Dave's ESL Cafe's Student Discussion Forums

[Thom]

Liberals in the last days of the British Empire defended imperialism on the grounds that they were bringing civilisation, education and better living conditions to the inhabitants of their colonies. Of course the noble sentiments of these Liberals were made ridiculous by the actions of the Imperial nations who exploited and oppressed their colonies to an extent that would make even a 'Nike' director blush. However, the theory was there: We have not only the right, but also the duty to intervene (militarily if neccesary) to save these people from their own governments.

In the century that followed, such ideas became unfashionable, until now. Many people on this site have highlighted the appaling treatmewnt of the Iraqi people under the Ba'ath party and suggested that this is justification for a war. The suggestion then is that we should invade Iraq and occupy the country to save the people from their own government.

Do we have a duty to intervene in other countries (not just Iraq) internal affairs when we believe that they are suffering at the hands of their own government as we would if they were suffering from forign invaders? Do we have the right to intervene? Believing that we are in a position to determine what is best for these people could well be seen by many in the third world as evidense of the usual western arrogance.

I'd be interested to know what people here think, particularly those who dont come from western nations.

[Diana]

Actually, Thom, I never made any suggestions. You misunderstood what I said. I only said that I read the news about how the Iraqis feel resentment toward the United States and the United Nations. I also said that the United Nations should have taken out Saddam in 1991 - not 2003! In 1991, the US and the UN turned their backs when Saddam gassed his own people using chemicals. We failed to help those poor innocent Iraqis in 1991. Also, where was the International community in 1991???? Why didn't they protest Saddam's regime at that time????? How sad that the international community did not hold such a strong protest against Saddam's regime with as much vigor and energy as their anti-war protest against Iraq today. If the UN had done their job properly during that first Persian Gulf War, we wouldn't be where we are today!!! I also compared the suffering of the Iraqi people to my own people when they were oppressed.

I've always prefer that we try to solve our problems peacefully. I never like war. Nobody does, and going to war is really not an easy thing. I have a brother in the U.S. armed forces, and the last thing I want is for my brother to head to war in the Persian Gulf. Of course, I also don't like Saddam, and I think the Iraqi people deserve a better leader and better life. After reading what he has done to his own people, it turns my stomach. I don't like to see innocent people suffer. So, I think you can see the dilemma in making such a decision concerning Iraq. It is not easy for a nation to go to war, but neither is turning your back on suffering people.

It's a good thing I'm not a member of the UN. To be honest, this is a decision that is very difficult to make even for me. I don't like war, but I also don't like to see innocent people killed and suffering through oppression. I know from my family's and my people's experience that when they were oppressed by Japan, they were actually praying to be rescued. Yet, I also believe that we should always try to solve our problems peacefully first and use war only as a last resort.

Furthermore, I don't think the United States and the West should be the world police. The United Nations was created for a purpose. They were supposed to make certain that another Adolf Hitler doesn't arise, and they have a responsibility to protect human rights. Unfortunately, the United Nations have been doing a very poor job of protecting human rights. As a matter of fact, some of those countries sitting on the United Nations have some shaping up to do themselves!!!! It really should be the job of the United Nations to take out Saddam. It should not be the job of the United States and the Western world.

I don't think you can compare what the British and even the Spanish empire did many years ago to the present day. In the first place, the Native Americans were not suffering from oppression. It was actually the Europeans and the American governments that oppressed them. The Spanish did the same thing to my ancestors. My ancestors were civilized and no one was being oppressed. It was the Spanish who came and oppressed us. They thought my ancestors were savages or uncivilized just because they were living in grass huts and running around naked with no clothes. The truth was we only had a different culture than the Europeans.

[Thom]

Sorry to misrepresent you, I'll remove your name, it was really only there as an example. I think you have misunderstood what I said as well. I dont believe that the Euiropean's rescued their colonies from oppression, or that they improved their lives. What I said was that people justified Imperialism by saying that people's lives were being improved.

[wing]

Strong countries normally have power, what really matters is, to rationalize every excuse. It is not the question about duty or the right to do so. Not only in the case of Iraq, the US has involved and is viewed as arrogance. Yet, what would the world be like if no one, even the UN is supposed to, takes the responsibility?
By the way, if the West aims to protect human rights in the third world, why not intervene?

[pugachevV]

OK, tell us which former british colony, other than Australia, Canada, New Zealand, USA is doing better under its native rulers.

