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Thursday, December 15, 2005
Why citizenship?
Salman Rushdie ends an essay on multiculturalism by saying:
I'd written about that here as well.
[T]he questions of core freedoms and primary loyalties can’t be ducked. No society, no matter how tolerant, can expect to thrive if its citizens don’t prize what their citizenship means — if, when asked what they stand for as Frenchmen, as Indians, as Americans, as Britons, they cannot give a clear reply.I'm not comfortable with the way Rushdie phrases it. I think the basis of every society should be a respect for individual freedoms, that allows every person to live his or her life as he or she pleases, provided they don't infringe on anyone else's freedom to do so. As countries change, I think it is dangerous to hold on to a notion of what words like "French" or "Indian" or "American" mean, and to insist that everyone in those countries adhere to those notions. That opens the way for cultural nationalism. Our values, instead, should be based on basic human rights, on a respect of individual liberties.
I'd written about that here as well.
