The 20th century, especially the American Civil Rights movement, has directed a spotlight on disadvantages groups. Thus awareness rose concerning past and ongoing misdeeds committed at their expense. As an atonement, an effort emerged to compensate the living to right the wrongs committed against their ancestors. Paying now for mistreatment in the past on the basis of bona fide membership in groups to compensate wronged earlier generations has produced fall-out effects that transcend national boundaries thus establishing the global significance of the phenomena. Some of the cases from abroad provide perspectives that make absurdities close to home stand out the more.

The official designation of victim groups also creates a class “accountable” for the wrongs of victims. In time the living members of either group are unlikely to have even been disadvantaged, persecuted, or to be beneficiaries of torts. A generation after the end of disenfranchisement, the living is unlikely to have suffered or to have benefited. The writer is a case in point. Being a “class alien” in his native Hungary he had no right to education beyond the 8th grade, could not be a straight A nor at the top of his class. Fifty years later, outfitted with a PhD, the pain is still there but hardly a cause for compensation by an appointment that would otherwise not be given. Certainly the son of such a person – in this case also a PhD – should not get preferential treatment on account of his dad’s deprivation or his years of “involuntary servitude” while “building Socialism.”

The discovery of selected victim classes has produced some oddities. One is that the privileges of membership are inherited the way titles of nobility were passed on. Retroactive membership rise as the attached advantages fatten. If all the claimed “anti-fascists” would have really been active, then WW2 could have been skipped because Hitler would have been defeated by the Magyars alone. Small wonder that, with the multiplication of native-run casinos, the claims of being native-Americans skyrocket.

Another consequence is that the original social disapproval of the mores of some sub-cultures lend now their folkways an aura of endorsement. If an above average percentage of group A act to cause B, then that B becomes a badge that contains its own endorsement. This happens once the As are promoted to be victims and have suffered for being perceived as likely to commit B. (Any correlation is racists, and besides, B is not bad if A does it because A cannot be blamable for anything.) Besides the likelihood that compensation is demanded and given for wronged to ancestors, the original demand of equality often mutes into a claim for privileged treatment. Even for an under par performance, equal access to rewards stipulated to reflect the value of individual deeds is demanded. Since our societies suffer from their welfare, it is easier to pay to “calm them down” than to scrutinize forcefully made claims. Therefore it pays to be a victim by withholding the effort that is, for others, the prerequisite of rewarded achievement, because underperformance – blamed on society and not the person – in itself qualifies for rewards.

Odd abuses, stemming from privileges granted on the basis of “belonging” to selected groups, can arise when we attempt to correct some past wrongs in the present. One comes about when favors are extended to groups that are satisfied with their equality and therefore do not even ask for privileges. Where the writer resides a case is unfolding that illustrates such a misuse: it is unusual in its details but is made relevant through its ramifications.

The case used to underline the pitfalls of a tendency involves Switzerland’s Raetian minority. The group is distinguished by a language which is spoken in Eastern Switzerland’s Graubünden/Grison Canton. In recent decades the number of those who use the language primarily in this country of seven million has decreased from about fifty thousand to approximately thirty thousand. Obviously, the language is dying out. In much of east central Europe the disappearance of certain languages would be celebrated. Thereby a minority, whose existence challenges the claim of being a homogenous and therefore centralized national state, would be gone. For this reason – regardless of the EU that tries to overlook violations – everything is done to liquidate minorities by suffocating their language. (The tools used are the limitation on schooling and training in the language, the forceful discouragement of its use in public, pressure on churches that are specific to the minority.)

The decline of Raetian takes place even though the federal and local governments offer every possible inducement to keep the language alive. The support that runs counter to the tendency to repress has several reasons. For one thing, Switzerland is intent on remaining a democracy and has no desire to become a national state. Since the country has a federal government its subdivisions are not provinces but self-governing entities. Most Cantons are homogenously German, French or Italian and are run in the language of the inhabitants. Communities use the local majority’s language. The “Rumuntsch” are not numerous enough to want to be a Canton but they are majorities in some communities and districts. Wherever they are present as a minority the personnel of local government with a command of the language is quite delighted to be of service in the fashionable folklore-like idiom. (Oddly, more people in Switzerland speak Serbo-Croatian than “Rumuntsch”.) Except for mastering a language that is shrinking and has five significantly divergent dialects, “membership” is of advantage. There is also a class of intellectuals that are “professional Raetians”. One can live well from government subsidies that support their activities. Even a synthetic version of the language to overcome the dialects has been developed – which its beneficiaries are reluctant to speak.

