Lecture at the 55th Congress of the Federal Union of European Nationalities (FUEN)
Ljubljana, 13.5.2010 | speech
Lecture by Dr Danilo Türk, President of the Republic of Slovenia, at the 55th Congress of the Federal Union of European Nationalities (FUEN): "We Are Living Diversity"
Ljubljana, 13 May 2010
I am delighted to have the opportunity to share, in front of this respectable forum, some thoughts on minority questions in today’s Europe.
Congratulations for the 60th Anniversary of FUENS, an organisation, which has made such a significant contribution to solving minority questions in all the decades of its existence.
Slovenia has broad experience with questions regarding national minorities. We have reached good and successful solutions for the situation of the Hungarian and Italian nationalities on our own territory, and in our relations with our neighbours we strive for the implementation of the rights of the Slovene national minorities in Austria, Italy, Hungary and in Croatia.
We are connected with FUENS especially through the work of the Carinthian Slovenes, especially the NSKS (National Council of Carinthian Slovenes).
But our history reaches back to the time between the two world wars. Slovene representatives under the leadership of Dr Josip Wilfan were among the initiators and participants of the conference of organised national groups of the European states in Geneva in 1925. They also attended all annual "European minority congresses".
These congresses were a contribution to the forming of an international minority protection system, to the codification of minority rights, to cultural autonomy, against forced assimilation etc.
Minorities in Europe: general historic context
The whole development of minority regulations in Europe in the last century can be divided into three major periods which correspond to the largest changes in the 20th century. In each of these periods, minority rights had their place.
The first period is linked to the dissolution of three large multi-ethnic empires: (the Austrian-Hungarian, the Ottoman and the Russian Empire) after World War I. New nation-states and large national minorities emerged as a consequence. In the period after Wold War I, more than 25 million people in Europe belonged to national minorities. At that time a minority protection system was formed within the framework of the League of Nations, and this system defined numerous legal rules, substantial as well as procedural, which remained the basis of minority protection later on, and also had an important influence on the subsequent formation of the contents of human rights and the system for their protection. Today, the period of the League of Nations is mostly forgotten and underestimated, but from the viewpoint of minority protection it remains important - as a historic starting point and as a system of rules which offer a valid criterion of substance.
The second phase followed after the end of World War II. In that period, the minority question was set into a new context, e.g. the context of the universal protection of human rights. This was an important step, motivated by the historic need to define modern society, which simply demands the basic human rights to be ensured for all people, without any discrimination. This basis provided solutions also for people belonging to national minorities and promised a better practical situation than the previous period. Minority rights were set into a new philosophic and legal context, which, in principle, facilitates better practice. But the development of this practice was not consistent. It was accompanied by two problems: first, the political mistrust related to the minority protection which had resulted from manipulations of minorities, especially the German minorities in the Sudetenland and in Poland before World War II, in the time of Nazism; and second, the illusion that individual human rights themselves sufficiently and somewhat automatically ensure the solution of minority questions.
To these two main obstacles some more must be added: the illusions of the communist systems that communism provides a solution of the national question, including the minority question (this illusion had dire consequences especially in the period of the dissolution of SFR Yugoslavia) and the camouflage of nationalism in majority nations into the speech of human rights, connected with the politics of involuntary assimilation of minorities. Often the talk of human rights served as a way of avoiding policies needed by national minorities.
In this period there were only few new, territorially defined, international legal regulations of the minority issues. Yet, their meaning was not decreased. The efforts to establish the rights of the minority in South Tyrol is a good illustration of this meaning. Article 7 of the Austrian State Treaty relating to the rights of the Slovene and Croat minorities in Austria has become a symbol of minority protection.
The third period followed after the ending of the cold war and has not yet ended. In this period, communist state systems dissolved and with them, three socialist federations (the Soviet Union, SFR Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia). This development by itself put the minority question more into the foreground. And at the same time, the end of the cold war removed the obstacles to international discussion and regulation regarding minorities. The UN General Assembly adopted a special Declaration on the rights of national and ethnic minorities (1992). Within the framework of CSCE/OSCE several documents on minorities were adopted and the institution of the High Commissioner for National Minorities was set up, its practice being a major contribution to the development of standards for minority protection and the promotion of minority rights. The European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages (1992) and the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities (1994) were drawn up within the Council of Europe.
The development after the end of the cold war has facilitated a much wider discussion and practical work. The historically defined regulations of the minority situation have achieved new support. The number of minority situations which are subject of international interest has also increased. Some long suppressed questions, for example the question of the Roma people, surfaced. More than ever before, we feel the need for a comprehensive approach to the minority question, and this approach must comprise not only questions of cultural and linguistic identity, but also questions of economic existence, social mobility, media inclusion and many more. Minorities which emerged as a result of migrations in the past decades require attention and appropriate policy-making.
