Saako raakalaisia opettaa asein? Lähetystyö sodan oikeutusperusteena ennen ja nyt

Kirjoittajat

• Juha-Pekka Rentto

Avainsanat:

johtaminen, oikeutettu sota, sota kasvatuskeinona, miekkalähetys, ihmisoikeudet, humanitaarinen väliintulo, islam, raakalainen, Länsi-Intian valloitus

Abstrakti

IS WAR A LEGITIMATE METHOD OF EDUCATION? Teaching the truth as a moral justification for war Since ancient Greece it has often been claimed that war can be morally justified by pedagogical reasons: a virtuous nation, or a nation which knows the Truth, has a right or even a duty to teach less developed, vicious, ignorant or misled nations by force and thereby help them to be happy even against their own wishes. Once the Roman legions would civilize the undisciplined barbarians all over the world. Later both Christianity and Islam would spread the true faith and save the souls of the infidels with the sword. Today “free nations” would fain force authoritative governments and their subjects to embrace the right kind of democracy or respect for human rights. The state of the question concerning the use of war as a method of education was originally defined by Aristotle’s distinction between Greeks, who were naturally free citizens, and barbarians, who - as they lacked the proper education of the Greek city-states - were incapable of self-government and therefore naturally slaves. Ever since, the new Greeks of each epoch have pretended to take up arms in order to help the barbarians of their time to rise out of their misery, to learn to lead a civilized life, and to govern themselves properly. One of the best examples of this is the Spanish conquest of the West Indies, because it gave rise to to a soul-searching and well documented debate in the sixteenth century Spain. The arguments then forwarded by authors like Francisco Vitoria, Bartolomeo de las Casas and Juan Ginés de Sepúlveda exposed the problematic of educational warfare relentlessly to the harsh light of reason. In the sixteenth century, the central question was whether it was right to save the eternal souls of the Indians against their own will by subjecting them to Spanish government and forcing on them the Christian faith. Many of the arguments of that time are, nevertheless, applicable to any kind if proselytism by force of arms. Therefore thay can even to-day throw light on whether it can be morally justified for a modern liberal state to forcibly impose, by way of a “humanitarian intervention” or the like, its own present conception of democracy or human rights on a foreign nation which lacks either the will or the capacity to respect them in the way required by the new secular religion of the right-minded international community. Artikkeli on suomen kielellä ja luettavissa painetussa julkaisussa Tiede ja ase 65 (hinta 20 €). Julkaisun voi tilata Tiedekirjasta sähköpostitse [e-mail] tai verkkokaupasta www.tiedekirja.fi