[Diana]

[Chris]

Indeed, it has already been made. Don't you remember the action made by the UN in Kosovo or in the former Republic of Yugoslavia? Terror, arbitrary, killings, organized rapes policy, the return of concentration camps that's what we saw on those moments. So I think it was necessary to intervene. Was it a colonialist action? I don't think so. I guess we mustn't put all the bad things on the UN's back or even the USA. The United Nations: that's ourselves. Of course, anything is perfect and one can always say that there are in this organization several countries that should be banned by being a member of it. To me, as Vladimir already expressed it or developed it with a scathing excerpt of the Canadian press recently which described the UN as the cradle of all dictators around the world; I will say that the UN are here only to cut down the tensions between nations and the human rights are another part of the problem.

Question: can we organize a democratical system inside some lands where cultures and customs are completely different than ours? I will say: let's leave the Middle-Easterners to live like they want but let's be strong enough to refuse some cultural aspects of those guys in our democracies. If in Saudi Arabia, which is far more dangerous than Irak, they want to practice the "Charia" as a rule of government, frankly I don't care; but if they want to break my chops here at home I will be the first to defend some tougher actions to save my secular Republican principles.

Q: Can we make the moral to the others when our countries, apart maybe Britain who has a strong parliamentary democracy and hasn't known, for instance, the German occupation therefore without having collaborated with a very bad record but in the Channel Islands?? No, I don't think so, we don't have in general any lessons to give to the others but we could be a kind of "light" that should drive all the good will to the same point.....

[ecc]

It is some kind of paradox. on the one hand , the civilized society cannot keep a blind eye on the cruel rule under �bad� regimes, where people are being slaughtered and tortured everyday. on the other hand , the civilized society must face serious results ,even unpredictable consequences if it options to intervene militarily .as is well-known ,only good will can not solve problem, and could possibly make things worse. And in reality ,many crimes are perpetrated by those so called civilized men with the excuse that they do it for the good of people in the third world. People are deeply divided on such debates as if they should be involved in the affairs of other countries.

I think ,in such cases, actions from the outside world are definitely necessary .in the 21th century �earth village� ,dictators cannot dispose of their people freely as they did five hundred years ago and escape their punishment by saying it is their internal affair. What really matters is who acts as the world police to maintain order and promote justice .it should not be a single country or a regional organization, not to mention the west or the white. the united nations was designed to shoulder such a responsibility, but unfortunately it always cannot work because of too much disagreement among the UN members. people have to reform the UN bureaucracies and reconstruct a more effective and flexible organism, based on the pricinples of � majority rule�and �consensus among big powers�, to show resolve and move decisively when necessary .another notable point is to what a degree an international interference can be involved .by force should always be the last resort .in fact ,to impose various sanctions is a good choice . As we can see from the case of the south Africa,it is sanctions that forced the white abandoned their privileges and ended the rooted apartheid.

[Thom]

Think through this example.

Say we come accross an island inhabited by cannibals. A part of their culture is the ritual sacrifice and consumption of members of the tribe. Naturaly, this is an infringment on human rights. The people of the tribe (particularly those being eaten) have no political freedom, they are subjects of the cheif and the state sanctioned murder of individuals (without fair trial) infringes on that human right we hold most sacred: the right to life. To cap it all off, these people are poor, live in bamboo huts and dont bother with clothes. Suffive to say, Joe westerner invades the place and reforms it in his own image. But like the Chamorros, is it impossible that they were happy before that? To say no is to assume that the entire world's population lived in a state of misery for all of time until the industrial and political revolutions of the 18th and 19th centuries.

The points is, Huamn Rights and 'morality' are not the universals that we assume them to be. What one culture describes as a fundemental human right, another may not and vice versa. When we export our cultural values (Human Rights for example) to another culture, then like the Spanish invading Guam, we make the assumption that our culture is superior, that our way of life is better.

Back in the real world, the prime example is Sharia law. When we call Muslim government's oppressive for not observing human rights (sexual equality for example), we are assuming the superiority of our culture and it's values. We are saying that they dont live up to our standards. Is this any different to a Wahibi cleric calling us infidels for eating pork when we dont live up to the standards of his culture?

When accused of being infidels for eating pork we would remind the cleric that avoiding pork is not some universal edict but just a part of his culture, not ours. He might well reply in kind that what we call human rights are not a universal edict but simply an expression of our cultural values. Our culture, not his.

[Diana]

As Eccentric says, this issue is a paradox and not an easy one. I would say that the majority of the world's culture would disapprove of cannibalism, torture, and mass killing. However, after the anti-war protests, I'm not certain anymore. I agree with many things Eccentric say. Who should be the world police? When is the right time to intervene? Do we have a right to intervene especially if there is a possibility that our intervention could make things worse? Interfering in another country's affair is not easy, but turning a blind eye on atrocities being committed on innocent human beings calling for help is not easy either.