It seems that the path to the solution of the philosophical question about the relationship between individual and collective aspects of human rights, which is so important for members of minorities, is slowly being paved. The time has come to question the excessively individualistic interpretation of human rights. The ideological explanations of the 20th century, following either the thesis that individual protection of human rights will automatically solve the situations of groups, like national minorities, or, on the other hand, the thesis that a socialist society with its solutions will create a real and lasting balance between the individual and the collective, now belong to history. The 21st century presents a real opportunity to define the policies and practice so as to allow national minorities to live a full life on the basis of the respect of individual human rights, while at the same time continuously striving to nurture collective minority identities.
Some of the questions which need to be addressed, are not new. Let us take the example of language and bilingual schools. Both, the European Union and all Europe are based on the principle of the pluralism of languages, with the wish to maintain and develop it further, beyond the limits of the current national regulations. The European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages (1992) is one of the expressions of this. The case law of the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg also shows an example of a judgement upholding the right of the individual to use the minority language as an official language, although the individual is not a citizen of the country in which the minority, whose language is accepted as official language, lives. This judgement leads to a further widening of the usage of minority languages as official languages in the territory of the European Union.
A pluralist approach to linguistic situations should act as a stimulant in the search for solutions of linguistic situations in ethnically mixed regions. Regulations representing "lex specialis" can be a good basis, yet they require additional energy to be implemented at a time that is more favourable for this kind of approach than any other period of the recent history.
Critically important questions arise at the level of school organisation, didactics and methodology. The problem is interesting not only from the point of view of the implementation of minority rights "lex specialis", but from the viewpoint of the European perspective of linguistic pluralism as well. It would probably be appropriate to formulate a special research project on the questions of bilingual and multilingual education in the current circumstances. Such a project of course could not be solely academic, and a matter of research organisations. Its goal should be practical improvements in the system. When setting the objectives of such improvements and experience in the field of educational methodology and didactics, a comparison of experience between different European states would be welcome.
Language and education belong to the "classical" minority issues. In addition, the question of minorities in Europe today encompasses some new elements.
The practice of the CoE and especially the controlling mechanism (Committee of Experts) of the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities and the Charter for Regional or Minority Languages indicate this. This is demonstrated by the contents of two general comments by the committee of Experts:
- On education (2006).
- On the cooperation of members of national minorities in the cultural, social and economic life and in public matters.
At the practical level the agenda is expanding. At the same time some of the basic conceptual issues of protection of human rights and minorities require a fresh look.
Are human rights an adequate framework for the protection of the rights of minorities and their members?
In my opinion the answer to this question is yes, provided that we accept a sufficiently nuanced interpretation of human rights.
The story of human rights today is not simple anymore. This is not just the story of an individual in relation to the state or the story about some universal - and very abstract - values. It also has to include the relationships of the individual within different social groups and the universality of human rights in a specific social context.
Legal regulation has to be sensitive to this aspect of social reality. Of course there are some normative commandments which are firmly anchored and which have to do with the relationship between the individual and the state. A good example here is the right to freedom of expression: It has to be respected by anyone, the state included. But this right has its limits, which are set by the prohibition of hate speech. The state is obliged to prohibit and, if necessary, penalize incitement to hatred and violence. In this, the state of course has to consider various legal details and facts, but the basic rules are firmly set.
On the other side, the individual’s status within various social groups (for example religious, ethnic or language groups) is far less clear. Human rights are in their essence the rights of individuals, as they must be. Yet no individual lives in an empty space, everyone belongs to a number of different social groups and has "the right to belong" to any group in which s/he realises a prevalent part of human rights and human dignity. As Aristotle explained, man is a social being, and this is important in the realisation of human rights.
The weak point of the existing international legislative regulation regarding human rights is in the treatment of the collective aspect. Norms related to the self-determination of peoples, the rights of ethnic, religious and linguistic minorities and the rights of indigenous peoples cover only a part of the whole. The creation of the international legal regulation is less developed in questions of domestic violence, traditional practices with negative consequences for women and girls or the relationships between the individual and the traditional authority inside an ethnic or religious group or immigrant community. The existing international and national standards are still vague and also the descriptive part of the legal regulation would need some further development so as to enable the whole picture to include sociological and anthropological facts regarding groups like religious or immigrant communities. In short, there is space and there are also reasons for a more detailed legal regulation of the individual’s position within his/her social group. Human rights jurispendence is an important tool for such a regulation.
The second demand regarding the contextualisation of the universality of human rights also needs further work. In the discussion about the universality of human rights today, there is no more absolute rejection of the idea of universality. Instead, when realising standards of human rights today, the need to acknowledge “the margin of appreciation" is mentioned, which allows taking into account the specificities of the relevant cultural, socio-economic and political environment. But here a warning must be given. Contextualisation has its limitations, which cannot be extended as far as to reach the point of a de facto rejection of universality. The concept of “the margin of appreciation" must not be understood as allowing a complete deviation from the basic norms of human rights. Reservations to international treaties on human rights which allow discrimination on the basis of religious prescriptions are unacceptable.
