Do communitarian values justify Papua New Guinean and/or Fijian systems of land tenure?
Communitarians have alleged a connection between according specialrights to community groupings and preserving the indigenous cultureand the social cohesion of the original community. This paperconcentrates upon special group rights associated with land tenurenow maintained by Fijian Mataqali and traditional land owninggroups in Papua New Guinea. The first section of the paper assessesand compares the social consequences of each of these systems withspecial attention to the preservation of traditional culture.However, in the case of Fiji, it is undeniable that the mataqaliland tenure system has given indigenous Fijians politicaladvantages over non-indigenous Fijians, most specifically theFijian Indians. Though special land rights can possibly bejustified on the grounds of cultural preservation, their existencedoes raise this further issue of fairness. Moral considerations basedupon the territorial sovereignty of indigenous nations, rather thancommunitarian arguments, may offer a more convincing justificationof the advantages of indigenous Fijians.
From Race to Culture: The New Right's View of European Identity
Since 1978 the label “New Right” has generally referred to the Groupement de Recherche et d'Etudes pour la Civilisation Européenne (GRECE), founded in 1968. Nevertheless, the New Right may also refer to one of the ideological and political currents which appeared on the French scene in the 1970s — one of the “new” ideologies of the Right or, more precisely, one of the new doctrinal syntheses whose objective is to reorient political life. Irrespective of later political associations, three ideological traditions can be distinguished, each of which can in turn be divided into “schools of thought” or intellectual orientations: first, traditional counter-revolutionaries (legitimism and/or “integralism”), integral nationalism in the tradition of Charles Maurras and Gnostic inclinations allied to [Rene] Guenon or [Julius] Evola;
Aboriginal Rights: Gauthier's Arguments for Despoilation
In a recent review David Gauthier presents two arguments designed to support the eminently comforting belief that, while recognizing aboriginal rights in Canada will entail some costs for the dominant European community, these costs will be of a comparatively modest nature, and certainly far less than the sort of compensation currently claimed by the indigenous peoples themselves. Unfortunately for the Europeans, but fortunately for the indigenes, there seems to be no moral justification whatsoever for the arguments he adduces. In fact, the only way his arguments can be made to work is by assuming that radically different sets of moral principles operate for different peoples. As usually happens in such cases, the Europeans get better protection from the moral principles designed for them, than the aborigines do from the principles designed (as it happens, by the Europeans) for them.