably how the Greek ancients saw it anyway but it does not answer our question of unique national character for each community.

Character

Aristotle discusses character extensively in his Nicomachean Ethics. For him, character is not inherent—even though we may have natural predispositions—but developed over time through action.  Therefore, for national character to have any meaning it must be the habit of a nation to act in a certain way in a certain situation and this must be demonstrated over time.  However, “character” is something only human beings can possess in terms of virtues.  Obviously, if virtues are to be inculcated through thoughtful, not accidental, action, it limits the scope of the Nicomachean Ethics to only human beings since only they can act with the necessary awareness.  Aristotle explains in the Metaphysics, “animals are born with the faculty of sensation, and from sensation memory is produced in some of them…the animals other than man live by appearances and memories, and have but little of connected experience; but the human race lives also by art and reasonings” (980a28). Therefore, when we speak of national character, we are speaking of the sum total of the natures of the members of a community, not the nation itself.  But Aristotle reduces the scope further, talking about the citizens of the nation, not its subjects.  Further evidence of this line of thinking is present in the Nicomachean Ethics, where Aristotle states, “Now we must consider what [excellence/virtue] is.  Since things that are found in the soul are of three kinds—passions, faculties, states—[virtue] must be one of these” (1105b19).  Since nations or communities cannot have souls, it is obvious that Aristotle speaks only of the subjects of a state when speaking of their good or bad national character.  To paraphrase Aristotle from his Categories, the colour is in the shirt; the shirt is not in the colour.  Aristotle is quite aware of this, and he explains, “…for in all things which form a composite whole and which are made up of parts, whether continuous or discrete, a distinction between the ruling and the subject element comes to light.  Such a duality exists in living creatures, originating from nature as a whole; even in things which have no life there is a ruling principle, as in a musical mode” (1254a28).  Thus, although the state itself has no soul, it is capable of characteristics that are provided it by its body politic.

It is also important to note that if moral virtues and political virtues had been similar and could be prescribed for all, Aristotle would not have needed to separate them into Politics and Nicomachean Ethics.  To be fair, it is also true that the two are not entirely divorced from each other, in that the state exists for the good of the people.  Aristotle begins his Politics by stating that every community is established with a view to some good, while he begins the Nicomachean Ethics by stating that the object of his enquiry is what the good is.  The structuring of these works would suggest, however, that there exists virtue outside the political life—in fact, Aristotle believes that the life of contemplation free from labour and politics is the highest form of eudaimonia.  Furthermore, the philosopher saves his scrutiny of the different virtues for his work on ethics, not politics.  The virtues Aristotle does bring up briefly in the Politics are the virtues of a good citizen, separate from that of a good man.  We must therefore also look to virtues that Aristotle describes in members of the body politic to investigate a communal nature.

Virtue

Courage is the first virtue Aristotle looks at, and in its treatment he reveals his formulation of national character.  Courage, says Aristotle, is of five kinds: (1) political, (2) experiential, (3) passionate, (4) sanguinity, and (5) ignorance.  Of note here is that Aristotle separates political courage from other kinds.  Here, Aristotle is trying to separate virtues into two spheres, namely, a public virtue and a private virtue.  Courage in the public sphere is of concern to the state.  The state is supposed to create good citizens through education and regulate how a citizen behaves through laws.  This is the domain of virtues that can be shared by all and can form national character.  Aristotle examines other virtues but most do not fall so neatly into public and private spheres.  For example, the state is not directly concerned with a citizen’s wittiness, nor is it directly concerned about a citizen’s modesty.  I say directly because the end of a state is to ensure the eudaimonia of all its citizens.  Through laws and mutual security, the end of the state is to remove obstacles and allow citizens to pursue their goals.  Aristotle’s teleology applies to the state as well—the state is a natural phenomenon, and nothing is wasteful in nature.[2]  Therefore, the state must have a purpose, and its purpose is the removal of obstacles and impediments to allow the pursuit of the good life.  In this manner, a state is concerned with its citizens’ well-being.

Aristotle acknowledges as much.  Neither does the philosopher expect every citizen to be an upstanding person.  He is fully aware of the fact that individuals vary from one another, in abilities as well as virtues.  Aristotle explains this by justifying classes in society.  Some are fit to rule while others better serve their purpose by providing manual labour so that those who can purse higher virtues are not encumbered by menial tasks.  There are obviously different virtues for different classes—the excellence of the hammer cannot be the same as the skill of the carpenter.  Aristotle therefore asks,

So in general, we may ask about the natural ruler, and the natural subject, whether they have the same or different excellences. For if a noble nature is equally required in both, why should one of them always rule, and the other always be ruled? … The difference between the ruler and the subject is a difference of kind. … It is evident, therefore, that both of them must have a share of excellence, but varying as natural subjects vary among themselves (1259b32).

