Category: Liberty

Categories
Liberty

[2206] Of it is not hard to choose between liberalism and authoritarian feminism

Elizabeth Farrelly at the Sydney Morning Herald writes that the burqa is an affront to feminism.[1] She makes feminism sounds authoritarian. Quoting a friend of mine, “all this really is another case of someone trying to shove the politics of one kind of identity ahead of another.”

I am unsure how widely this view is shared among feminists out there. BBC seems to believe that it is a standard position.[2] If it is a standard position, then I think the gulf between me and them has just grown wider.

My greatest issue with feminism up until recently is affirmative action. I cannot bring myself to support affirmative action for women and ending up living in a tokenistic system. Worse, some want more than tokenism. Through experience, radical feminists want inequality of rights in their favor rather than simple equality between genders.

The issue with burqa opens up a second front. If feminists seek to ban burqa, then it necessarily goes against the principle of liberty. If a person freely chooses to wear burqa, then to prevent her from wearing it is a violation of her individual liberty. It is a violation of liberalism. Therefore, if the burqa is an affront to feminism, then feminism has to be an affront to liberalism.

We all have our bias and some of these biases may be perverted and deserve criticism. Whatever it is, a person is free to hold whatever bias there is. But to act on the bias and impose others of one’s bias is unambiguously authoritarian. Clearly from her article, Farrelly is choosing the illiberal path.

If feminism indeed tries to push this agenda through, this is a sad development for all. Feminism can be a great ally in promoting liberty, especially in societies where women suffer from real discrimination. Liberals are fiercely in favor of equality of rights and that make liberals and feminists friends.

Sometimes however, I feel feminism simply goes to places when no liberal will follow and in fact, will oppose. This case of burqa is one of those impossible paths for liberal to tread on.

Mohd Hafiz Noor Shams. Some rights reserved Mohd Hafiz Noor Shams. Some rights reserved Mohd Hafiz Noor Shams. Some rights reserved

[1] — Democracy pivots on the universal franchise; the presumption for each individual of a public identity, as well as a private one. To cover someone’s face in public, to reduce them to a walking tent, is to declare them lacking such identity, destroying any possibility of their meaningful public existence. It is, literally, to efface them.

To hide the face is to hide the person. As Shada Islam, Europe correspondent for the Pakistan paper Dawn, wrote last week, most European Muslim women have little patience with the burqa or its wearers, seeing it as ”a sad process of self-isolation and self-imposed exile”.

And while you could see even exile as a personal right, it does directly contradict a public duty, the duty of public presence. The morality of identity-erasure may be (barely) acceptable, but the ethics are not. Brave little Belgium. [Let’s face facts, the burqa is an affront to feminism . Elizabeth Farrelly. Sydney Morning Herald. May 13 2010]

[2] — But the arguments against the niqab are not just based on feminism and the status of women. [Behind France’s Islamic veil. BBC News. April 8 2010]

Categories
Liberty Society

[2196] Of discrimination and safety helmet

Please do not get me wrong. Being a generally risk-adverse person, I will wear a safety helmet if I ride a motorcycle.

This however is quite different from objecting to government mandating the wearing of safety helmet for motorcyclists, or cyclists. The fact that that mandate coincides with my preferred action of wearing safety helmet does not legitimize the mandate. This is one of those little things that a typical libertarian holds. Libertarianism can be axiomatic at times and the demand for logical consistency demands embrace of such opposition to government mandate.

While I do hold this ideal, I do think those who refuse to wear helmet are stupid, given the risk associated with riding a motorcycle. I in fact rarely argue for it because it is trivial and can be silly at times. It is clear that the convenience of coincidence erodes my temptation to argue against the mandate. Yes, in that sense, I am a cafeteria libertarian.

Why am I talking about safety helmet?

Well, this report reminds me of an old case about safety helmet:

TUMPAT, April 22 — The magistrate’s court here today acquitted five students of a religious school for riding motorcycles without wearing crash helmets, but turbans, two years ago.

Magistrate Raja Norshuzianna Shakila Raja Mamat ordered the students to be released after finding that the defence had cast a doubt on the case.

The students, Adli Abd Halim, 22, Ahmad Hafiz Shaari, 24, Mohd Hafizul Mohamad, 22, Mohd Azam Mohd Arifin, 24, and Che Mohd Noor Che Soh, 28, of the Pondok Al-Madrasah Ad-Diniah Al-Yusufiah, an Islamic religious schools in Gelang Mas here, were caught riding motorcycles without wearing crash helmets about 12.30am at Neting, here, on April 28, 2008 after performing funeral prayers at a mosque nearby. [Turban-clad Religious Students Freed For Riding Motorcycles Without Crash Helmets. Bernama. April 22 2010]

When it first appeared, I secretly sided with them (five motorcyclists) due to my libertarian stance. Still, I thought they were stupid.

