Why do we criticise the USA more than, say, China? Why does is more mud thrown at Israel than Sudan? Why do we emit a highly audible whine whenever someone mentions Guantanamo Bay, or Abu Graib, but barely a whisper when we hear of unjust detentions abroad, in Syria or Egypt?
Obviously (say the many) it is because we are The Self-Haters. We are anti-American. We are the militant Equivalistas, the über-Liberals, who wish to undermine everything that makes Western Civilisation great.
Incomplete. Lazy. Wrong…
We obsess about the USA because it is there that we find the people with whom we have the most in common. Much as we try to trumpet ideas of a shared humanity, One Big Team, these are difficult thoughts in practice. Instead, we seek out allies in those countries, those people, who are most similar to us. We find them in those countries with a shared history, a shared language, shared religious traditions… and we call it a shared culture. We feel so close that we call the Atlantic Ocean a ‘pond’.
And if you feel close to someone, or something, it matters to you that they are the best, the very best that they can be. We hold them to a higher standard. We do not wish to see any faults.
When we do see faults, it is far better that we point them out, than keep quiet out of some misplaced sense of loyalty. I am a critic of the United States government, not because I wish to see its power eroded, but because I wish to see its stature enhanced. That makes me more of a patriot than the person who has backed every action of the Dubya-led White House since 11th September 2001.
In the case of the UK, well, there is an added incentive to whine at every turn. Not only do I have an affinity for the country and the culture, but I am responsible for it too. No matter that our ends are so moral that they justify the means – The means have to be moral too, and when they are not (when sometimes they cannot be) we must complain at the top of our voices. I marched in London against a war in Iraq on 15th February 2003 not because I wanted to throw dust in Blair’s eyes for the sake of, but because our preparation, and the arguments for war were not to the high standard I expect of my country.
So too with our allies, especially Israel. The culture there is very ‘western’, one might say. This is unsurprising, as it was European immigrants who founded it. They are the ruling class now, and they are funded by Western dollars. We have a blood bond. We want the best for them too, and it breaks our hearts to see them lose their humanity, treating their neighbours like third-class citizens.
Notice how the criticisms of the USA, the UK and Israel are quite specific. Notice how the criticisms of other countries are so general. With the USA, I name: the shoddy 2000 Election; the PATRIOT ACT; rushed war planning in Iraq; Guantanamo Bay; NSA phone-tapping; Extra-ordinary Rendition; and this nagging itch (somewhere at the back of my head), concerning the previous employment of Condi, Dick and George. We have been dissecting these issues for six years and there is still more to say. But China? Well, that’s a homogenising dictatorship. Sudan? A desert pockmarked with genocide. Criticising these places for even five seconds seems to be overdoing it – You could make your point in four.
Why waste more breath on the USA, or Israel? Because we have a shared language, a shared culture, we believe their policy-makers will listen. We believe they will take into account the things we say. We must ensure our big brother, the mighty USA, or our kid brother, little Israel, always has the absolute moral high ground. That means scrutinising and challenging them at every step. Only then we can support them with a clear conscience when they take on a radioactive Iran, or any of the tin-pot dictators (Mugabe, oh please God Mugabe) that stain the earth.
The Pedant-General made a comment on my previous post, which is a relevant postscript to this offering too. And down in the comments, Dubai-based blogger Tim Newman adds: “I’ve always thought that people criticise the US more than anyone else because they are more likely to listen. Criticising Russia or China won’t get you very far, with both the governments and the general public. But in the US, there is always a politician or activist waiting to hear your story.”
Tag: Debate (Page 24 of 27)
Nick Cohen’s article in this week’s Observer has prompted me to think about ‘moral equivalence’, and the degree to which we condemn the actions of other countries, and our own.
To me, the failure of the archbishop to speak plainly was not a sign of his diplomacy, but flowed from his row with the Jews. Before he escaped to Africa, he couldn’t say why he wanted sanctions against Israel but not against countries that committed far worse crimes – China, Syria, Iran, North Korea and, indeed, Sudan – or give any indication that he was morally obliged to provide an answer.
Cohen’s point is persuasive, and requires an answer, and he is right to take the Archbishop to task over these double standards. However, the argument he uses raises some questions, because the moral door swings both ways.