This immediately negates any sense of uniform national character.  Furthermore, since Aristotle defines liberty as of two kinds, (1) “for all to rule and be ruled in turn,” and (2) “that man should lives as he likes” (1317b1, 11), the state becomes “a partnership of citizens in a constitution,” and therefore when the form of the government changes, and becomes different, then it may be supposed that the state is no longer the same” (1276b1).  Therefore, national character is not constant and cannot be reified by action since it must also change with the government.  As Aristotle sees it, not surprisingly, the constitution is not necessarily a rigid set of rules but an evolving way of life (1295b1).  This also explains Aristotle’s position on differing virtues for different kinds of citizens since citizens vary with the constitution.

But Aristotle does not expect all men to be identical.  As he explains the separation of the public good and the private good,

…if the state cannot be entirely composed of good men, and yet each citizen is expected to do his own business well, and must therefore have excellence, still, inasmuch as all the citizens cannot be alike, the excellence of the citizen and the good man cannot coincide.  All must have the excellence of the good citizen-thus, and thus only, can the state be perfect;  but they will not have the excellence of a good man, unless we assume that in the good state all the citizens must be good (1276b37).

Here, Aristotle argues that there is a distinction to be made between the good man and the good citizen.  Clearly, the virtue of a citizen is a subset of the virtue of a good person.  The virtue of a citizen lies primarily in his service to the national community, whereas the virtue of a good person lies in his interpersonal relationships as well as his relationship to the state.  The good person must accomplish his teleos of living virtuously and seeking happiness.  The good citizen must perform his teleos of preserving the state and helping it flourish. Says Aristotle of citizens,

…the salvation of the community is the common business of them all.  This community is the constitution; the excellence of the citizen must therefore be relative to the constitution of which he is a member.  If, then, there are many forms of government, it is evident that there is not one single excellence of the good citizen which is perfect excellence (1276b29).

The requirements of citizenship change as constitutions change, implying that the best form of civic virtue is variable. But the virtue of the good man is not variable.  Thus, Aristotle allows for the creation of a sort of national esprit de corps that does not ignore an individual’s particular tendencies. In his view, “the state is a plurality, which should be united and made into a community by education” (1263b36).

However, Aristotle is a great proponent of the golden mean.  Although he wants the state to produce good citizens through public education, he rejects Socrates’ ideas in Plato’s Republic.  Socrates seeks a degree of unity in a state that Aristotle is uncomfortable with—“it is best for the whole state to be as unified as possible.  Is it not obvious that a state may at length attain such a degree of unity as to no longer be a state? (1261a15). Aristotle says in response to Socrates,

…since the nature of a state is to be a plurality, and in tending to greater unity, from being a state, it becomes a family, and from being a family, an individual; for the family may be said to be more one than the state, and the individual than the family.  So that we ought not to attain this greatest degree of unity even if we could, for it would be the destruction of the state.  Again, a state is not made up only of so many men, but of different kinds of men; for similars do not constitute a state (1261a17).

Clearly, Aristotle rejects the notion of a community of automata indoctrinated by public education.  Even if it were possible to attain a very high degree of unity, Aristotle feels that this would hurt the state.  The essence of a state is a combination of dissimilars as Aristotle explains, and creating a uniform citizen body would in effect mean the demise of the state.  Furthermore, excessive unity of the state would infringe upon human desires and actually impede the individual pursuit of the good life. Aristotle declares,

how immeasurably greater is the pleasure, when a man feels a thing to be his own; for surely the love of self is a feeling implanted by nature and not given in vain…and further, there is the greatest pleasure in doing a kindness or service to friends or guests or companions, which can only be rendered when a man has private property. These advantages are lost by excessive unification of the state…visibly annihilated in such a state (1263a40).

Thus, excessive unification actually works against the purpose of the state by obstructing some virtues.  The purpose of a state is to promote the good life, and liberty to do as one pleases is part of eudaimonia.  The inability to perform virtuously in any manner reduces eudaimonia because the good life is contingent upon the acquisition of virtues.  In the example Aristotle gives, the unity of the state impedes a full friendship.  However, eudaimonia also involves conducting the duties of good citizenship, for as Aristotle says, man is homo politicus, a man of the polis.  As in any society, there are rules to be observed and it is through education that Aristotle thinks that the common nature of a good citizen can be formed.

