Freedom of expression in culturally heterogeneous societies which follow a model of formal democracy constitutes a complex issue which, in my opinion, has not yet been resolved.
The issue lies in knowing whether it is a deficiency inherent to the democratic system or whether it is due to external factors which are linked to the actual foundation and structuring of the democratic state within these societies.
The scant, almost non-existent theory concerning this subject is ample proof that culturally heterogeneous states have found no solution to the problem of freedom of expression, contrary to the case of culturally homogenous democratic states.
The existence of legal measures for censorship in formally democratic states such as those in Asia, arises from cultural diversity within the country and has as its political objective maintaining the unity of the state.
It should be pointed out that by "culturally heterogeneous society" I mean a social group made up of two or more subgroups which are ethnically or culturally different but which are equally represented by political powers.
Generally, however, what can be observed in multicultural or multiethnic states is that formal democracy is ultimately founded on the hegemony of the strongest ethnic or cultural group which is often organized in a party based on ethnic or religious distinctions.
When, overstepping their cultural, ethnic or religious identity, these parties express the will of and are the dominant body within the population group of a determined region, the time is ripe for the culturally heterogeneous state to split and give birth to new, culturally homogeneous, states.
There are those who have claimed that democracy is a maladjusted, inadequate political system and for this reason it is not suitable for those states whose population is made up of different ethnic or cultural groups.
According to some people, democracy is a political model which has its origins in certain peoples and can only function within those groups. When it is "imported" into other groups it is doomed to fail.
Following this reasoning, it has been claimed that democracy, based on the assumption that all men are equal as far as political rights are concerned, in other words "one man, one vote", ends up producing anti-democratic situations when it allows the biggest ethnic or cultural group to have political control and when this group uses it, as is often the case, for its own ends and against the interests of the other groups.
There has been a comparative stagnation in political thought on this subject. It has been limited to classifying systems of formal democracy in culturally heterogeneous States as "strongarm democracies", "impure democracy", "imperfect democracies" and other descriptions. The question for the world today and one which is fundamental to States with a formal democracy is how to solve the same problems as those which confronted societies with a political structure which progressed from a régime of absolute power to contemporary democratic systems.
Domestic unrest and conflicts between neighbouring states are caused by one major misunderstanding, namely that democratic systems can keep political unity in their territories and populations when that unity has been imposed from outside.
Another analysis considers formal democracy in culturally homogeneous States as a corrective mechanism for artificial political structures and which, because of this, can cause the reorganization and the birth of new States.
Thanks to moves by democratic systems in culturally heterogeneous societies, the phenomenon of altering territorial boundaries and the structure of the population has been responsible for a new concept of "natural" boundary which is not only determined by the lay of the land.
This new concept of "natural" boundary includes not only physical boundaries but also cultural differences thus it becomes, in a way, a "cultural" boundary.
By examining a political map of the world today, I daresay that if, at any given moment, all States could organize themselves in a free and democratic way, their boundaries would be completely different. We would observe that artificially formed States would divide and at the same time, artificially divided States would reunite.
A new international order based on a political reorganization of the world which recognized cultural frontiers would make a major contribution towards eliminating tension and conflict which are basically the result of the artificial political division of this era.
The issue of freedom of expression in culturally heterogeneous democratic states is thus strongly dependent on the unity of the State.
In the West, democracies have taken over power in States where this issue was already solved by previous régimes of absolute power.
This issue had also been solved in the former European colonies in the Americas by the time they emerged as independent States which were politically separate but still an extension of the former colonizer in cultural and ethnic terms. It was the European colonizers who headed the process which led to independence, divorced from the natives who, either exterminated or completely subjugated, survived in small pockets or reserves, usually deprived of the rights of full citizenship enjoyed by the European population.
The new States which emerged in the years following the 2nd World War displayed the opposite situation. Most of these new States had territories with a heterogeneous population, both in ethnic and cultural terms. Thus the territorial boundaries and composition of the population as a whole were put at risk.
There were two choices: one was to sacrifice everything in the interests of maintaining the "status quo ante bellum", namely public freedom, by installing a dictatorship or a single party rule; the other was to consolidate democratic systems and, whenever possible, attempt to maintain the structure of the new State even by limiting public freedom.
Depending on how far public freedom was limited in the case of the latter group, there are those which have maintained the same political and geographical structure as they had when they were created, and those which have subdivided into further new States. These new States now have political boundaries which correspond to the cultural boundaries which existed beforehand but which were never accepted.
In culturally heterogeneous democratic States the main preoccupation is with maintaining the unity of the State and to this end there are normally restrictions on public freedom, including the freedom to express oneself. These are "impure" versions of formal democracy in which the political majority is not dependent on political platforms or elections but rather on the largest ethnic or religious group.
Since the end of the last World War, the issue of freedom of expression in culturally heterogeneous societies has been increasingly dependent on the importance given to cultural boundaries. If the powers that be sacrifice these cultural frontiers to preserve the unity of the State, then freedom of expression ceases to exist, wholly or partially.
When the powers that be recognize cultural boundaries, the State begins a natural evolution taking on a new structure and creating new States where freedom of expression may exist.
Developments following India's independance, first with the secession of Pakistan and later that of Bangladesh are an excellent example of this.
Jorge Morbey
President of the Cultural Institute of Macau
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