The idea of ‘moral equivalence’ requires some unravelling. It is always used in the negative, to condemn someone who is equating one reprehensible act with another. Above, Cohen notes that those of a certain political viewpoint are equating the transgressions of the Israelis towards the Palestinians, with a wider and much more horrible genocides, in the other countries he mentions. His complaint is that the two are simply not comparable: Israel is simply not as bad as Sudan.
Another example might be to equate the attacks on the World Trade Centre, with the human rights abuses at Guantanamo Bay. Imprisoning a few dozen militants without trial is simply not in the same moral ballpark as murdering 3,000 civilians on a cold September Tuesday. The actions of the Bush Administration are not morally equivalent to the actions of Al Q’aeda (so goes the argument) and it is offensive to suggest as much. Similar arguments can be made regarding transgressions in Iraq. One can always retort with “well, would you rather have Saddam back?” safe in the knowledge that the coalition forces never did anything as bad as the Ba’athists at Abu Ghraib. Discussions of this kind have been thrown around for decades, especially during the Cold War.
But they are all relative arguments. Relative to Sudanese actions in Darfur, Israeli transgressions against Arabs in the region could be described as minor. But thinking absolutely, they are nevertheless still transgressions. To reiterate, I do not disagree with Cohen when he asserts that Sudan is worse than Israel… but as soon as that point is made, someone is bound to ask the question: “Does that excuse Israel’s behaviour?”
The moral equivalence complaint is constantly used in political discourse, a smoke-screen to justify and excuse morally dubious action. An appeal to inhibit the ghettoisation of the West Bank is met with “what about the man on the Tel Aviv omnibus?” A fair point indeed, but in making it, the respondent has cunningly failed to answer the original point, and thus escapes from the discourse without condemning something that would not have looked out of place in occupied Poland, circa 1940. Likewise, legitimate questions about why, and when it was decided to go to war, are met by Tony Blair with the tired old cliché: “Would you rather have Saddam back?” Meeting questions with questions in this manner is to present a non-sequitur. By highlighting something morally worse, Tony manages to avoid answering the original question at all.
Complaining about the lack of moral equivalence between two acts should not be used as an excuse to avoid accounting for the actions of the governments we are responsible for. Although this final example, from ‘Tender’ at ProfessorBainbridge.com, I confess made me laugh:
As for morality – when the anal rape rate at Gitmo gets to say, half, of the rate at the Cook County jail let me know. I won’t worry till then.
The perceptive among you will have noticed that this particular gripe about the nature of moral arguments really only applies (by its very nature, I think) to governments such as that of Israel, the USA and the UK, rather than China, North Korea, and Sudan (to use some of Cohen’s examples). This is important, because I really want to write about why the former set of countries should be held to a higher standard – because we are responsible for them. I have’t finished with this yet. More in the next post.
I spent about ten minutes in the sea on holiday, before I misjudged particularly large wave I was attempting to body surf. It turned me upside-down and I crashed onto the beach shoulder-first. I still have a gaze on my shoulder and an ache in my arms.
I fear I may have missed the blogging wave on the news that the Holocaust-denier David Irving was imprisoned in Austria – the event co-incided with my return to the UK. However, comments on this thornytempestuous issue still lap at the shore. Stef at Famous For Fifteen Megapixels begins a good summary by posting a picture of Auschwitz and declaring that David Irving “is a disgraceful human being.” He also makes a pertinent point:
History gets revised all the time
And that includes the Holocaust… Who gets to decide what the official version of an historical event is and what truths are set in stone? Is someone unconvinced by the notion of the Nazi Pope a Holocaust Denier? Who gets to decide what the official interpretation of history is? An Austrian judge?
Adloyada is pissed off with the BBC for giving credence to Irving’s views by airing them on Tuesday’s Today programme.
These were treated by the interviewer as if they were serious arguments rather than the preposterous and absurd statements they were.
I actually thought that the interviewer, Sancha Berg, took a tone of incredulity throughout and strained herself not to begin ridiculing Irving, who was being interviewed from his prison cell in Austria.
Adloyada’s point is that people with such abhorrent views should not be given a platform to express them, on the basis that it gives those views legitimacy. One could of course argue that one man’s ‘abhorrence’ is another man’s ‘debate’ but I have no wish to do so regarding Holocaust denial. However, I do question the mantra that airing a view-point on public radio will automatically legitimise it. In the case of the David Irving interview, his stance was completely falsified and discredited by the BBC’s in-studio guest, Professor Richard Evans. In this example, I suggest that giving a platform to Irving’s views actually damaged his already flimsy cause even further. When a person’s opinions and presentation of facts is so obviously false, and so easily ridiculed, giving them a public platform does not legitimise their views. Rather, it delivers a coup de grace to their credibility, and their argument.