Education

That Aristotle thinks the common nature of good citizens must be formed through public education is clear.  It is also clear that Aristotle does not see the role of education as indoctrinating people with pre-programmed algorithms.  For Aristotle, public education involves teaching not merely what is useful, but also what is honourable.  “There can be no doubt that children should be taught those useful things which are really necessary, but not all useful things…to young children should be imparted only such kinds of knowledge as will be useful to them without making mechanics of them” (1337b3).  The liberal and noble kind of education, Aristotle charges the parents with: there is a sort of education in which parents should train their sons, not as being useful or necessary, but because it is liberal or noble (1338a31).  Aristotle wishes to balance liberal arts and technical knowledge in his schema for public education but also leave room for the development of virtue through the parents.  Aristotle clearly states, “the training in things which are of common interest should be the same for all” (1337a26), implying that other training or knowledge can and should be seen to privately by the parents.  This is because Aristotle has already argued that each class of people has its own virtues or excellences and just as individuals are not identical, neither are their virtues.  It would be illogical for all children of the state to have a similar education except where their interests were common.  In the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle declares, “…for it is [politics] that ordains which of the sciences should be studied in a state, and which each class of citizens should learn and up to what point they should learn them” (1094a26).  The Lacedaemonians come for a rare bit of praise from Aristotle for their teaching their children the virtues required to be good citizens (1337a31).  Education, for Aristotle, comes in three stages: first, the body must be trained, for a good mind cannot remain in a weak body. Second, the appetites must be trained, i.e. the irrational part of the soul, and finally, the rational part of the soul should be trained.  These three stages build upon each other: the training of the body should give rise to the correct appetites, and the correct appetites should make way for reason.  Partly, this is because he sees the human being developing through life and not fully formed at birth.  The training of the body should induce preferences and character, and the training of the appetites should be geared towards good taste.  If a young man can develop an instinctual like or dislike for the good or bad, he can then be trained to reason.  Obviously, people fall out depending upon their capability at different points in this regimen.  That is why Aristotle insists on different classes and virtues of each class.  Although the thinking man, homo sapiens, has achieved the highest virtue, it does not mean that other members of the community have no virtue.  In fact, many of them still provide vital goods to the polis, such as farmers provide food.  However, they should not participate in the political functioning of the state because their education and occupation leaves them ill-equipped to properly pontificate upon the matters of state.  “No man can practice excellence who is living the life of a mechanic or a labourer” (1278a20).

Citizenship

Another interesting pronouncement by Aristotle is that citizens belong not to themselves or each other but to the state. “Neither must we suppose that anyone of the citizens belongs to himself, for they all belong to the state, and are each of them a part of the state, and the care of each part is inseparable from the care of the whole (1337a27).  Clearly, Aristotle does not mean that every person is the property of the state in the sense of a master-slave relationship.  Obviously, this would obstruct the pursuit of the good life, for slaves or full-time workers cannot be completely happy.  Aristotle means that every citizen owes the state a debt of allegiance in return for which the state confers power upon the citizen.  Hence the appointment of magistrates and such.  The state should be capable of calling up any citizen for any duty that s/he is qualified for. `These citizenly duties are owed by every member of the community to their capacity.  The education of some might have made them soldiers, while others have become farmers or traders.  Nevertheless, they should serve the state by their bodily labour or taxes or any other way the state sees fit if and when required.  In exchange, the state facilitates the entire community’s happiness by making available material wants and the peace of mind to seek spiritual or mental desires.  National character in this sense is formulated by the close proximity of people to each other, united in a common destiny.  The character that is formed is through their working together towards a common goal.  The state, in some senses, is a modified version of a large family even though the state comes ontologically prior to the family.  Nevertheless, because the nature of work is different for each person, there is no common virtuous unity that can be identified as national character.  As Aristotle says repeatedly, every person has his own virtue depending upon his occupation and station, and for Aristotle, not all virtues collapse into one as it did for Plato.

