[ege bishry pla A NOTE ON RADICALIZATION AND THE LEGAL ACADEMY: WHAT IS THE ROLE OF THE LEGAL ACADEMY? By MERLIN M. MAGALLONA It is with some ambiguity that the proposition under discussion is formulated. It states as follows: Addressing Radicalization Through Education: What is the Role of the Legal Academy? It is not clear whether radicalization is to be approached in the law school as a problem or as a resolution The proposition may appear to be caught in a contradiction. On one side, the core element of the concept of radicalism conveys a creative import; a standard international dictionary gives thematic stress to the term as “marked by a considerable departure from the usual or traditional, or “the will to uproot that which is established”.! This means radicalism is a revolutionary break. ' Webter’s Third International Dictionary, G & C Meriam Co.; Springfield, Mass. U.S.A., 1976, p. 1872.On the other side, the proposition may lend itself to the interpretation that radicalism in the Legal Academy is a problem to be demonized from the law schools; it is to be Hoped that the problem will not branched out into a campaign against revolutionary theories and ideas in jurisprudence. We may begin with the reminder of Barbara Ward that revolutions do not occur until people learn that there is an alternative to their way of life. Or, better still, the reality is political movements for change are for the mission of creating ways of life. Whether we have in mind alternatives aborning in our midst, or are existing in the real world, their presence is not out of a vacuum. They form part of our lives and they generate injustices and inequalities from social and political realities.The burden of realities is integrally composed of two components, namely: the alternative for a higher quality of justice and freedom and the method of achieving the desired change which inevitably takes the form of a radical or revolutionary change. The critical moment comes when the people take the stand for change. In contemporary world, under the impact of information revolution, radicalism has qualitatively transformed into people’s movements fed by information transmitted by the speed of light. They have become mass movements. The truth that people-powered movement has come of age is dramatized by Occupy, championed by Noam Chomsky. Beginning in the streets of New York City on September 17, 2011 and rapidly spreading to thousands of sites worldwide, such that for the first time “the inequalities of every life”,began to register in the national agenda of the richest economy in the world.2 It is this new political transformation that deserves the perspective of the Legal Academy with regard to radicalism, in relation to which it must develop a deeper appreciation as to (a) how the legal system has become an ideology of the elite class; (b) how the people were made to grow into the law, instead of the law growing with the people; and (c) how universal or general legal principles are applied on unequal social classes, legitimizing class conflicts. In brief, how law has been reduced to a mystification on the part of the lower social classes, who are the majority of the people. In response, the Legal Academy may explore Paulo Freire’s thesis in education philosophy on “pedagogy of the oppressed”. 2 Rditor’s Note in Noam Chomsky, Occupy, London: Penguin Books, 2012.In contemporary times, Freire makes a_ refreshing affirmation as to the ethics of radicalism. In his Pedagogy of the Oppressed he says: Radicalization, nourished by a critical spirit, is always creative. [It] is critical and thereby liberates. Radicalization involves increased commitment to the position one has chosen, and thus ever greater engagement in the effort to transform concrete, objective reality .... He continues: The radical, committed to human liberation, does not become the prisoner of a “circle of certainly” within which he also imprisons reality. On the contrary, the more radical he is, the more fully he enters into reality so that, knowing it better, he can better transform it.3 My understanding of radicalism is that it is necessity born of the nature of the given socio-political crisis. The necessity is ontological. This demand is greater on the part of the radical because he is engaged in the recreation of social reality. It is inherent in the struggle. > Penguin, Books, 1972, pp. 17-19.The prospect of progressive development of law may prove to be more promising by giving emphasis on how it may move forward by critical law-teaching and writing. But this ae only be realized given the existence of a professionally established law faculty which may as such perform the business of being the intellectual force of the legal profession. But in our country there is no such business because there is no such law faculty as a career professionally on full-time. I trust that the proposition you assigned to me for discussion excludes the idea that we screen out radicalism, together with revolutionary theories in jurisprudence, in encroaching into academic life. Right in our own discipline of jurisprudence, in the history and development of law, we are the beneficiaries of revolutionary movements that paved the way to broad currents of legal developments. Recall the concerted demands of the English nobles on the King for Magna Carta rights in 1215. Have in mind the Treaty of Peace at Westpahlia in 1648following the end of the Thirty Years War that dissolved the legitimacy of the German Empire, giving birth to its constituent “states” and inaugurating the advent of international law. Inspired by the ideals of the American and the French Revolutions Filipino constitutionalists and political thinkers were drawn up by the currents of political theories disseminated abroad. The concepts and principles of law evolved and developed deep roots in human civilization not only through the acquisition of empires and territoties. But they began in the mind of individual scholars, professors, and jurists as the great law schools were established. Revolutionary temper is not at all a stranger to the Legal Academy. More than his legal capability, the law school gives the lawyer the moral authority to deal with legal issues as well as with political questions in a broad spectrum of social crisis.History has a good record of revolutionaries or radicals who were at home in the Legal Academy. Karl Marx was a law student at the University of Berlin before he moved to the University of Bonn while preparing a paper on the philosophy of law. Vladimir Ulyanov Lenin entered the law faculty of