Journey Toward Justice 25

The title of this chapter is 'A Visit to Honduras'. In this chapter Nick writes about his visit to Honduras and also shares a lesson that he's learnt over the years, which gets re-confirmed from his experience in Honduras. When some people speak about their want for justice, they may use 'justice' in a way that may mean criminal justice i.e which is putting people in jail. But certain people speak about justice, they may be referring to the kind of a situation where social practices cease to perpetuate injustice. For example, seeking for justice in the context of Apartheid South Africa may be trying to rectify practices that discriminate people based on colour. Both kinds of seeking justice are important. 

In Honduras, there is widespread injustice because criminals are not behind bars. Criminal law is not quite alive. When there is corruption, assassination etc. the victims or the poor people are not in a position to seek criminal justice. 'Poor people do not trust the police, the judicial system, or the bureaucracy. The police do not trust the prosecutors; the prosecutors do not trust the police'. If you testify/work against a criminal, the criminal may hire an assassin to kill you, whatever you are. And the result is that criminals continue to get away with their unjust actions. 

Nick then argues that if justice is to prevail, criminal justice must be alive. Without criminal justice, vicious cycle of injustice will continue and eventually a culture of distrust and fear will prevail; and the longer such fear takes hold on the people, the more difficult it is to rectify injustice. 

Journey Toward Justice 24

This chapter is titled 'The Structure of Social Justice Movements.' Injustice can be meted out to an individual by another individual, but it can also be in the form of one community towards another community over a long period of time. In the latter case, removing injustice gets complicated and oftentimes it takes times too. But history has shown that injustice of such sort has been addressed. Addressing injustice at social level take three stages, generally speaking. First, it involves identifying the victims. Laws may be discriminatory towards certain group of people or it could be public practice or perception. Whatsoever, identifying the victims comes as a first step. Second, it involves responding the situation emotionally. Responding must involve emotions because unless people come up with 'this must not continue anymore', it is unlikely to generate social change. Third, it involves activation, which is to critique the ongoing practice or analyse the source of such practice and then critique. Critiquing this way may generate social conflict because those who perpetuating the practice may not want to change their way of functioning or those who are enjoying power at the expense of the victim may not want to give up power. Given that a social change is required, oftentimes this may generate hostile conflict. 

Of course, Nick mentions that not all the social justice movements may follow this pattern in exact sequence. But then it's fair to generalise the pattern! 

Journey Toward Justice 23

This chapter is titled 'On the Blocking of Empathy and the Hardening of Hearts'. In this chapter Nick narrates about his own experience why he was not moved to seek justice in the past though he has some idea of injustice being meted out to certain group of people, and he goes on to provide reason why this sort of thing happens with people in general. So, why are we not moved by injustice? I am not paraphrasing all the reasons he gives. One reason is that we are afraid of change. To seek justice may mean losing job, losing friends, losing money etc. This sort of change is to put us in an uncomfortable position and so we are afraid to seek justice. Another reason is that people think that the victims of injustice invite this terrible condition upon themselves. For example, the poor are poor because they are lazy. There can be truth in that, but not all poor are poor because they are lazy. The poor can be there because more powerful force is pulling them down -- the global economic force! 

Seeing the faces and the hearing the voices of the people in suffering is what woke Nick up from his 'slumber'. And oftentimes, knowing the reality firsthand is the best way to help us see injustice and empathise with the victims of injustice. 

Journey Toward Justice 22

This chapter is titled 'Art in the Struggle to Right Injustice'. In this chapter Nick talks about the connection between seeking justice and Art. But what is Art? Art is music, painting, songs, poetry etc. But how are these things connected to seeking justice? When people sang 'We shall overcome' and marched together to seek civil rights in the US, would it have made any difference if they had marched together without singing the song? Had the anti-apartheid movement marched without singing a song, would there be any difference if they had marched with songs being sung by the protesters? They would! But why? It has a 'mysterious uniting effect'. Without the tune, the words fall flat; it does not elevate the words. In similar fashion, singing or humming while working elevates the tedious nature of the work; it distracts us from the weariness of the work! 

And art perhaps in a mysterious way, or rather in a sublime way, awakens in some of us our slumber that which we would otherwise have been quite oblivious about! 

Journey Toward Justice 21

This chapter is titled 'Six Days in South Africa'. In this chapter Nick tells about his experience in Apartheid South Africa where a man named Allan Boesak was to appear at the Court hearing to get bail. Nick was called in to appear in defence of Allan. There were charges against giving bail to Allan by the police. One of them was that his freedom will cause riot. So called proof was provided to the Magistrate to deny him bail. On one occasion it was argued that his speech on certain at certain place cause riot. But then it was disproved as Allan was able to provide proof that he was abroad that particular day. Point was that at the end of episode, the Magistrate refused to entertain the charges brought by the police since they were without evidences and even rebuked the police. Yet the government refused to abide by the Magistrate's order; they refused to obey the law. The government that gives so much importance to the 'supreme value of law and order' refused its own law when the law goes against itself. The government 'prize order -- their order -- more than law'. Such can be the heart of humans! 

