Justice from a Historical Lens (Week 11)

I want to echo Erica's love for the the Inayatullah reading, Beyond the Sovereignty Dilemma: quasi-states as social construct. What struck me first was the current international society's definition of sovereignty as, "a political entity's externally recognized right to exercise final authority over its own affairs." Such a definition reminded me of the 'us vs them' foundation of international relations as well as the quadrants of categories we've been consistently placing international relationships into throughout this course.

However, Inayatullah's perspective reveals its key claim as he argued that this very definition of sovereignty is not sufficient as the meaning of sovereignty evolves as it confronts and adapts to the challenges of this world (51). Later examples in his article illustrate this evolution with the irrational requirement for third world states to compete in the global system equal to other states.

I believe our interactions with people, not just states, should be founded on this perspective as well. There are too many people these days pointing fingers at other socio-economic or racial groups in an effort to illuminate unequal treatment of others as wrong. The majority of these fingers belong to people who base their claim on how difficult their life has been and how they have overcome numerous obstacles or suffered as a result of them. While it is ridiculous to rate your suffering worse than another's in order to benefit, it is equally ridiculous for society to dismiss these 'historical' elements that affect peoples' lives.

Although its easier to preach then practice, I wholly believe that:

"Equals must be treated equally, and unequals must be treated unequally” 
and/or 
"The worst form of inequality is to try to make unequal things equal"

This quote has been attributed to Aristotle, 

however the actual author and wording is unknown.

It would be great to see such a response to injustice played out in the real world, for example: 

• If a person is blind, we do not expect them to see the text in a book and neither do we give up and never expect them to read. No, we provide them with a braille book on which they can read with their fingers. 

• If a poor child in rural America is accepted into a prestigious school but cannot pay tuition, we do not expect them to give up hope for an education. No, the school will offer them a special scholarship for tuition, room and board that is not available to other families with the resources to pay. 

• If the government employees men and women equally but with only 20% of those women occupying senior leadership positions, we do let women continue to suffer gender discrimination for a job they can do just as good as men. No, we find opportunities to lift-up, groom, and mentor young women to be in place for the next wave of leadership. 

Of course there are countless additionally ways that racial, religious and sexual discrimination is supported in our world today by maintaining the perspective that unequal things must be treated equally. Inayatullah describes how history can be a key reason why all states cannot be treated equally. I think this same argument can and should be applied to treatment of people who make up these states.