This comes as no surprise.  Obviously, since man is homo politicus, Aristotle expects everyone who is not beast or god to live in a society, not as hermits, out on their own.  Yet it is not man’s essence to be part of a community, only his nature: if a person is not a member of a community, s/he will not cease to be although it is to the advantage of the individual to be a member, to fulfil his potential.[3]  Aristotle again advocates the mean position.  It is unadvisable to live away from society since it will obstruct the pursuit of the good life, but a person should not be too integrated into the state for this will also mean the same.  The good citizen and the good person, though the same people, act in different spheres that overlap.  Clearly, Aristotle rejects Plato’s view of the unity of the virtues.  While Plato merges political and moral virtue (because a good citizen must be a good man as Socrates argues in Plato’s Republic), Aristotle separates the two by drawing a contradistinction between the duties and role of the good citizen and the good man in a time of constitutional change.  Aristotle argues that the virtue of the good citizen is relative to the constitution and since there are many kinds of constitutions, it follows that there are many kinds of virtues of the good citizen.  The one case in which the virtue of a good man and a good citizen overlap perfectly is that of a ruling citizen: the ruling citizen seeks the maximum good of the state and the good of the state rests on the good of its subjects.  Therefore, the ruling citizen must also be the good man in his dealings with his subjects.  However, the virtue of a good man is complete because there are no deviations.

Aristotle’s understanding of national character hinges on this separation of the public sphere and the private sphere.  Otherwise, much of what he says would appear contradictory.  It is indeed this separation that allows Aristotle to speak of the common nature of a community as well as the individual eccentricities that mark us for who we are.  If Aristotle were to truly believe that virtue is simply a matter of state, there would be less need for this Nicomachean Ethics and if the political were personal, his Politics would have a lesser place in the corpus of his works.  For the Greek, it is only the separation of these two of interaction that holds any meaning.  The separation of these spheres of action allows for a greater degree of accuracy in the predication of individual behaviour.  For example, truthfulness is a virtue in an individual.  However, the state may not have this luxury in its dealings with other states.  The justification of this is that the state exists for another, i.e. the purpose of the state is the advancement of the community it represents.  Clearly, Aristotle believes in national character, but it is neither a personal attribute of an individual nor is it of a homogenous variety that is crudely referred to as stereotype.  For Aristotle, national character is formed through a common sense of belonging and destiny.  Aristotle states,

…men, even when they do not require one another’s help, desire to live together; not but that they are also brought together by their common interests in so far as they each attain to any measure of well-being.  This is certainly the chief end, both of individuals and of states.  And mankind meet together and maintain the political community also for the sake of mere life (1278b19).

In his discourses on citizenship, Aristotle does not make virtue a part of citizenship, nor does he define a certain character one must possess to become a citizen.  The philosopher’s definition of a citizen is simply one who “has the power to take part in the deliberative or judicial administration of any state” (1275b19).  And since “the state is a body of persons sufficing for the purposes of life,” the unifying factor is the sense of belonging of this body of persons to the state and their conjoined activity of running the state.  Citizenry is, therefore, not a passive attribute but an activity through which close bonds may be formed between the citizens.  The excellence of the citizenry in their common endeavour is what Aristotle means by national character, the strongest sense of their commonality being their affiliation to the state’s organs and its functioning.

Conclusion

Aristotle obviously believes in national character.  However, it is equally obvious that he does not mean it in the same sense as when he is talking about an individual’s character.  As I have argued, although the essence of virtues remains the same in both the cases, their medium changes from a person to a citizen.  The teleos of a citizen and a person are different and in ways which restrict Aristotle’s definition of national character to only citizens.  Non-citizens do not partake in the state and therefore do not contribute to national character.  Of course, non-citizens are of various kinds and each contributes to the state in his own way.  However, by Aristotle’s criteria for citizenship, they do not partake in state affairs.  When Aristotle is referring to national character, he is therefore referring to a select class of people who have been similarly educated and probably have similar backgrounds.  In the modern world, this is akin to a Civil or Foreign Service.  It is far easier to see commonalities among members of the British Foreign Service than among all Britons.  It is therefore not contradictory for Aristotle to talk about national character when he himself admits to diversity among the subjects and defends their liberty to be such.  Lastly, if each constitution and its resultant government has unique attributes, it would stand to reason that the virtues required by the citizens of each type of government are different.  Thus, each constitution causes unique national characteristics among its citizens.  If we take this to mean all those who live under the rule of that government, the carefully inculcated national character would dilute significantly—ancient Greek democracy seldom bestowed citizenship to more than a third of its subjects.  Thus, according to Aristotle, it is improper to suppose that whole communities can share a single nature—segments of the community certainly do, and perhaps certain classes of people carry the image of the state more than others.  In this sense, there exists a national character, but not in the modernist definition of everyone being an equal part of the community and having some common distinguishing markers.