Journey Toward Justice 20

This chapter is titled 'Human Right'. In this chapter, Nick develops his concept of human right. When we talk about Human Right, one is reminded of the UN Declaration on human right. The UN document gives a list of human right, but it does not explain the concept of human right. One way to arrive at the concept of human right, therefore, is to take UN list and derive a concept out of it; another way is to take the theoretical formulation of philosopher, political theorist, legal scholar etc and arrive at a concept. Being a philosopher, Nick takes the second approach. 

Many accounts of human dignity and therefore human right are grounded on the idea that human have certain capacity; for example, the capacity to reason. This viewpoint has been criticized because it seems to undermine the dignity of those who are unable to reason, say, due to certain sort of deformity. It's just that if my dignity is based on my capacity to reason, then what happens to the dignity of those who are in permanent coma. This viewpoint is therefore problematic. Because of such problem, there are those who don't want to go beyond the point that human persons have dignity and therefore right. 

Nick goes further. In the previous chapter, Nick mentions about the difference between his concept of justice and that of the right order conception of justice. The difference needs to be born in mind if we want to examine whether he is successful in development an account for grounding human right in a consistent manner. Nick says in the previous chapter that a right order theorist holds that "there has to be an external standard of some sort that directly or indirectly bestows rights on them" whereas inherent rights theorist holds that "there does not have to be anything outside them that somehow confers those rights on them". With regard to human right that all human persons possess, Nick writes that God's desire for fellowship upon human persons (and not animals or birds) is that which bestows worth upon human persons. " ...every human being has the honor of being chosen by God as someone with whom God desires to be a friend, and that this desire endures. Then every human being has the equal and ineradicable worth that being so honored bestows on him or her". I understand Nick as saying that it's God's desire for fellowship that bestows human's dignity  or worth that gives rise to human right. Quite fine! 

But the issue when Nick says that I wonder how he is saying that his concept is an inherent right based conception of justice. Because human worth/dignity is not then inherent; it rather is bestowed upon by an external agent i.e God. With regard to right order conception of dignity, he uses the phrase 'external standard', and not 'external agent'. But if one is a right order theorist of justice and a Christian, then it cannot be an abstract standard (remember Plato's Euthyphro) that bestows the worth; the one who bestows the worth has to a person i.e God. Given this leading, I wonder if Nick can consistently claims if his conception of justice is an inherent right based conception of justice. It seems to me that his is also a right order account, at least by this way reasoning about human right. 

There is another point that I find problematic in Nick's account of human right. But I am not dealing with that point here! 

Journey Toward Justice 19

The title of this chapter is 'Does Scripture Imply a Right Order Conception of Justice?' There was a brief discussion on the difference between right order conception of justice and inherent right conception of justice in chapter 5. In this chapter, Nick gives little more detail between the two. 

Ambrose, Basil and John all based their idea about rights in the Scripture/Bible. They believed that human person possesses certain sort of natural right. Well, proponents of right order conception of justice as well as inherent right conception of justice can both endorse natural right; the difference lies deeper. Nick does not say this, but it seems to me that he is implying that whether Ambrose, Basil and John were all in the former camp -- right order conception of justice -- or in the latter camp -- inherent right conception of justice -- one cannot ascertain; they were not providing a theory of justice and they all assume natural right, which both the camps can endorse. The question, however, is which view fits better with that idea which is explicitly or implicitly there in the Scripture. 

But before a note on the difference between the two conceptions of justice. The former camp holds that having a dignity is not enough to generate right; there has to be an external agent that confers right to a person. This right could be natural right! The latter camp holds that being a human generates certain right. The former camp would say something to the effect that a captain in the army has right to issue command because he has been conferred authority/right to issue command; without an external agent having conferred that authority/right, he would have no right to command and even if he commands, it would mean nothing if he was not given the authority/right to issue command. The latter camp would say to the effect: of course, that example holds true there; but take other instance. Does a parent have authority/right to issue command to her child because of being conferred the position/status by an external agent? No. Does God have authority/right to issue command to human kind because he has been conferred the position  by an external agent? No. God has that right to issue command by virtue of being the creator; and that right is inherent right. 

Nick does not develop an account of inherent right of a human person here; possibly he will do that in later chapter. But his account shows that God has inherent right. And this plausibly suffices to show the inadequacy of right order conception of justice who would insist that rights always must be conferred by an external agent. After all God does not need to be conferred right to possess a right; the right in inherent!