general argument for repression. It is simply not relevant to point out that other countries do not face similar problems or that social peace can sometimes be secured without similar restrictions.
When countering specific trade-off arguments for rights violations, one can question either the premise that the society under question is actually facing a social crisis requiring immediate political action or the idea that curbing minority rights is the best means of overcoming that crisis. But whatever the response, the social
critic must be armed with detailed and historically informed knowledge of that society.
Of course, even if the critic were to concede (a) that the social crisis is real and (b) that curbing minority rights is the most effective way of overcoming it, such local justifications for the denial of minority rights are only of limited validity: they no longer apply once the crisis is overcome. But local knowledge is also necessary for the argument that the  state of emergency  can, and therefore should, be lifted.
Local Justifications
It is commonly believed that secular Western societies are uniquely tolerant and respectful of nonmainstream ways of life, including the cultural particularities of minority groups. From this it follows that policies designed to protect vulnerable minorities must draw on the social experiences and political ideals of Western societies, cast in universalist terms.
Against this view, however, it can be argued that values similar to Western conceptions of minority rights can also be found in some nonWestern cultural traditions. For example, Nurcholish Madjid of the Indonesian Human Rights Commission notes that  Islam too recognizes ... the right to use one s own language, the right to practice one s own culture, and the right to freedom of religion. 4 Moreover, if the purpose of rights is primarily to protect minority cultures from the political decisions of the majority, then clearly the functional equivalents of rights practices can sometimes be found in non-Western traditions. Chinese rule over Tibet in the mid-eighteenth century, for example, was primarily a matter of form, with the Tibetans in charge of their own affairs so long as they secured social peace and recognized a formal link with China. The Dalai Lama proposed a similar formula in 1988, but the Chinese government, seemingly oblivious to historical precedent, denounced the offer, calling it a  disguised form of independence. 
Still, the struggle to promote minority rights is more likely to be won if it is fought in ways that build on, rather than challenge, local cultural traditions. Consider the case of the persecution of the Al-Arqam Islamic group in Malaysia. In accordance with a ruling from the  National Fatwa Council  and a decree by the Ministry of Home Affairs in August 1994, the Malaysian government launched a systematic campaign to suppress the Al-Arqam group. The Malaysian leader and founder of Al-Arqam, Ashaari Muhammad, was arrested and held without
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charge or trial; the group s written, audio, and visual presentations were banned; and Malaysian Muslims were prevented from joining Al-Arqam or participating in any of its activities.
In the eyes of Islamic legal scholar and human rights activist Abdullahi A. An-Na im, however, the government of Malaysia  violated Shari'a law in the name of protecting Islam against  deviationism.   Deviationism, explains An-Na im, is unknown to any orthodox formulation of Shari  a. The government of Malaysia could potentially have appealed to the notion of apostasy (although many Muslim scholars today oppose this view of Shari 'a}, but  by failing to apply even the notion of apostasy with its own legal safeguards under . .. Islamic law, the government of Malaysia has given itself licence to penalize and persecute Ashaari and his followers without conforming to the demands of the principle of legality and rule of law under Shari 'a itself. 
No doubt the government of Malaysia s behavior can also be criticized by appealing to nonreligious political principles. An-Na imnotes, for example, that the  secular  human rights activist can criticize the government of Malaysia for denying a group of citizens their freedom of belief and for detaining them without charge or trial on the basis of a ruling from a council of  religious scholars,  hence violating the principle that religion not be used for political ends. Perhaps the social critic could also invoke Article 27 of the United Nations International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights:  In those States in which ethnic, religious, or linguistic minorities exist, persons belonging to such minorities shall not be denied the right, in community with the other members of their group, to enjoy their culture, to profess and practice their own religion, or to use their own language.  This right, the secular activist will argue, is due all human beings simply by virtue of their humanity, and does not depend on the interpretation of a particular religion or cultural tradition.
But how persuasive are these universal justifications in a country dominated by a Muslim majority where rights are generally thought to have theocentric foundations5 and where Islamic legal codes already shape family and criminal law? In this context, arguments that appeal to widely shared religious values are far more likely to be effective than arguments founded on the principle that a human rights regime mandates a strict separation between religion and the state. And even if changes can be temporarily instituted on the basis of secular human rights principles, long-term commitment to minority rights
is best secured by drawing on the expressed aspirations of those who adhere to a particular tradition.
In short, local cultural traditions may well provide sufficient resources to justify local commitment to values and practices similar to minority rights, and strategic considerations may speak in favor of using these resources to protect vulnerable groups.