[1] Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and the Spread of Nationalism (London: Verso, 1991), 5-7.

[2] As Aristotle puts it in his Physics, “…that for the sake of which, or the end, belongs to the same department of knowledge as the means.  But the nature is the end or that for the sake of which.  For if a thing undergoes a continuous change toward some end, that last stage is actually that for the sake of which (194b28).

[3] I do not mean the reductio ad absurdum position here that an individual will leave society to live entirely in the forests, though this has happened on numerous occasions.  I mean instead the possibility of an individual to live in a community and yet not partake too much of it or give much in return.  Individuals who live on the fringes of society will not actualize their potential.

The Idli Vendor

21 Tue Apr 2009

Posted by in Opinion and Response

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Interlocutors:

Subramanian Venkatraman
Gaius Aemilius Priscus

Setting: Brihadeeshwara Temple courtyard, Thanjavur

Subramanian: Ho there, Gaius! *beams* Fancy seeing you here today of all days. Is it not the two thousandth-something anniversary of your beloved city today?

Brihadeeshwara Temple, Thanjavur

Brihadeeshwara Temple, Thanjavur

Gaius Aemilius Priscus: Salve, Subbu! *smiles* Yes, it is the 2, 762nd anniversary of the Città Eterna…and you know us Romans, we need the benign intercession of any and all willing gods to save our city. I mean, look at us…this is the 65th government since the end of the War, the fourth prime minister in three years, who is also the third non-elected one in succession! Jupiter has clearly washed his hands off us, maybe Siva can help *laughs*

Subramanian: Yes, well…we are not ones to speak on executive effectiveness, as you can see around you.

Gaius: This one man – one vote, I say. Cannot work in a country with such great diversity of material conditions.

Subramanian: Are you talking about India or Rome?

Gaius: India, but the principle holds true anywhere.

Subramanian: Wait…let me get this straight – you don’t believe in universal adult suffrage?! Thambi, this is the 21st century!

Gaius: Fat lot of good your century has done you. You have vote banks, minoritarian pressures, caste politics…what is it they say here, you don’t cast your vote but you vote your caste? This is what happens when you give plebeians the vote. Most have no clue what they are voting for; they only know their own desires and not the cost at which even their needs might be met.

Subramanian: Oh, come on! You think the educated and refined do not have prejudices? Don’t be silly, of course they do! What’s more, they can probably disguise their biases with the clever use of some social theorist of the day or the other.

Gaius: Subbu, education is just one possible criterion. It’s like a cut-off point that we have in exams for passing a student. One could argue it’s arbitrary, but where would we be without some standard of objective discrimination? It is useful even if not perfect…think of it as a heuristic device. Besides, there’s a better argument to be made for education as a criterion. An educated person is more likely to have met people of diverse backgrounds at his school and workplace and is therefore more likely to be aware of alternative views on an issue even if he doesn’t agree with them. Prejudice aside, I am talking about voting.

Subramanian: So am I. Let us imagine that you had a some sort of educational criterion for voting. I assume you’d want this for standing for office too. What’s to stop an educated class from appropriating the state machinery to serve their interests?

Gaius: First of all, you speak like these two groups do not belong to the same society. One cannot really survive without the other – the elite cannot survive without manual labour, and if the elite have an environment in which they can function well, who will be the part-beneficiaries of those extra schools, factories, and offices? It’s the mobility that counts more than the mere existence of strata. This is a symbiotic relationship Subbu, don’t forget that. You want good workers, you want loyal workers…that means you have to take care of them too.

Subramanian: I’m sure that is what all those cotton mill workers were thinking in late 18th and 19th century England *smiles*

Gaius: We have laws now to prevent such exploitation, macha! Besides, those mill workers might have wanted to vote and represent their interests but many of their reforms were introduced by others in the elite. The Reform Acts in England were hardly introduced by plebeians in the House! In fact, the lower classes have steadily increased their rights over time despite not having political representation for most of human existence. I may be biased here with my own, but I daresay Uncle Julius did a lot more for slaves in the Empire than Spartacus ever achieved.

Subramanian: No, I am not getting you started now on the glories of Rome, Gaius! But the laws guarding against exploitation – they can easily be modified…especially if these people have no political weight.