the University of Kazan even as he dedicated himself to the revolutionary struggle that led to the 1917 Russian Revolution. He received his first-class diploma in law at St. Petersburg University in 1891 and was called to the bar the same year. Before leading India’s movement for independence and non-violence, Mahatma Gandhi practised law as a profession. Mandela, a trained lawyer, led the national movement in South Africa against apartheid to its historic abolition. He wasin prison for 27 years of his life, the cost of his revolutionary leadership. By taking more responsibility in dealing with the reality of mass poverty, the Legal Academy may initiate or develop academic courses such as what may be styled as “Jurisprudence of Poverty” or “Jurisprudence of the Poor’, which engages in the study of world poverty, together with the national situation in a given country. It is recommended that one of the main reference works for this course may be served by a recently published volume, Poor Economics: A Radical Rethinking of the Way to Fight Global Poverty by Abhijit V. Banerjee and Esther Duflo (New York: Public Affairs Books, 2011). A theoretical side of this offering may be Sociology of Law. These are representative of academic courses which over time may have conscienciousness impact on students. Similar courses may served as subject-matter of interest in regard to indigenous people and other minorities. It is hoped that in theresult, the subject beneficiaries would appear more and be treated as human persons. At least in Philippine setting, a more stable or lasting feature of the pre-law course incorporating such conscienciousness or humanization effect as its special feature may be an alternative approach. A more systematized approach could be in the prospect that law students in the Philippines may look foreward to their pre-law education transformed into a degree course in bachelor of science in jurisprudence (BSJ) that will inchide theoretical and historical studies in contemporary practice of the political economy of conflict situations, the progressive strategizing of mass movements, and the integration of social and legal change. Coming back to how radicalism should be treated for discussion and on the assumption that it is the genuine power of the people that has gone through the process of 10radicalization, do you think that it is time we move on to another conference of the Legal Academy? At that time the Legal Academy may have better understanding as to which side to take in the radicalization of the power of the people. Together with the Legal Academy, we must respond positively to “the new presence of the masses in the historical process.”* 's work, Cultural Action for Freedom, Penguin Book: Middlesex, England, 1974, p.ADDRESSING RADICALIZATION THROUGH EDUCATION: THE ROLE OF THE LEGAL ACADEMY by: Pacifico A. Agabin Ie The Many Faces of Radicalization Radicalization has many faces. We can see it in the Islamic terrorists, in the paramilitary counter-terrorists, in the white supremacists, in the far-right extremists, in the religious fundamentalists, in the suicide bombers, in the “neo-Nazis”, et al. The world has not been the same since September 11, 2001, and we realized the accuracy of the prophecy of Samuel Huntington about the forthcoming “clash of civilizations’. Obviously, the end of history is nowhere in sight. Social psychologists have traced this phenomenon to narrow-mindedness, to the way that the human mind works. The economist’s ideal of “the rational man” is fast becoming a fiction, as it has been proven that our thoughts and conduct are not always rational, deliberate, impartial and free from emotions. Aside from mental shortcuts, unfoundedgeneralizations, slippery slope thinking, and ad hominem arguments, our thinking processes are influenced by the social forces in our environment. And sowing the wind, we reap the whirlwind of “hate conduct”, “suicide bombing”, “hate speech”, resulting in numerous deaths, destruction, disability, and despair. Yet we have to go deeper into the roots of radicalization: the rage against oppression, injustice, persecution, outright genocide, or just plain hostility, that is committed in the name of religion, ideology, race, or some other form of invidious discrimination. Il. Role of the Legal Academy It was the well-known American law school dean of Harvard, Christopher Langdell, who first broached the idea that a legal academy should be a part of a university. Of course we all know that the three functions of a university are instruction, research, and extension services. It follows, therefore, that a law school should likewise engage itself notonly in training professionals but also in research to advance the frontiers of knowledge, and in extension work to be able to justify its existence as part of the larger community. Otherwise, as Thorstein Veblen had acidly remarked, a law school is no more part of a university than a dancing school or a fencing academy. In all of the three functions of teaching, research, and extension work, the legal academy can help minimize the problem of radicalization. First, as regards its teaching and research functions, I suggest that we start rethinking about the role of the law schools and of lawyers in a pluralistic society. I believe that law schools should not only breed lawyers who are skilled craftsmen, adept and clever in defending their clients’ property rights, but who are also good citizens, that is, lawyers who are aware of their proper role in society. The legal academy can do this by emphasizing the broader dimension of the law, like its functions in the social order, the cultural factors thatPoge 4 x shape its development, how it functions as a means of social control, and its role as an instrument of national policy. So, following the above objectives, it should start with the curriculum. The curriculum should be revised so as to approach the study of law as a social science, not as an independent branch of study in the academe. It is only by using the tools of the social sciences that the narrow- mindedness that goes with specialization can be overcome, that the fig leaves of legal fiction are revealed, that the external and internal causes of radicalization, like injustice, oppression, invidious discrimination, and abuse of power, are identified, that the realities of political and economic inequality is recognized, that the weaknesses of electoral democracy can be analyzed, that the grievances of the people can be addressed, and that human rights of the marginalized sectors of society can be