What surprised me is that these guys won the case. Won!

The libertarian in me laughs in delight.

The libertarian in me is also shocked by its possible implication to rule of law.

Now, I do not know the case went. I am unsure how the defense “cast doubt on the the case.” Incompetent prosecutors, maybe? I do not know. My only piece of information is that Bernama article. I am going to be lazy and not do any more research on the matter, just to fit the bill of a responsible blogger.

Still, I hope they won they case not because they wore turbans.  If it that is the case, then my question will be what is so special about turban-wearers?

If turban wearers could get away with this, this would discriminate against those who refuse to wear safety helmet and turban.

I, as a non-turban wearer, demand equality before the law!

Okay, that was me tongue-in-cheek.

Or was I?

Categories
Economics Liberty Society

[2192] Of embrace a more holistic view on development

There is much stress on economic freedom these days. This is clear by the fact that the New Economic Model is advocating less government in various aspects. So excited are the document authors about the idea of free market that at its rhetorical climax, they highlight the phrase ”market-friendly affirmative action”, never mind the apparent contradiction that the phrase invites. That phrase is perhaps the hallmark of contradiction of the document in terms of economic freedom. The latter part of the document suggests various government interventions that do not tally with its rhetoric. Yet, the document does begin from a liberal point and that is a good starting line. It has to begin somewhere after all.

Truthfully, the goal of the document is development and not the creation of freer market. Without strong conviction to the idea of free market in pursuing its main goal, contradiction is only natural. To criticize the authors of such contradiction is an effort unlikely to impress them and others who share the same view on development vis-à-vis free market.

They primarily believe that the government has a role in development. Such idea is hardly a controversial one. The government can indeed play a role in development even while adhering to the concepts of limited government and free market.

The issue is that the goal of development set by the New Economic Model is unsatisfactorily limited in its scope. The document limits the idea of development to merely economic progress. It ignores the larger meaning of development, just as freedom takes a larger meaning well beyond the realm of business and economics.

Development is not merely about better infrastructures or higher income levels for us all. While income levels do indicate general well-being in many ways, it is not the only factor in development that needs to be taken into account.

Development must empower individuals in a comprehensive manner. More often than not, this means enhancing economic progress as well promoting individual liberty. Indeed, economic progress and individual freedom work hand in hand. Without the other, each feels empty even if each lifts one up from the gutter by a tiny margin. Both are required to catalyze the jump out of the gutter.

Without development as confined within self-limiting definition of economic progress, individual freedom itself is redundant. Individuals living in dire economic condition will be unable to reap the dividend of liberty for they are incapable of understanding virtues of freedom. Without such comprehension, they are unable to make full use of it for their benefits. As the Malay idiom goes, what is a flower to a monkey?

There are so many elementary concerns need to tend to that whatever freedom they have is meaningless. It is the excess capacity that will never be used up. For instance, what is free speech when the stomach growls endlessly? In fact, free speech with an empty stomach can easily descend into anarchy as the hungry and famished knock rule of law essential to the preservation of liberty down to the ground to satisfy their very basic desire while robbing somebody else’s rights and liberty.

Similarly, where there is economic progress without individual liberty, what use of those shinny sedans or overly big four-wheel drives, clean and smooth roads together with tall and richly decorated towers when they are merely a posh prison to keep the prisoners happy? After all, what is economic wealth while one is repressed, living in fear?

They have the all the means but if the means are prevented from reaching the ends by traditions or prejudices, economic progress become meaningless. Life must be one cruel joke if economic progress in the end only comes to naught.

Individuals have to become richer not only in monetary terms but also in terms of themselves. The set of what can be done must be enlarged and the set of what cannot be done must shrink for development to take its holistic meaning. Choices have to expand.

Their choices have to be well informed. That is only possible through the tradition of free enquiry that embedded in it the concept of free speech and free press, among others. They must be able to express themselves and to do so is to practice freedom of expression. We talk about how young graduates lack communication and social skills in general: can we blame them when the avenues for practice are limited and guided paternalistically?

This idea is not new. Nobel Prize Laureate economist Amartya Sen is the vanguard of the idea. Although it must be said that he goes farther than a classical liberal would, he articulated similar view much earlier and wrote Development as Freedom for wider consumption.

Development must focus on both fronts for it to be meaningful. It is in this sense that the New Economic Model is insufficient. Malaysia needs more than economic freedom.

