Can one distinguish between cultural practices that need to be honored and those that are human rights violations? Any thoughts or opinions would be great. Cheers!
If the "cultural practice" involves irreversibly cutting off any body part it is WRONG. But of course, not everyone would agree with this. For example, half of the babies in the USA have part of their penis (the foreskin) cut off at birth. Death as a punishment for sexual misconduct (except perhaps for rape) is also wrong. In several muslim countries, those that abandon Islam are stoned to death. It need not be mentioned that this too is wrong. But the plain truth is that morality is actually subjective. Nearly all people in the world, however, can agree on some basic things. But what about when 99% of people in the world believe something is wrong, but it is commonly accepted within a certain isolated cultural group? Strange Funeral Customs In Japan, it was the custom to insist that twenty or thirty servants commit hara kiri (suicide) at the death of a nobleman. Usually these servants were cooerced. In Fiji it was considered correct for the friends of the deceased as well as his wives and slaves to be strangled. Prior to being outlawed by the British, a rite known as suttee was practiced among the Hindu higher castes in India. The wife of the deceased was expected to dress herself in her finest clothing and lie down by the side of her deceased husband on the funeral pyre to be cremated alive. The eldest son then lit the pyre. A widow who failed to fulfill her final duty brought shame to the family and would be a social outcast. In Fiji a child's finger, usually a daughter, was cut off as a sign of affection for a dead father.
An' Granny says `sides dat dey need be sendin' her dat 2nd stimulus check... 10 reasons the U.S. is no longer the land of the free Every year, the State Department issues reports on individual rights in other countries, monitoring the passage of restrictive laws and regulations around the world. Iran, for example, has been criticized for denying fair public trials and limiting privacy, while Russia has been taken to task for undermining due process. Other countries have been condemned for the use of secret evidence and torture.
Only under the culture in which you are looking. What is culturally wrong here isn't in other countries and we have no business sticking our hearts and minds into their culture. Now if they try to make us follow suit, that is a horse of a different color.
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I am perfectly cool with any attempt to end such practices as slavery and ritual mutilations. I think, too, that the Taliban should be shunned for their ghastly treatment of women. That isn't even good Islam, if you understand the Qur'an. Not much we can do about most of the really hideous practices other than to support political activist who try to abolish the practices or in some way ameliorate the problems. There has to be a movement within the subject cultures to do any good. (Well, aside from sending Predator drones and SEAL teams to blow away slave-raiding parties.) There is a strong feminist movement rising in some parts of Africa (surprisingly enough, most noticeably in predominantly Muslim countries.) Give them such support as we can and leave it at that.
I suppose you could use the UN Declaration on Human Rights and check off various cultural practices against the list there. Or you could take a perspective - say utilitarian or any other that you prefer - and use that or those perspectives instead.
Even leaving out the question of the rights of children (which I'm going to do because it's just not an argument I feel like tackling today) there is a problem with honoring culture-based human rights violations. The problem is laws that make emigrating to somewhere with a different culture expensive, difficult, time-consuming, or outright impossible. Which means individuals who would prefer not to be subject to a certain culture often have no choice but to endure it. Again leaving out the matter of children, one solution for those who would like to see people as free as possible to preserve any aspect of their culture is to stop putting up barriers to travel and residence outside the country of one's birth. We are not a feudal global society and yet in some ways we are. People are tied to specific areas and the cultures within those areas and need permission from some authority or other to live elsewhere.
I think if a practice causes a irreversible harm or affection to one's body, it fringes human rights. In my point of view cutting off one's hair is not a violation to human rights, but cutting off one's sexal organ is a violation.