asserted and protected. It is only through empirical research that the roots of radicalization can be traced and studied and to check if existing laws, policies,and practices still lead to justice or, if, in reality, they lead to injustice against races, tribes, religious, and class. Prof. A. Dror, in an article published in the Journal of Legal Education (13 J. of Legal Ed. 131, 1960), lists the central problems which circumscribe the main subject matter of the study of law in relation to the social sciences, as follows: (a) the relation between law and social types; (b) the functions of law in society; (c) the modes of the operation of law; (d) the creation, development, and evolution of law; (e) law, culture, and the main social institutions; (f) law and social change; and (g) law and law personnel. Then, we re-examine the teaching method in the legal academy. The first teaching method in law schools which date back to Renaissance is the lecture method. In Continental Europe as far back as the 13" century, the study of law was handled by a priestly class of scholars who taught law ex catedra to eager students who were required to memorize codal provisions word for word. While Langdell should bePage XeseoeeeX credited with the school of thought that a law academy should be part of a university, this does not erase the fact that he insisted that law was a self-contained and independent discipline revolving around rational analysis. This view rendered the study of law too abstract, too intellectual, too fixated with the search for fundamental principles that would bring certainty and stability in the law, and completely divorced from reality to the extent that it had little or no regard for its application in the real world. It was only with the rise of the social sciences that lawyers, those who belonged to the realist school, came to realize that reason standing alone, is not a very reliable guide to the study of the law. From John Chipman Gray to Justice Oliver Wendell Homes, Jr., the law professors realized that the case method isolated court decisions from their social and historical context, and it bred law students who thought like appellate judges. The life of the law has not been logic; it has been experience, said Justice Holmes, adding that.a page of history is worth a volume of logic. Come to think of it, it wasalso Holmes who declared that ‘time has upset many fighting faiths’, and that ‘the best test of truth is to get itself accepted in the competition of the market’. If the radicals in our midst come to realize this by a study of their country’s history, they will not be so narrow-minded and so fanatical in fighting, and even dying, for their faiths. The point to be underlined here is that if law students can convince people close to them that extremism is an aberration in human thought processes, or that fanaticism is a gross distortion of human faith, they will not resort to radical and violent measures to kill or silence or wreak vengeance upon ‘the enemy”. And if law students are taught to be a part of a community bigger than their fellow professionals, they will become effective agents of social change, or zealous protectors of human rights, or reformers to promote electoral democracy or to improve governance, or insightful advocates for the redress of political and economic grievances which are the roots of radicalization. Since the course of study in the legal academy revolves around analytical reasoning, argument, and research, it canPage 8 x address the problem of radicalization by developing and fine- tuning these skills so as to obviate the sources which give rise to gross distortions of thinking. These sources include prejudices, slants, emotions and attitudes which get in the way of logical conclsions and wise judgment. Developing proper habits of thinking not only among law students but also among ordinary citizens will prevent radicalization, at least among their ranks. Proper intellectual and analytical skills, like ability to evaluate arguments, generalizations, assumptions, abstract concepts and real-time data, the skill to frame appropriate questions to resolve a hot-button issue, the skill identify a range of solutions to a problem, and development of good judgment, all make for an open-minded professional instead of a biased and bigoted radical. Development of research skills in law students will give them the necessary information to arrive at reasoned, not determinant judgment, and they will be able to apply and fashion it to resolve particular problems. The promotion of debate and discussion in. and out of the classroom will enable students to look at an issue from plural perspectives andPoge 9 % emphasize the importance of the dialogic process of reasoning, deliberation, and problem solving. The tools of psychology and the humanities will develop empathy and compassion, and the instruments of political science, sociology and economics will develop the capability to use law equitably for redress of grievances and for accomplishing social and political reforms needed in a plural society. And the course on legal ethics should imbue the law students with the moral attribute necessary for the exercise of a public profession. Lastly, and more important, the legal academy should get out of the four walls of the academe and render extension services to the bigger community. This means not only the traditional legal aid services that forms part of its clinical education program, but it should also include running regular seminars, lectures, workshops, and open dialogs with the ordinary people in the different parts of the community and among various sectors to discuss the role of law in protecting individual rights, the redress of grievances through legal channels, assistance in the prosecution of politically-motivatedhuman rights violations, the remedies for obtaining judicial relief from extrajudicial killings and enforced disappearances, assertion of freedom of worship, belief, and religion, means of protesting against attacks, bombings, and killings of innocent civilians and damage to religious houses, and on all other similar and possible sources of radicalization and reaction. Alternative lawyering should be encouraged in the legal academy’s program on clinical legal education so that some of the graduates will take up the cudgels for cause-oriented groups who have valid grievances against the state, the government, the military or any other group responsible for violations of human rights or commission of crimes against human dignity or destruction of property. i r 3