This is not to say that the authors of the document are not doing their jobs. Their terms of reference are clear: focus on the economic front. And they are doing just that. They cannot be blamed for that.

The other focus on the social front where it involves individual freedom is the job of ordinary citizens.

And the government is in the way. Hopefully, the Prime Minister and his Cabinet embraces the wider meaning of development to enable Malaysia to progress at all fronts. Hopefully, they will realize that only a liberal democratic system can bring Malaysia forward in a convincing style.

Mohd Hafiz Noor Shams. Some rights reserved Mohd Hafiz Noor Shams. Some rights reserved Mohd Hafiz Noor Shams. Some rights reserved

First published in The Malaysian Insider on April 12 2010.

Categories
Liberty

[2165] Of we need practice and a little bit of courage

Words may contribute to violent behavior.

This potential makes various individuals apprehensive of the ideal of freedom and in this case, free speech. They fear the capability of words to subvert peace and stability. For our society to mature however, we must overcome that fear and continue to practice freedom.

Out of this fear, some would readily accuse others of sedition for uttering offensive words in hope that the State punishes the accused. Advocates of State action would argue that preventive actions are crucial to avoid realization of that fear.

This is observable in mainstream politics. Members and sympathizers of both Barisan Nasional and Pakatan Rakyat and at times, even independents, are quick to charge the other side of sedition.

The latest case involves Nasir Safar, a former special officer to the Prime Minister who made disparaging remark about Chinese and Indian Malaysians. Some wanted him charged under the Sedition Act and some wanted his citizenship stripped.

DAP politicians meanwhile are quick to accuse Utusan Malaysia of sedition each time the conservative paper publishes provocative articles. In the case of the Perak crisis, Karpal Singh was charged for sedition for allegedly insulting the Sultan amid widespread discontent against the royal house.

In the aftermath of the Allah ruling and attacks on houses of worship, some wanted freedom of assembly be curbed, out of fear that it would repeat May 13 incident.

The apprehension of potential of words is understandable and even justifiable. From the point of liberty, if civil unrest does happen, a person’s right to life and his or her property, which typically is secured only during stable times, are at stake.

Still, freedom of expression, among other freedoms, is no less important than stability.

Trade-off between these concerns, between freedom and stability, is sometimes exist. When there is trade-off, more often than not, the one jettisoned into the blue ocean is freedom of expression. It becomes hard to convince others of the virtue of free speech when the society at large is confronted with actual threats to life and property.

In times of pure chaos for instance, which I should add is an extreme case, imposition of curfew is an important step in restoring the rule of law. This is a troubling thought.

Fortunately, only rarely does that erosion is justifiable. Absolute certainty is a requirement that must be fulfilled to make that erosion a necessary and acceptable sacrifice. That requirement is made with the recognition that that for every potential of disturbance, there is possibility for it not to occur. There is no certainty but rather, there is only suspicion and conjecture. Suspicion is not a sufficient condition for action; anybody can suspect anything. For one to advocate action is to assume that negative repercussions with absolute certainty, which is untrue.

Moreover, different individuals hold different things as offensive and perhaps, therefore potentially seditious. It is highly problematic to compromise somebody’s free speech in favor of stability because someone out there has trouble managing his or her emotion with respect to disagreeable words or ideas.

With the spirit of equality before the law, to have the State acting against every, or even any, individual for making statement that somebody out there deems as offensive with the assumption of certainty of words’ potential — with certainty that that somebody will go out and run amok —— in the background leads to a suffocating environment, where freedom cannot exist.

Therefore, if freedom is a concern at all, the mere potential of words —— fraud, explicit threat and orders to transgression of individual rights excluded —— does not justify forceful action by the State.

Those who prioritize stability —— in terms of security of life and property —— over liberty would argue for the adoption of precautionary principle to justify preventive action by the State. The adoption of the principle however rests upon what actually one seeks to preserve.

For freedom lovers, the least risky option is the preservation of not only life and property, but the preservation of freedom as well. Their precautionary principle is the requirement for certainty.

If the negative effects on life, property or both do happened and hence, its certainty ascertained, retribution by the State is necessary to remind all that any transgression of liberty has its price. This is the only way to deal with the negative potential of words without hurting freedom.

Consistent punishment, administered by the State, for all transgressions against individual liberty creates cost to the transgressors. That cost acts to discourage such transgression from happening, and thus lowering the probability of words translating into violent behavior.

This does not mean precaution cannot be taken. Precaution can be taken, and indeed it is wise to do so. Such precaution must come in terms of increased vigilance against violence, not against freedom, or in our context, words. There are always those who will attempt to cross the border. This must be addressed by having guards at the borders, not by making space within the boundary smaller.