Gaius: Yes, and there are non-political reasons to maintain a dignified amount of labour protections. There is a basic sense of human dignity which I don’t expect people of this era to understand, but there are economic reasons too. Speaking of which, walk with me, I thought I saw a lady selling idli near the entrance.

[Gaius and Subramanian get up and start ambling towards the idli vendor]

Subramanian: *grumbles* What is it with your love affair with idli?! One would think you’re the Dravidian!

Gaius: And you are a fake Dravidian for not liking idli…you prefer tea over kaapi too, infidel!

Subramanian: Anyway, voting is not merely about economics. Since we are talking about India, you have to see the context in which universal adult franchise was made a constitutional right. There were social components to it too.

Gaius: Such as?

Subramanian: Well, you mentioned caste earlier. Despite what many urbanites think, caste still plays a major role in India. Haven’t you noticed how in some houses the servants do not sit at the table but on the floor when eating? Or how some houses keep a separate set of utensils for giving food to the servants?

Gaius: But that could also include a less fortunate brahmin…we’re not exactly the moneyed caste, you know!

Subramanian: 1947, da! Yes, there may have been poor brahmins but the majority of the labourers, untouchables, or downtrodden were lower caste people. With little access to opportunity, they were the overwhelming majority of the underprivileged. Why and how this situation came to pass is a topic for another day but for the purposes of universal adult suffrage, the discrimination against these people would not have gone away if they had not been given the vote.

Gaius: [To vendor: Naalu iddliyum chutniyum konduva pattima] Subbu, that is nonsense! You think suffrage can eradicate discrimination?! Do you know how many rich and educated black people sometimes find it difficult to call a taxi in the United States? I agree money ameliorates things, but I think you are putting too much faith in suffrage. Besides, I fundamentally disagree with the implicit argument you are making that only a dalit can speak for dalit interests.

Subramanian: No, but think about it: if India approached democracy the way you seem to be suggesting, the only people who would have got the right to vote would be the educated and rich elite. I seriously doubt that there would have been any social justice agenda in the legislature.

Gaius: While I do enjoy your misanthropy Subbu, I would like to remind you that the Abolitionists were not all black men! Even here, in India, Ambedkar’s sterling role in guiding Dalit politics notwithstanding, you’ll have to agree that there was an outpouring of remorse among the Hindu upper caste elite across the political spectrum. From Namboodiripad to Savarkar. One could make a credible argument that it was the educated upper caste elite which made your Indian version of affirmative action possible.

Subramanian: No, they were not all black men, but how long did it take them to abolish slavery? How much longer to achieve the vote? And how much after that to attain even some semblance of equality?

Gaius: But two points, ma. One, reform movements do start from within; an outside impetus is not always required. As long as we are open to new ideas, we will be fine. Since we are standing in the shadow of the Brihadeeshwara Temple, consider the several reform movements within Hinduism itself. Raja Rammohan Roy, Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar, Madhavacharya…many have been entirely internal without external influence. As painful as some forms of discrimination may be, we have to remember that reform takes time and works best slowly. Society is, by default, a conservative animal…it cannot handle rapid change well. Just look at the rapid accumulation of wealth in your country…class, culture, or whatever you call it, comes after three generations of good humanistic education.

Also, look at many of the educated, elite brahmins you speak disparagingly of – Savarkar, Namboodiripad…they were all against caste discrimination. I doubt they were exactly the kind to be swayed by the Nehruvian liberal model of social justice!

Two, what do you have to show for extending the vote to all for over six decades? As you said, there is still caste discrimination so that problem has not gone anywhere. In addition, the inability of the majority of the electorate to understand larger issues has lowered the level of public discourse to topi, puppy, and the colour of the kurta! On the one hand you bemoan the lack of discussion on policy yet on the other, you dilute the intellect of the electorate?

Subramanian: It could have been – would have been – a lot worse.

Gaius: But don’t you now have discrimination within the lower castes now? If I remember correctly, the creamy layer of the lower castes are oppressing the even lower layers! How is that helping your case?

These quotas, this suffrage…they are like applying a Band-Aid to a bullet wound. Real democracy must come from within; the constitution is a document reflecting values already inherent in the people. The violence done to tradition by India’s Anglicised elite is incalculable. Not only was India not ready for democracy but the rupture with its own evolution was stupendously obtuse.

Subramanian: *frowns* People are stupid…about the intra-caste discrimination, I mean. But this Indic past…I am not sure Indians can always drag something out of their history to solve today’s problems.

