mmoa_writes

Egad, and I was having one of those discussions with the Philosophy/Politics housemate about democracy and the war in Afghanistan/Iraq/etc and I can't say how ironic it is that a self-confessed libertarian should think that war is a good method of exporting 'democracy' (because real democracy is more than just getting to tick a bit of paper and stick it in a special box in my opinion. A people cannot properly rule itself if it is not in viable conditions to do so and yes, war is one of those not-so viable conditions in my humble and no doubt misinformed opinion) to other nations.

He seemed really surprised when my answer to 'well what should we do for those countries under autocratic regimes' was 'nothing', (which was equally surprising as he always seemed a perceptive sort of chap). As far as I can see, democracy is far more effective when it has evolved out of a culture rather than when it's been artificially imposed. One thing I noticed from our stay in Nigeria - and from some conversations with Iraqi students at my old college, more relevantly enough - is that when enlightenment values are not translated through the prism of a region's culture, it becomes easier to set up a 'traditional values' vs 'the corruption of the decadent West' conflict between progress and conservation. [Aside: It's one of the problems with the current anti-corruption drives in Nigeria methinks - it certainly doesn't help that countries like Nigeria have only had the example of Imperialistic rule as a general principle for governance but when corruption is seen as something almost 'tradtional', it's opponents often sound like well-principled, naive and yet rather arrogant disaporans/Western educated who have lost touch with their 'father-culture'. Essentially, change is seen as coming purely from without the nation rather than in situ and that encourages resistance of the most wilfully blind and self-defeating sort.]

Now, if I'm honest, I don't think 'nothing' was the best answer, because what I meant to add was that merely by existing, countries that seriously espouse and attempt to live by enlightenment principles inspire the peoples of others, (especially today in light of greater communication arenas such as the internet). Technically, we are not doing 'nothing'. What I meant was that there is nothing a government can do to another to make it behave, sometimes even in it's own self interest. The best thing a government can do is to do nothing, to let the channels of communication and thus ideas flow freely. It boggles me that the US coalition had the right idea when it came to the East/West divide in post-war Germany, but somehow couldn't get over itself with Iran.

But that's another (much more complicated) matter.

One other thing I didn't say was that it's ironic that it took the West two world wars and one fucking holocaust before it fell out of love with the dictator and came to accept the idea that allowing irrational prejudices - religionist, anti-semitism, racism, homophobia, you name it - to affect the lawmaking process is a very bad idea. Yet, it behaves so embarrassingly naively when it comes to convincing other nations about the joys of secular democracy, like some convert to a new religion, which would probably sound quite interesting if they weren't so damn annoying about it. It is not a bad thing to insist that every nation should have enlightened democratic values, not in the least. It's just that you won't persuade them by bombing them - once you start doing that, they'll have other things to worry about and the magical thinking required to make universal human rights/the concept of democracy as legitimate governance/etc work tends to get put off in that sort of environment.

People tend to be good when they're happy, after all.

The best thing really would be to let each nation come to an understanding of the need for some form of democracy by themselves. They're not stupid and if it's so great, they'll find out for themselves and come to love it all the more, just as we have. However, I suspect this is where Imperialism really kicks in.

Now, every time I hear this word in relation to the 'War on Terror', it's always some bullshitty post-modern attempt to defend a horribly warped version of cultural relativity, which doesn't surprise me considering it's mostly used by people who don't really understand what it means and frankly, never could. What Imperialism actually means in this regard, is the vaguely held belief that for some reason, these poor blighted third world/theocratically ruled/communist/etc nations just don't understand democracy and have never even considered the wonderful enlightened principles we hold dear. What's more, they need our help to do so. And that was most certainly the belief my housemate subsribed to, (his jaw dropped when I described the modern [urban, as far as I know] Afghanistan of the 60s. Look, it's all been said before people, but I suppose Afghani and Iraqi women activists aren't quite as authoritative as a Guardian/Telegraph columnist, huh? Human progress is not a simplistic exponential graph, dammit.) however subtly [Fuck it, I subscribed to it too, though perhaps more subtly as a thoroughly opinionated diasporan].

This is bollocks.

I can remember watching documentaries and hearing talks from underground female education groups in Afghanistan, socialist groups in Iran, pro-democracy leaders in Iraq. These people existed, some of them having no experience of a Western education or any 'corrupting' influences, and they were actively defending and fighting for enlightened principles. I do honestly think they would have succeeded in transforming their respective nations (nothing, not even Hussein or the Taliban, lasts forever). Not only this, but their enlightened revolutions would have been less bloody and probably longer lasting than that which they currently have (which is a momentary deceit propped up in the false peace of a lull in gunfire).