This requirement of certainty crosses out items in the what-cannot-be-said list, transforming a society analogous to a room full of fragile vases, where everybody fears everything, into one of an open field. It provides members of the society opportunities to practice their freedom and discover by themselves the mature reactions to disagreeable words.

The mature reactions to disagreeable words always relate back to rational exhibition of why such words or ideas are wrong, if it is wrong at all, without resorting to forceful State action or personal coercive action. Immature reactions are ones that involves threats and violence. It is immature because the perpetrators are unable to deal with offensive ideas without resorting to violence.

That maturity mostly comes by learning how to restrain one’s action when faced with disagreeable words. It is about the negotiating the border without crossing it.

Such education of negotiation is crucial in inculcating the practice of restraint. The practice is crucial in embracing a free person’s personal responsibility: for a person to expect his or her individual rights secured, he or she must respect others. That respect comes through restraint in action.

Without free speech, with the State acts against supposedly offensive and seditious speeches out of fear, such training in freedom and education of the responsibility that entails with individual liberty cannot happen.

Mohd Hafiz Noor Shams. Some rights reserved Mohd Hafiz Noor Shams. Some rights reserved Mohd Hafiz Noor Shams. Some rights reserved

A version of this article was first published in The Malaysian Insider on February 11 2010.

Categories
Liberty Politics & government

[2155] Of damage to sanctity of right to private property, undone

Assume that I own an item. Somebody impersonates me and pretends to be the rightful owner of the item. The impersonator then sells the item to another bone fide buyer. To me, that transaction is clearly illegal. It violates rights to the idea of private property, one of the main pillars of libertarianism. But one does not need to be a libertarian to understand that that is utterly wrong. Fraud is always wrong. But a certain judge, Eusoff Chin, in 2000 ruled otherwise.

Roger Tan Kor Mee wrote an insightful article at Loyak Burok on the matter:

Briefly, in Adorna Properties, a Thai, Boonsom Boonyanit, who resided in Thailand was the registered proprietor of two lots land in Tanjung Bungah, Pulau Pinang (”the said lands”). An impostor, one Mrs Boonsoom Boonyanit, claiming to be ”Sun Yok Eng @ Boonsom Boonyanit” had affirmed a statutory declaration on June 18, 1988 that she had lost the original title to the said lands. The impostor then managed to obtain a certified copy of the title from the land office.

On April 6, 1989, the impostor affirmed a second statutory declaration declaring that the names Mrs Boonsoom Boonyanit and Sun Yok Eng @ Boonsom Boonyanit in the title to the said lands were one and the same person, that is Mrs Boonsoom Boonyanit (impostor) with a different Thai passport number. With this declaration, the impostor managed to register the transfer in favour of Adorna for a sum of RM 12Million.

Boonyanit then sued for the return of the said lands. The High Court Judge of Penang, Justice Vincent Ng Kim Khoay, ruled in favour of Adorna (judgment dated April 25, 1995). On appeal, the Court of Appeal, comprising Gopal Sri Ram, Siti Norma Yaakob and Ahmad Fairuz, allowed the appeal in its judgment dated March 17, 1997. Adorna then appealed, and the Federal Court comprising Eusoff Chin, Wan Adnan Ismail and Abu Mansor Ali allowed Adorna’s appeal in its judgment dated Dec 13, 2000 and pronounced in open court on Dec 22, 2000 (”main judgment”), but by then Boonyanit had passed away in May that year. [Can landed property be validly transferred land using a forged instrument? Roger Tan Kor Mee. Loyar Burok. January 20 2010]

But even if the law actually justified the year 2000 ruling, then the law has to be deeply flawed and repulsive to the notion of justice. It practically legalizes robbery. Is such law deserving of adherence?

It is therefore highly comforting for me to learn that the Federal Court today overturns that despicable ruling, restoring ownership of the land to its rightful owner.

PUTRAJAYA: The Federal Court on Thursday departed from its judgement nearly 10 years ago in the Adorna Properties Sdn Bhd vs Boonsom Boonyanit case, plugging a loophole in the law to thus allow landowners who lost their land through fraudulent means to redeem their right to the property.

In its landmark unanimous ruling, the five-man bench led by Chief Justice Zaki Azmi held that land transferred by fraudulent means will no longer be legally accepted. [Federal Court reverses its decision in landmark land case. The Star. January 21 2010]

Alas, the rightful owner is already dead.

Still, it is righting a wrong and it preserves the sanctity of right to private property. That, is something to celebrate for.