In fact, the contextualisation of the universality of human rights and the application of the concept of “the margin of appreciation" can function only if the hierarchy between them is maintained: if a collision arises between a norm of human rights and some cultural or religious customs, human rights standards must prevail.
In real life such problems are very complex. Social groups, including religious communities and various types of ethnic minorities, are not homogenous. It is not unusual that within them different opinions and conflicts will arise, also regarding the interpretation of the cultural or religious tradition. When a person belonging to a group removes himself/herself from the culture or from this group, or if s/he is not loyal to it anymore, individual human rights (for example the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion, the right to freedom of expression, the right to freedom of movement) must overrule the commandments of the culture or tradition of the group.
It is ideal if disputes in cases like these can be solved by agreement and in a democratic process within the group in question. But this is not always possible. Other means must be available too, including interventions by the state. In short, human rights represent a wide conceptual and legal framework for dealing with questions of co-existence and inclusion of individual within social groups, including religious communities, and the integration of these groups into the wider society. But the framework in itself is not sufficient as it does not automatically produce solutions. Policies need to be formulated.
Co-existence and integration: some policy questions
The formulation of policies in the area of human rights requires careful application of legal standards and socio-economic indicators. From the discussion about the success of the implementation of human rights, we can conclude that it is easier to assess to what extent the legal demands are really implemented, when explicit and clear legal standards are available. So, for example, on the basis of court statistic and legal literature, it is possible to assess the implementation of highly-developed legal rights related to the administration of justice. But on the other hand, in areas where the standards of human rights are more general and abstract, for example when dealing with the right to an appropriate standard of physical and mental health, the progress can be measured only by means of social indicators.
In the area of migrations, the use of socio-economic indicators has already been accepted and well developed. An example of successful use of this methodology is the "index of immigrant integration policies", developed within a research project initiated by the British Council five years ago. The project was concluded in 2007 with a study using 140 indicators. This study reached an exceptional level of methodological complexity and indicates the situation of immigrants in 28 European states, enabling the comparison of different situations.
The choice of policy areas covered by this study is wide and representative: access to the labour market, family reunion, long-term residence, participation in the political life, access to citizenship and fight against discrimination. These areas are crucial for immigrants. Governments and other interested parties can compare individual policy areas and the overall success as well. So for example a country which is very open regarding the access to the labour market and family reunion, but at the same time strictly limits the participation in political life and access to citizenship, manifests conservatism in the formation of policies of full integration of immigrants into the society in which they live now. On the basis of such a "diagnosis" a serious political discussion is possible.
One of the areas researched by this study is the fight against discrimination. This area is very closely connected to human rights and at the same time very demanding in practice. In real life no two situations are completely identical. Non-discrimination inevitably includes a certain extent of a healthy amount of differentiation inherent to the formulation of politics itself as well as the assessment of its adequacy. But an immigrant or a person belonging to another religion will perceive differentiation (for example in the access to certain positions of employment or good education) as discrimination rather than something reasonable.
Policies formulated to solve such questions must contain a number of components in an adequate combination, depending on the circumstances in the country in question. Practice shows that some of these components have a wider field of application. Among them:
- enterprises managed by the minority ensure employment, and the government with its policies ensures optimum economic and social effects with an appropriate legislation, training programs and a general support to entrepreneurship;
- social mobility as a result of economic success is the basis of systematic policy of antidiscrimination. The key to such a policy is education. Accessibility of good education, also at university level, is crucial to create equal opportunities for immigrants and other minority groups and for their integration into the wider society;
- success in education and employment contributes to self-respect and pride about one's own identity. Very successful experts can efficiently demand their identity to be respected, for example regarding food or a different work regimen during Ramadan;
- well-considered antidiscrimination politics will contribute to the visibility of the success in the media, especially on TV. This is important to help the wider public to understand that difference and integration are compatible and that non-discrimination is a civic virtue. Nothing succeeds like success. And nothing looks more attractive on TV than the success of those who started on the margin. The best example for this in the last four years is Barack Hussein Obama.
At this point another warning is appropriate. Success stories are only one part of the public debate. Immigrants, and especially Moslem communities, are often used as scapegoats in public debates. Such treatment reveals prejudice demanding a serious public answer. However, it is important to avoid the temptation to treat every problem of immigrants or Moslem communities as a policy failing at integration of a minority into the wider society. It is hard to reach a clear distinction between criticism and prejudice and between the usual problems and a policy failure, especially in the media who prefer simplified explanations. Therefore such circumstances demand additional effort.
All this calls for additional efforts to reach a tolerant discussion. The best path to follow is that of prudent and democratic dialogue.