Discussing different values and legal rights makes peaceful social change possible

In late November 2009 the building of minarets was banned by referendum in Switzerland. On Christmas day the passengers on an airplane preparing to land in Detroit narrowly escaped a bomb attack. And on New Year's Day, in Denmark, a man forced his way into the house of Kurt Westergaard, the author of the so-called Mohammed caricatures, attempting to assault him with an axe. In Germany this has, once again, sparked a discussion that has exposed the up and downsides of the ongoing debate about values in society.

The discussion centres on attitudes toward Islam, but in most cases, it is is just used as a symbol. In fact, the issue is, how we deal - both within Germany and in relations with other countries - with different values, cultures, and notions of law.

And: what options are open to us, in the long term, to gain recognition for the values that we regard as fundamental to an open and just society.

Question of different values in societies of vital importance to development policy

This debate is of paramount relevance for development policy, since it addresses some  key issues. One example of this is an article by Andrian Kreye in the Süddeutsche Zeitung from 3 January 2010.

He said: “In the West the value debate is predicated on the assumption that the value canon of freedom, equality, democracy, and human rights is something that the entire rest of the world is longing for. (…) However, a Muslim is not an oppressed person languishing under a dictatorship until he is finally delivered from his lot by flight or through a liberator.”

On 5 January 2010, Peter von Becker, wrote in the Berlin Tagesspiegel: “It seems downright naive when we hear the comments by a German bishop who may be convinced that it is possible to negotiate about a 'humane future' in a peaceful way with a male-dominated society that grants its women fewer rights than a farmyard goat.”

Discussion should neither fall into self-censorship nor become self-righteous

What lessons do we need to learn, what course should we take? Should we - as some think – finally stop bowing to threats by violent Islamists and abandoning, in a gesture of cravenly 'proactive' self-censorship, the basic values on which our society rests?

Or is the key error we are making our attempt to export our 'Western' ('Christian') values to the rest of the world as the shining paradigm for a new society, without giving due consideration to other cultures and value systems?

This is the level at which a good share of the discussion is being conducted. And it is marked at times by a frightening measure of self-righteousness and clueless ignorance.

The reason why the current discussion misses the core of the problem is that it rests on a false opposition that is being set up. You don't need to be a champion of Islamism to experience the re-printing of the Mohammed caricatures as an insensitive, or indeed provocative, act.

But you don't have to be a warrior of Western civilization, either, to see how fundamental freedom of expression and the rule of law are to our society. There is no contradiction between these two stances.

Taking other views seriously

The central point of the dispute is not whether we hold freedom of expression to be more important than respect for the religious views of others. It is, in fact, whether we are intent on conducting the debate on value preferences and notions of society as a monologue or as a dialogue.

The monologue seems at present to be gaining the upper hand. Yet which stance is more naïve – the idea of supporting reform-minded forces in the developing world, seeking to foster, through dialogue, modernisation processes there - or the conviction that the rest of the world is bound, sooner or later, to fall into our line of thought if we only consistently continue to defend 'our values'?

Development policy needs to help take the debate out of this kind of argumentative pitfalls. It has long been aware of the fact that far from being realized automatically, the universal basic rights and the value preferences of a secular and urbanized social system need to be achieved gradually.

These processes are inevitably protracted and conflictual. This applies to developing countries as well as to our own society. Much of what we now see as self-evident had to be established against strong resistance put up by conservative forces (often including the established churches).

Peaceful social change is only possible through dialogue

Development policy has made plenty of errors in recent decades, but it has also learned a lot: for instance, that peaceful social change is best effected in and through dialogue between values and interests, not by any one-sided fiats imposed by those convinced they possess the ultimate truth.

It knows what it means to support modernization in an environment marked by weak state structures, entrenched role models, and violent conflict. It has long since lost the naivety it once had when it came to the manageability of complex events and processes, and it is today in possession of skills and knowledge that could play an important role in the domestic debate on integration and changing values.

And one of the most important insights to which development policy has come: We must not allow this debate to be led from the margins. As long as we have only those in mind who are intent on terrorizing us, we are likely to opt for the path leading to the abyss of polarization and exclusion.

True, we must defend ourselves against violent attack. That, however, may prove to be easier than paving the way for millions of people to realize the more just order of society to which they are entitled. That calls for a policy that is cognizant of the values on which it rests and capable of engaging in open dialogue.

Dr. Christian von Haldenwang is a researcher at the department ‘Governance, Statehood, Security’ German Development Institute (DIE).

The German Development Institute draws together the knowledge of development research available worldwide, dedicating its work to key issues facing the future of development policy. It consults on the basis of independent research findings in Germany and worldwide and deals with current issues in cooperation with  industrial and developing countries.