A response to Bishop Juan Edghill's pronouncements on the SASOD (Guyana, sexual orientation) film festival, and President Bharrat Jagdeo's warnings about adopting 'Western definitions of child abuse'.
by Chris Carrico
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>From the point of view of history and anthropology, there are many sad
ironies in the current debates in Guyana and in many other formerly colonial
societies over cultural relativism versus notions of universal human
rights. Cultural relativism, a concept that emerged from anthropology
during the early twentieth century, was an idea that was meant to counteract
the racist ideas about cultural evolution that formed the dominant European
worldview of the time. In a cynical inversion of the spirit of this idea,
cultural relativism is today invoked to defend oppressive cultural
institutions, and to suppress struggles for freedom. One of the great
ironies is that traditions that were imposed upon non-European societies
through the violent process of colonialism are today thought of in
neo-colonial societies as ‘traditional values’ to be defended against the
onslaught of Western ‘cultural imperialism.’ Current debates surrounding
gender roles and sexual orientation provide us with clear examples of these
processes.
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