Identity, Dignity, Culture and Human Rights

When Samuel Huntington put forward his spurious thesis of a clash of civilizations, he opened a Pandora’s Box of global proportions. Islam was demonized and the west regressing into a crusades mentality. The shocking events of September 11 and their aftermath were both a cause and effect of such developments. The Bush administration’s declaration of a global war against terrorism has escalated and exacerbated tensions and divisions. Single Super Power hegemony and U.S. unilateral action in Iraq are contributing to convert Huntington’s thesis into a self-fulfilling prophecy of conflict and mayhem. In today’s increasingly conflict-ridden world, identity (a concept not only constructed, but constantly reconstructed) is increasingly viewed as negative and undesirable both by some governments and by sections of the international community. Ethnic identity, in particular, is increasingly being viewed by them as something to be controlled, co-opted and homogenized. Communities are themselves, uncertain about how to deal with their ethnicity. In many societies, minority communities, continuing to be excluded from development, and facing increasingly intolerable impoverishment, are responding by asserting their ethnic identity in their struggles against discriminations, and their struggles for socialand economic justice, for self-determination, and ultimately for secession. The resulting internal armed conflicts are, all too quickly, labeled ethnic conflicts.In other societies such as Indonesia, unprecedented economic crises, driving two-thirds of the country’s population below the poverty line, are causing ethnic majorities to attack the more affluent ethnic minorities. In yet other countries such as Bangladesh, harsh economic conditions, at home, are pushing increasing numbers ofmigrant workers to seek employment, both within the more affluent countries of their region, as well as outside their region. Such migrant