Unexpectedly, the quiet on the language front is interrupted by a storm that would rate as a breeze elsewhere. The whole from which the warm air blows is the Canton’s Legislature located in Chur, the capital. Carried away by the spirit of Christmas a majority of 101:0 – apparently to demonstrate firm commitment to brotherhood – passed a law. The decision is rather a surprise in a country known for its level-headedness. As of January, 2007 new rules shall regulate something that, thank you very much, functioned quite well while left alone by government.

The new regulation demands that the government of communities that have at least 40% of Raetians shall operate in their tongue. Before you ask about the potentially 60% majority you need to digest one more tidbit. It has to do with who is counted as a member of the minority converted by decree into a majority. The basis is the last census. Naturally, those who claimed to use Raetian as their primary language are counted. But so are those too, who stated to have a knowledge of the language although the household uses Schwytzertütsch, that is the Alemanic version of German.

The case just sketched is probably not the only one the reader knows of that “protects” minorities not by making them equal, but by reducing majority rights so as to allegedly assist the minority.

Understandably, the measure has raised some eye-brows. The reaction is not to be taken as hostility to Raetians. For instance, in the writer’s case, his future daughter-in-law is one of “them.” Provoked by the violation of a principle, a (left-leaning) attorney has started a campaign to gather signatures. If by the 20th of January 1,500 persons support the petition then a referendum must be held to approve or to reject the law. It is likely that if the issue is decided by a secret ballot, the absurd ruling will be voided. The main problem is not the vote but getting the signatures. In the writer’s experience many of those approached are reluctant to sign. Some are hesitant to risk rusting their halo by appearing to be “against a minority”. Others mean that something that is protected like the dodo bird should have been must be helped.  “What will others say” is also a consideration of folks that are inclined to bend backward so as not to appear illiberal. Not being involved personally and that, in absolute numbers, only a few people will be affected, is also a typical reaction.

The case amounts only to a small droplet of water, nevertheless it is typical of the entire ocean of wanting to do good and even more of feeling pressured to appear to be doing just that. As so often, in this is a case, too, the interests and articulated demands of the protected minority are secondary. The principle of democracy, the weighing the desirable, the necessary, the consequences for all concerned, are also overlooked. All this in favor of a “greater good” that a hip elite proclaims. One, which feels called upon to determine the “correct” road on which “the led” can reach the goal set for them.

The phenomenon, of which the above case is a part of, is wide spread in societies that have achieved an advanced level politically, socially and economically. Regardless of whether the issue in the foreground is female circumcision in Europe, “honor killings”, free speech for violence advocating clerics, the enslavement of women, Christmas decorations in public places, the rights of Danish cartoonists; the judgments rendered have a concern-causing tendency. In all such instances values clash. Some are basic pillars of the major freedoms a civilization has developed. These supposedly absolute values collide with claims that are derivates of personal preferences for something in itself doubtful and are presented as precious arguments. Our time’s fashion is to try to prove generous cosmopolitan liberality in a multi-cultural spirit. Therefore a strong reflex exists to give in to demands for privileges – that is called “dialogue” and to tolerate the selective suspension of the basic Law’s rule. This is done in response to those, who refuse to recognize the laws and customs of what is frequently a host society, even though thereby the elementary rights and rules of the community are negated and jeopardized. All this is done in the (misused) name of personal and sub-group freedom. The appeasers need to be reminded that, admittedly, saying “yes” to everything that can be connected to some ethnic base might be convenient. But freedom (including the one to react accommodatingly to needs) implies more than allowing everything and consenting to anything divorced from the merits of the case simply on account of who the claimant is.

Freedom, as one likes to say, is not license. So the Moscow cabbie who drove like a madman was wrong when, reacting to his passenger’s chiding to respect the rules of the road, said “we have democracy now, so we can do anything we please.” Freedom is a way of life organized around enforced values. Some of these are sacrosanct. The tendency to claim that in the name of tolerance some of these are to be suspended and that the recalcitrant should be given extraterritorial immunity, amounts in practice to self destruction. Freedom to be preserved requires that sometimes we say “no” even if the issue is presented as a “non-negotiable demand.”