Gaius: [To vendor: Nandri, iddali romba pramadam] *both walk back to their shaded corner in the temple courtyard*  It’s not about history, it’s about this blasted modernity that has ruined much. For example, look at the state – the Anglo-Saxons made it into a contractual relationship, like with an outsider, whereas the Greco-Roman ideal has always been a culturally informed state. Taoism was closely tied to state functions in China, for example, which, obviously, was slowly replaced by Buddhism from the Qing dynasty on. Similarly, Hinduism sees the state and the people as parts of the same organism. After all, what is the state if not an embodiment of the people? The moment you see it that way, this entire notion of rights changes.

Subramanian: Sure, in monarchies in Europe, China, and India…maybe elsewhere too. I don’t think those structures can hold in a democracy like ours.

Gaius: Well, don’t forget that Rome was a republic for almost five centuries before it became an empire. We had a constitutionally defined position as dictator and it worked quite well…until entropy kicked in!

Subramanian: *laughs* The eternal struggle between the classes, yes…Marx, you old plagiarer!

Gaius: How did we decide on who gets to vote back in the day? We allowed those with a stake in society – landowners, businessmen, and so on. Now these people were full citizens and they had a duty to fight in the army if necessary. In fact, service was part of the citizen’s deal – he paid taxes, fought in the army if necessary, served in civilian posts, and he got to have a say in how the society was run. That was what the cursus honorum was all about.

The lower classes had their tribunes and the upper classes their senators. Obviously, it was never so smooth, but it never is. Systems are approximate, you must realise that. Besides, the system would not work today in many of its aspects – imagine 600 million people joining military service in India, or imagine the millions willing to renounce citizenship to avoid paying taxes! The tiered system has some benefits, nonetheless.

Subramanian: So citizenship was conferred upon participation, upon contribution? So basically if I were a Numidian in the 4th century BCE, I could move to Rome, start a business, pay taxes, and vote?

Gaius: Of course not, don’t be silly! You have to be conferred citizenship, it was an honour, not a right. With this honour came new privileges and heavier burdens. These honours were not given to anyone – depending upon when during our glorious rule, only Romans were citizens, then Latins, and then Italians. It was right at the fevered end that citizenship was extended to everyone in the Empire.

Citizenship reflected the relationship between the individual and his society. Was he willing to contribute to making it a better place? Bleed for it? Sweat for it? And even then, there were always ties of blood. What role would you give your neighbour, for example, in advising you about your marital discord? He may be a friend, but he is an outsider and all decisions are yours and your wife’s.

Subramanian: But surely there is a case to be made  that anyone who resided in Rome and contributed to its well-being via investments, taxation, and law-abiding conduct was an asset to the Empire? In the modern context, what if an NRI wanted to vote?

Gaius: No, there is no case. Suffrage is not bought, it is not an open club; it is a right bestowed upon some – well, nowadays all – that are of the community. Modern India’s experimentation with multicultural citizenship has weakened this sense of identity. Nothing wrong in multiculturalism but giving minorities special privileges was not the Roman way…and no one can deny that Rome was vibrantly multicultural. But you need an anchor.

As for NRIs, they are citizens and have a vote as I understand it. At least now they do…and as much as it would please me to have absentee ballots from abroad, that is not exactly a major issue as some pretend. When you pay your phone bill or taxes, you go to the government don’t you? Similarly, if you want to vote, come to your constituency! Absentee ballots are more of a requirement for people with highly transferable jobs like the military, honestly.

Subramanian: And I am beginning to think that PIOs have no voting privileges under your system…

Gaius: It’s not my system, it’s the law! Why should foreigners vote? These people left India – and they may have had very good reasons – and acquired a foreign citizenship. What makes them think they have any rights remaining in India? Even if they come back, until they do not re-acquire Indian citizenship, I see no reason to allow them voting privileges. They left for personal profit and they’re back for personal profit…without renouncing their foreign citizenship. I suppose it could be argued that they have an option not to live with the consequences of the vote unlike other Indians and so it is not fair to allow them to vote. But I personally favour the civilisational argument.

From the perspective of a contractual state, a case may be made for them to vote if certain criteria are met but from the perspective of a civilisational state, they have left the fold. Europe has transformed from civilisational states to contractual states. Why and when takes us far afield from our topic today but the question is, for you Indians, what kind of state do you want?

Subramanian: And are we not already living in a contractual state?

