Cultural Legitimacy and Human Rights in Bangladesh: Strategies for Effective Advocacy
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Matthew Tomm
This essay addresses the “cultural legitimacy” of human rights norms in Bangladesh and suggests some strategies for Bangladeshi human rights advocates to effectively disseminate and strengthen human rights standards among their constituents. Abdullahi An-Na‘im argues that human rights will never be secure in a country until they are seen as culturally legitimate, and consequently “human rights advocates in the Muslim world must work within the framework of Islam to be effective” (1990, 15). Taking this idea as its starting point, this article draws on the idea of public reason and the development of politics in the West to suggest some ways that An-Na‘im’s imperative might be realized in practice.
©2012 Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co. KG, Berlin/Boston
Articles in the same Issue
- Article
- A Victim's Claim of Being Raped is Neither a Confession to Zina nor Committing Qadhf (Making False Accusation of Zina)
- Cultural Legitimacy and Human Rights in Bangladesh: Strategies for Effective Advocacy
- The Judicial Protection of Religious Symbols in Europe's Public Educational Institutions: Thank God for Canada and South Africa
- Trampling Democracy: Islamism, Violent Secularism, and Human Rights Violations in Bangladesh
- Does the Covenant on the Rights of the Child in Islam Provide Adequate Protection for Children Affected by Armed Conflicts?
- Book Review
- Review of The Rights of God: Islam, Human Rights, and Comparative Ethics
- Review of Holy Ignorance: When Religion and Culture Part Ways
- From the Field
- Ideas Can Also Kill: Five Assumptions that Uprisings in the Arab World have Disproved
Articles in the same Issue
- Article
- A Victim's Claim of Being Raped is Neither a Confession to Zina nor Committing Qadhf (Making False Accusation of Zina)
- Cultural Legitimacy and Human Rights in Bangladesh: Strategies for Effective Advocacy
- The Judicial Protection of Religious Symbols in Europe's Public Educational Institutions: Thank God for Canada and South Africa
- Trampling Democracy: Islamism, Violent Secularism, and Human Rights Violations in Bangladesh
- Does the Covenant on the Rights of the Child in Islam Provide Adequate Protection for Children Affected by Armed Conflicts?
- Book Review
- Review of The Rights of God: Islam, Human Rights, and Comparative Ethics
- Review of Holy Ignorance: When Religion and Culture Part Ways
- From the Field
- Ideas Can Also Kill: Five Assumptions that Uprisings in the Arab World have Disproved
