Age of Selective Morality and Its Consequences

Age of Selective Morality and Its Consequences

  You are distinguished by your inability to recognize the truth, no matter how irrefutable

 ~~ Maummar Gaddafi

It is immoral and unacceptable to apologize for any autocrat.  And no one should. However, fast-evolving global events, particularly the fallouts of the Arab Spring, are quite instructive about the evolution of global politics and the increasing absence of defined parameters.  Another clearly emerging trend is the clear employment of selective morality in matters of collective security.  This development is definitely troubling, convenient as it might be for its architects.

A confluence of global events in the Middle East, North Africa, and Sudan are all pointers to the dichotomies in thought, policy, process and outcome.  Incidentally, there is growing suspicion about the incongruity in pronouncements and conduct by those who undertake to police the world out of their sense morality. Increasingly, the emerging pattern points to a schizophrenic disposition, where the conduct and process can be seen as selective.

The choice to intervene in any crisis when states fail in their responsibility to protect their citizens while a clear imperative cannot be a matter of selective approach, founded on strategic interests or for that matter ill-deposition toward one autocrat.  Most autocrats still holding office survive, because they were once supported by the very powers that now seek to stampede them out, even if only vicariously. Most, also acquired weapons and arsenal used for suppressing their people from these same global powers.

One does not discount that the end product of humanitarian interventions might be democratic dividends, but regime changes foisted from the outside will always subsist along with memories and residual corollaries of fractured politics and a deep sense that the emergent leadership is beholding to foreign interests. It becomes hard, therefore, to balance such perception or reality with the notion of true impendence and sovereignty.  

 Glaring dichotomies persist, relative to independence.   Kosovo and South Sudan are both independent. The former is not yet a member of the United Nations, while U.N. membership for the latter was a walk in the park.  Egypt and Tunisia got rid of their leaders and are still traversing a halting and uncertain political transition. Yemen, Syria and Bahrain continue to struggle with prospects of indefinite outcomes for their respective leaders and the nations. Yemen’s President Ali Abdullah Saleh left the country but has returned. Could Tunisia’s Ben Ali do likewise?  And Gaddafi? The greatest risk of the selective morality approach is that it lacks clear ownership, and consistently risk being abandoned were it to falter.

Libya is supposedly reemerging a new nation, mostly thanks to Western nations that abetted the removal of Maummar Gaddafi, not without the complicity of some African nations, one might add.  But the unfolding story of Libya is just beginning and the consequences, which might be farfetched and profound, are hardly being contemplated.   Pretend as the international community may, change in Libya did not entirely come about from within and has now taken an ethnic or tribal dimension. While the attending international footprint might be stealth, they are hardly light. There has been a civil war in Libya, lopsided as it was and it is not over yet. The Transitional National Council (TNC) must find ways of clearly declaring “no victor and no vanquished” but also, ways if consistently implementing that doctrine. As things stand, relations between the new Libya and sub-Saharan Africa are badly strained due to the clear targeting and killing of African immigrants.

The irony of Libya is, that draconian as the Gaddafi regime was, it undeniably provided a vast array of modern amenities for its people that would put many democratic African countries, Nigeria included, to shame.  Another irony of Libya is that the rationale for the regime change has much to do with its oil and other natural resources less than it does with democratic freedom and civilian protection.  Finally, even if considered an Arab country, Libya was not in any way more draconian than several Arab countries that have aligned with the West, while hardly practicing any form of democracy or offering their people constitutionally guaranteed freedoms. What shades of freedom or brutality separates Libya and Yemen?

What acts of repressive crackdown took place in Libya and Syria that did happen in Bahrain? Would it have sufficed for the African Union to send in troops to prop up the Gaddafi regime the way Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates sent in troops to prop up the authorities in Bahrain? Questions and more questions!

Meanwhile, independence continues to elude Saharawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR) also known as Western Sahara and Palestine, two entities that deserve to be independent, but have fallen victims of global realpolitik.   This week Palestine forced their issue by pushing against all odds, for a U.N. membership.  What is unclear to many, is why democratic and independent countries, many which fought and shed blood for their independence and thus value it highly, would willy-nilly stand in the way of other deserving nations becoming independent.  The Palestinian question will lay bare the hypocrisy of many nations, who opted to forge their response to the matter rather than take a principled stand.  One does not have to look back to find that the same cluster of nations sided with apartheid South Africa, against black majority rule. Sadly history does repeat itself, perhaps in different shades.