Non-Liberal Cultural Traditions
But while some aspects of local culture may be invoked for this purpose, the problem is that other aspects can justify curtailing minority rights. For example, the many references in the Confucian tradition to  barbarians  may lend support to  civilizing missions  that have the effect of annihilating non-Han Chinese cultures. One response available to the proponent of a  culturally sensitive  approach is that even aspects of cultural traditions seemingly inconsistent with minority rights can sometimes be re-interpreted in ways that render them consistent. But these re-interpretations are unlikely to be widely accepted, and one might conclude that culturally sensitive approaches need to be buttressed by a U.S.-style right to free speech so that majority viewpoints can be challenged and eventually replaced by values more supportive of minority rights. As Professor An-Na im puts it,  there must be the widest possible multiplicity of voices and perspectives on the meaning and implications of cultural norms and institutions. 
I am inclined, however, to question the need for an internal cultural discourse that allows for  the widest possible multiplicity of voices and perspectives.  What is needed is a mechanism for change within a tradition that allows minority viewpoints to become dominant or, at least, politically relevant. But this mechanism need not be an absolute right to free speech, and more generally it need not be the same in all times and places.
Consider the case of Dr. Sulak Sivaraksa, a leading pro-democracy activist in Thailand and a nominee for the Nobel Peace Prize. In 1991, the Thai ruler. General Suchinda, pressed charges against Dr. Sulak for lese majeste and for defaming him (the general) in a speech given at Thammasat University. Fearing for his life, Sulak fled the country, but returned in 1992 after the Suchinda government had fallen to face the charges. In court, Sulak did not deny that he had attacked the  dictator  Suchinda, but he did deny the charge of lese majeste, referring to the many
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services he had performed for the Royal Family. Sulak explains:  I did not. . . stake my ground on an absolute right to free speech. My defense against the charge of lese majeste was my innocence of the charge; my defense was my loyalty to the King and Royal Family and, even where I discussed the use of the charge of lese majeste in current Siamese political practice, it was to highlight abuse and to point to the ways in which abuse might undermine the monarchy, rather than to defend any theoretical right to commit this action. I am not affirming, nor would I affirm, a right to commit lese majeste. This aspect of the case is particularly concerned with my being Siamese and belonging to the Siamese cultural tradition. 6
In other words, Dr. Sulak aimed to persuade fellow citizens that the dominant political system should be replaced with an alternative, relatively democratic political structure, but he made it explicit that he did not want to challenge a mechanism for change that places a constraint on direct criticism of the Thai king. There is no reason to doubt Dr. Sulak s sincerity (perhaps he, like many Thais, would feel deeply offended, if not personally harmed, by an attack on the king). Is there anything wrong with a mechanism for changing a cultural tradition that has constraints like this one, endorsed by both defenders and critics of the prevailing views?
Liberal thinkers may worry about this line of argument. The claim that for strategic reasons the social critic should sometimes appeal to local traditions to justify values and practices that in the Western world are normally realized though a rights regime may be palatable, but few liberals will go along with the suggestion that cultural traditions can provide a genuinely moral foundation for illiberal norms and political practices. This latter argument may be employed as an excuse to justify or  tolerate  the subjugation of members of cultural groups who have been denied the opportunity to reflect on and criticize norms of deference and humility to powerful leaders.
Still, one can exaggerate this worry. For one thing, there may not be many other examples of illiberal constraints on challenges to prevailing cultural viewpoints endorsed by both political leaders and leading social critics (certainly one could not justify curtailing rights against murder, torture, slavery, and genocide on these grounds). Moreover, the argument for respecting the norms and practices endorsed by most adherents of particular cultural traditions (including leading social critics) can sometimes be employed to expand rather than restrict the set of
rights typically enjoyed by members of liberal Western societies. For example, East Asian societies influenced by Confucianism strongly emphasize the value of filial piety or the idea that children have a profound duty to care for elderly parents, a duty to be forsaken only in the most exceptional circumstances. In political practice this means that parents have a right to be cared for by their children and that it is incumbent on East Asian governments to provide the social and economic conditions to facilitate the realization of this right. Political debate tends to center on the question of whether the right to filial piety is best realized by means of a law that makes it mandatory for children to provide financial support for elderly parents (as in Singapore or Japan), or whether the state should rely on more indirect methods such as tax breaks (as in Hong Kong) and housing benefits that simply make care for the elderly easier. But the argument that there is a pressing need to secure this right in East Asia is not a matter of political controversy.
Let me be more explicit about how these arguments may bear on the question o