Gaius: Here, I disagree and go against the common perception. There is this lovely book I was reading the other day by a chap called Chris Bayly in which he argued that we see the Enlightenment and Industrial Revolution as a overpowering, unitary discourse. Which, of course, it was not. There is always a great deal of plurality in the ‘now-ness’ that is erased by meta-narratives, Subbu. Bayly says that because of this, we are surprised by the resurgence of religion in politics at the end of the Cold War when in fact it had always been there and we had not noticed.

To get to the point, no…I do not see India as a state but a nation-state. While the state may be the  contractual skeleton, the nation lends the sinews. Why should you care about India and not any other place that has similar or better contractual terms? To reduce the world to this utilitarian abstraction is nonsensical though many individualists do make this leap. But psychology shows us that we function best as communities, not individuals.

Okay, all this talking has made me thirsty…come, let’s get some kaapi from that idli vendor *stands up, stretches, and starts walking towards the temple gate again*

Subramanian: Amma, these bleddy firangs and their kaapi fetish! Well, you are right that we are straying way off course on this debate about state, contracts, and citizenship though I do see the connect with voting rights…or privileges as you may understand them. But let us get back to the narrower topic of Indians voting, particularly the disadvantaged.

You must admit Gaius, that in India, laws and reform movements have their limits. Laws can barely be implemented in cities, let alone penetrate the rural heartlands. In a situation where the untouchables would not have franchise, this could result in the continued propagation of this atrocious practice; their political mobilisation is important.

Erm…ah yes: you mentioned Namboodiripad and such, and yes, they were anti-caste discrimination. But what guarantees can there be that the entire administrative machinery will suddenly transcend their parochialism and turn reformist? You mention Hindu reformers, dear Gaius…so many reformers and yet so much untouchability?

Gaius: Haha! I could flip that around Subbu, and ask, so much political representation and yet so much untouchability? But seriously, what makes you think that political representation changes untouchability? Would education not affect that more as qualified people move to big cities in India and abroad? There is a far stronger argument – which I am sympathetic to, by the way – to be made for improving access to schools and universities. This benefits all Indians without discrimination. The real disenfranchisement, Subbu, comes from poverty. Look at the stratification within the dalits – it’s monetary, not caste based.

[To vendor: Ondu kaapi kodtheera, amma?]

Subramanian: Eh, foreigner! At least get the language right…this is the proper Dravida desam! [To vendor: Kaapi thaanga amma]

Gaius: In the words of the great Chris Tucker, “all of y’all look alike!” *laughs* Anway…this brings me to another point I wanted to make: to represent my view on adult franchise as an all or nothing system does it disservice. I’d argue that a tiered voting system is perhaps more suited. In all probability, even an illiterate farmer in Therekalputhoor or Rajakkamangalam knows more about his coconut groves than some babu in Dilli but the same farmer is unlikely to understand the nuances of India’s relations with Iran or France. In a more federal system, if the Union list and State list allowed states autonomy over their local administration – in the full sense of the word – that farmer would have a say in the policies that affect him directly but not in affairs that concern him only indirectly.

States can lobby the Centre for foreign policy initiatives – I’m sure you have a lot of thoughts on Lanka but less on, say, the Maldives. You might even have a third tier at the local level for local affairs, I don’t know…I am hardly creating a political document here, just voicing some thoughts. The educated – let’s say baccalaureate, first class, for now – can vote in national elections. I know news consumption is at an all-time low, that most allegedly educated people prefer to surf the internet for the latest skimpily clad starlet rather than reactor fuel assembly lattices, and this benchmark is problematic, but think of it as filtering out the riffraff rather than creating the perfect electorate!

Subramanian: Well, as long as you concede that the educated need not know anything, really, about the issues they might be voting on…

Gaius: Yes but the probability of them knowing more is higher than a village bumpkin…or an urban urchin.

Subramanian: And tell me, even if I agreed with you, how do you intend to implement this elaborate scheme in a country like India where they have difficulty maintaining even a regular electoral list?

Gaius: On that, I must concede defeat! But if the principles are sound, at least we can steer towards the general direction. There is no need to adopt ideas like sovereignty or franchise wholesale without any heed to applicability.

Subramanian: Then this is a good time for me to leave. While you’ve scoffed down idli and kaapi, my tummy is rumbling for its ragi! I’ll see you in the evening at the temple Echampati Gayathri concert this evening. Bye!

Gaius: Yes, I am getting dark in this blasted tropical sun too…ciao, paisan!