The World According to Might: One shared commonality of all the counties mentioned afore, is the global assessment of their respective strategic values and interest to major countries charged with collective security. Vast differences exist in their thinking and convergence of thought and action is dictated, not so much by the value interest of the countries in trouble as much of the interests of member of the global moral crusade and firefighters. The world is being shaped not according to right, but according to might.  This explains why it has proven extremely difficult to gain any traction in the conflict in Syria; especially after the regime change in Libya was accomplished under the false pretense of “civilian protection”.  

It is instructive that the world bestrides many zones of frozen and active conflicts. Conflict in Somalia, Iraq and Afghanistan seems intractable, despite ongoing peace efforts. Numerous other zones enjoy a semblance of peace only because they are heavily policed by international forces.  Absent these forces, the state of paly becomes anyone’s guess.  The probability is on the high side for some recidivism.

Unintended Victims and Casualties: In considering the state of international politics, it is paradoxical that certain enunciations by Gaddafi are pertinent, both to the fate that has befallen him and his former counterparts in Tunisia and Egypt, as much as it is to those who wish to impose a new world order, undefined as it is. As Gaddafi once remarked, “You are distinguished by your inability to recognize the truth, no matter how irrefutable.”  This characterization applies to him as well as his foes.  In war, truth is the first casualty.  That is true of Libya and all pertinent policies, both domestic and international.  Negative reaction to handling of Libya can be measured by the number of countries that voted no, abstained or merely chose to be absent when the credentials of the Transitional National Council were recently taken up at the United Nations.

Africa is also a major casualty; so too, regional cooperation between African Union and the international community.  This stark reality is being downplayed, but the wounds run deep and the humiliation and marginalization is one that Africans would not forget in a hurry.   After the events in Cote d’Ivoire and Libya, many African nations will think hard before ever acceding to any collective action on the African soil.  Already, the aftershock of Libya has sorely dampened any enthusiasm for international action in Syria.  The risk of massive anger on Middle East streets over the slanted handling of the Palestine independence question remains credible.  It is commonly known that many African and Arab countries are being pressurized not to vote for the admission of Palestine to the U.N.  For most African nations that proposal is galling and noxious, most having just celebrated their fiftieth independence anniversary.    

Strategically, the Palestinian authorities goofed.  Not that there is any particularly propitious moment to pursue touchy issues, but months preceding U.S. national elections are renowned as utterly bad to pursue any policy that pertains to Israel, more so those that might play to its disadvantage. In this context, the Obama administration, Israel and Palestine are equal victims. It is clear that Israel will also goof.  Imagine what would happen if it voted for a Palestine State, contrary to all expectations. That mere act would put the pressure back on Palestine to go back and negotiate the finer points.  It would keep a negotiated two state solution option alive. Importantly, it would take the wind out of the Palestine State debate and put Israel squarely on the driver’s seat. But that is wishful thinking by all accounts.  As things stand, Israel may win by blocking Palestine’s U.N. membership, but weaken its relations with Turkey and Egypt, its key Arab allies. 

Moving Beyond Rhetoric and Precepts: What the world calls for is morally-correct and balanced policies that are not skewed in favor of strategic national interests or fashioned to be disadvantageous to perceptibly weaker states. The current trend of selective morality is myopic. It serves well as means to an end and quick fixes; but it leaves in its wake profound ennui and animosities that only complicate the already intertwined and complex system which itself is buffeted by deep-seated distrust and misgivings. Double standard international policies that reek of favoritism and selective morality are defeatist, if not in the short term, then in the medium and long term. 

Collective policy mistakes linger eternally and there is always a price to pay as evidenced by Somalia. Also, those who facilitate the breaking up of an existing but perhaps dysfunctional state must take ownership of the emerging toxic debris. It will not do to just walk away, after the fact. In Libya, the unwitting unleashing of a broad array of weaponry including sophisticated surface-to-air weapons is cause to pause. Most are already in the wrong hands; only God knows which terrorist groups have them.

The international community has arrived at a critical juncture; where the lone global police – the United States – cannot do the policing alone as President Nicholas Sarkozy of France suggested recently, but also where selective morality, convenient as it may be, will only serve as a practical bridging tool, albeit one with dire and negative consequences, akin to Chemotherapy.  The cure may work sometimes; in some cases briefly, in some cases well, but the adverse consequences can only be ignored at one’s peril. That is the state of the fate of our world.