You also made an excellent point in describing how human beings view "morality" and "human rights violation" differently due to cultural differences, Thom. In Nigeria, for example, it seems acceptable to stone women who committed adultry, but the western world see this as unacceptable and a human rights violation. Does this mean that the western world should interfere? If the majority of the people in a country prefer to live under Sharia law, who are we to interfere and say that the majority is wrong?

Stealing is also viewed very differently in my part of the world. The Chamorros and many Micronesians do not consider it "stealing" when they enter a friend's or relative's home and take whatever they want even when the friend or relative is not there. Naturally, the Stateside Americans have pointed to us and say that this is wrong and considered "stealing." But we don't see it that way. Of course, we are not thieves, but the Spanish certainly thought so. The Chamorros have no sense of privacy or ownership because many things in their culture is shared. We just have a set of values that is different from westerners.

In the case with Iraq, do you think that what Saddam has done to his own people be considered a human rights violation not only by western standard but also by the standard set in the Middle East and Asian world? Does this justify forceably removing him from his throne? Right now, I don't think the international community (including the Arab world) think Saddam should be removed by force. Although their anti-war protests had great intentions, it also condemned the Iraqi people to a life of torture and oppression.

[ecc]

[quote]from thom :The points is, Huamn Rights and 'morality' are not the universals that we assume them to be. What one culture describes as a fundemental human right, another may not and vice versa.



but donnot you think there are more common fundamentals than cultural disparities for mankind?after all,we are all human beings .take an example,i amnot a fish,and cannot know if it is happy in water.but there is one thing for sure ,i can conclude that it couldnot feel happy when it is removed from water and put into a boiling pot.

[obelix]

I doubt that anyone who is about to be eaten is happy.
And in any case there is not likely to be such an island as you describe left on earth, so instead of posing daft hypothetical scenarios why don't you tell us what you think Tom?
If we don't believe in our own values then we are hardly civilized and if we see dictators in other nations abusing their people and we are able to do something about it we should.

We already have Milosevic before the world court and he is nowhere near as bad as Saddam, so a precedent has been established.

[Diana]

[ecc]

politics involves conflicts. different people or group has different interest ,and the resources are scarce in comparison with the needs of people,so people often fight each other for the best share.war arises.
today ,people have outgrown the era of killing-each-other-for-survival ,and politics has been an art of reaching compromise.the conflicting sides should go to court instead of war to solve their disputs .

[Thom]

Obelix clearly doesnt like my example (or for some reason, the way I spell my name) so I'll try to clear things up a little.

With the example of the cannibal island, I was not making a direct comparison to the Iraq situation. With that and with the example of Sharia law, I was attempting to show that our definition of morality (including human rights), far from being universal is in fact just an expression of our cultural values.

Ecc said that despite not being a fish, a huamn can know that the fish does not liked being dropped in a pot of boiling water. The point being that through study (ie finding out that a fish has a nervous system and is sensative to heat), we can undertsand something we have no direct experience of. Despite not being Muslims, Arabs or Iraqis, we can gain understanding of their culture.

That is fine in the Iraq situation. I'm no expert on the Koran but I suspect it has a few things to say about murder and torture. But this debate isnt limited to Iraq. What about Sharia law in the muslim world. Forced abortions and sterilisations in China freedom of speech in Zimbabwae or racial equality in Hong Kong. When Western nations step in with their size 10's and issue condemnations, sanctions and the suchlike, that is a case of them finding something repugnent in another country's culture and assuming the universal nature of their own moral code.

The Chinese mighht well ask "What's wrong with the racial definition of a state?" or "Why should people have the right to choose how many children they have?" The Zimbabwaeans (spelling anyone???) could eqaully ask "Why should people have freedom of speech?" One of these days, someone might even have the balls to ask "Why should we hold life sacred?"

In fact, I challenge anyone who believes that morality is universal to justify the sanctity of Human Life without using western concepts of morality as a foundation. If we cant prove the sanctity of life itself, then what hope do we have with the rest of our canon of universal human rights?


Incidently: Obelix, if you want my opinion on the war then look in the thread on the peach marches. Pug, for colonies doing better since liberation, try the four you mentioned plus Tanzania, India, Pakistan, Hong Kong, Singapore, the Republic of Ireland, Jordan, Eygpt, Kuwait, Barbados and Calais to name but a few. And that's just former British colonies.