If there was any help we could give, (and yes, I'll accede to that one) it wasn't in the form we gave. This is exactly the attitude to corruption and the horrendous misdeeds in African politics that I mentioned in one of my 'So...' posts, that these poor people either cannot or will not see the danger their country is in and therefore they need aid, aid, aid in lieu of foreign policy. In the case of the Middle East, these people do not need armies to liberate them. These people are no more blinded by their 'culture' or even their 'religion' than we are. In the case of Iraq and Afghanistan, they damn well knew there was something wrong with their country - more so than some of us do with our own in the West - and they were doing what any rational, enlightened person would: trying to change it. So it would have taken time. Well, like I said, it took a bloody long time and far too much bloodshed for us as well. Why we think everyone else has to have some sort of miracle whereas we got to reap the benefit of evolution, I have no idea.



[Aside: Otoh, I don't believe the war in Iraq/Afghanistan had much to do with exporting democracy (or gaining oil. I know I'm probably wrong, but the rhetoric was all off for that to be strictly true IMO. I think if they could get it, they would and they had contingencies for that situation arising, but I don't think that was a primary objective) and frankly, this is a good thing. As if we need to see our most cherished of ideals sullied by such barbaric carnage! As much as I think it was stupid, and actually quite embarrassing to be considered a viable tactic in the 21st century, I do sort of understand the decision to bomb the hell out of al Qaeda in Afghanistan, but only just (because I think the mature solution would have been beyond the Bush administration on a good day...). Unfortunately, you can't then try and leap onto the humanitarian bandwagon as you end up doing neither. It's one or the other, I'm afraid. If you're going to do something, do it properly. Can you imagine Hitler spinning the Blitz as an act of redemption for the British people (and now I know someone is going to find a link where he says just that. I know my f-list too well...)? That's pretty much the equivalent to some of the spin on the War on Terror. Like I said, embarrassing.

It's times like this I get annoyed when people get rude about my 'Great War' analogy. Some of the spin on 'The War on Terror' was identical to historical sources I'd read for my History GCSE where a bunch of over-grown, overeager, public school boys who'd only read about war - analogy to our 'Nam movies - desperately wanted to have a go too, not realising that new weaponry requires new tactics, a different enemy requires different strategy, and some things are not worth a fucking war. And I really mean this. I'm not some idealistic pacifist, but this war was unnecessary. The attacks on 9/11 were terrorist attacks, not a declaration of war from Iraq or Afghanistan. You could have used the shared hatred of al Qaeda in the Middle East - and it is there, that's the worst thing! Iran loathes them, Pakistan hates them, India would willingly chip in to get one over on Pakistan and you could have put those Saudi Arabian links to good use for once - to help round them up; you could have beefed up your national security. There were so many more worthwhile things you could have done rather than go to war of all things.

Damn, now I think about it, it was even right down to the bloody 'over by Christmas' crap too. Fuck. Vonnegut couldn't have made that shit up.]

Frankly, this whole debaucle reminds me that maybe my Classics teacher had a point. Maybe we should ditch General Studies and introduce Critical Thinking as a compulsory GCSE or something. And history. I will keep on saying this, but the double standard between expectations of other countries and for ourselves does seem to originate from a lack of historical perspective.

Think about it - there are people alive in this country (UK) who can remember homosexuality being illegal, women not being able to vote or even work in certain fields, people from ethnic miniorities getting fired from their jobs for no reason other than a white person could do theirs, kids with the 'wrong' accent from the 'wrong' social class (or even the wrong church, ffs) being refused entrance into educational institutions. How is it that we can forget just how long it took us, without the meddling of some outside power to get where we are today, that we seem to think it should all come about like magic for other nations that are still reeling from the effects of having their indigenous ruling systems, political philosophies and social mores left in shreds by the impact of colonialism (and I know it's old hat but again, think about it. Nigeria, for one, gained independence in 1960. I have family members who were born in the British Empire. Would it surprise you if I said that even they still have a tendency to see Nigeria as an abandoned colony rather than an independant nation? How much more so for protectorate nations who naturally began to see even their own rulers as instruments of imperialism, like Iran and Iraq)? It's bizarre, ignorant and hypocritical at it's most basic. Why not allow them the privilege that we had?

Probably because we don't realise how privileged we were (the last time we had to deal with anything like this was some 2000 years ago with the Roman Imperialistic machine, after all). Good god but we're appalling.