Between them, Unity at Talk Politics and CuriousHamster at A Big Stick and a Small Carrot have done a fine tag-team job of dissecting today’s debate and votes on terror legislation, and the appalling news coverage that has let some rather sickening abuses to our civil liberties slip by without proper account.
From CuriousHamster:
The politicisation of the threat of terrorism is one of the worst things the Blairbrown government has ever done. Playing politics with such an issue is deeply irresponsible….
Laws. Are. Not. A Signalling. Device.
By declaring that we must send a signal to the terrorists, Tony Blair once again proves that the terrorists have indeed succeeded in changing our values and way of life, and for the worse. What a signal, Tony!
The argument that I find most sickening is that which holds that since the current government is trustworthy and ethical, it follows that no future governments will abuse the powers they inherit. Never mind that I have no respect for the ethics of this government – Blair’s argument is a nonsense on its own terms. He cannot predict what future governments (or future police forces for that matter) will be like. Nor can he fortell the events that might give them cause to abuse their powers further. Therefore, he cannot guarantee against the abuse of these new powers.
Funny how laws that were introduced apparently in the public interest, have the effect of making me feel less safe. Thank goodness I have a full decade of biometrics/ID register/fingerprint-free passportness ahead of me. Thank goodness I am leaving the country tomorrow. Should I bother returning?
More on the traditions of monarchy…
My previous post asserted that a Head of State, the symbol of a country, should be chosen in a manner which reflects a country’s values. By blocking women from the Imperial Throne, Japan is effectively declaring that boys are better than girls. Sexism is institutionalised in Japan at the highest and most symbolic level.
However, It is up to the people of Japan to decide whether their national symbols adequately reflect their values. It may be that the Japanese decide that they still do believe in the primacy of men over women. Since understand very little of Japanese culture, I will not concern myself with their constituional crisis further.
Besides, it is unnecessary for me to pronounce on sexism in Japan. A similar sexism is practiced in the UK, where unequal primogeniture is entrenched in law. A male child of the monarch will inherit ahead of his sister, even if she is older than him. The last time this occurred was in 1901, when Edward VII succeeded ahead of his older sister Victoria. Interestingly, she was the mother of Kaizer Wilhelm II of Germany, who would have inherited the British throne had a fairer system prevailed… although had this been the law at the time, Victoria would probably not have married a german in the first place.
Since Princes Willam and Harry are male (and, we assume, will continue to be), the issue of the laws of succession remain ignored and irrelevant for another generation. Nevertheless, the law stands. Just like Japan, sexism is encoded into the fabric of our country. A distinction between men and women could be made when biology is concerned (for example, in custody battles). But since the choice of Head of State exists entirely in the political sphere, the current system is entirely inappropriate to our 21st Century values. It is also out of keeping with many other progressive European monarchies, such as Norway, Sweden and The Netherlands. If the British Royal family are to ‘get back in touch’ with their subjects, then its female members should be placed on the same legal plane as their male relatives. It is a shame that this was not enacted at the same time Universal Suffrage:
“What do we want?”
“Cognatic Primogeniture!”
“When do want it?”
“Nineteen twenty-eight!”
Why bother complaining? It is not as if it affects anyone in the population at large, and women do sometimes get to be queen. However, I beleive this is an important argument, because it highlights fatal problems with the idea of a monarchy itself. The law that allows males to leap-frog females therefore institutionalises misogyny. By the same argument, the idea of hereditary political positions institutionalises and endorses unearned privilege. The most symbolic person in our country is not chosen by a vote, nor appointed by a committee of citizens. They are not even voted in by a lottery, as King Auberon is in The Napoleon of Notting Hill. Instead, they are given the position just because their parents had it. Nepotism of the worst kind, and the other citizens of the country have no say in the matter whatsoever. Not only are they powerless, but they are obliged to pay for someone else’s privilege.
Never mind the fact that we have an elected Prime Minister. Never mind the fact that we vote for local public officials. Never mind the fact that we have a press that scrutinises at every turn. Never mind the fact that the rule of law is strong in this country. Never mind that HM the Queen has no practical power. Even with all these positive, progressive aspects of our political system, the very existence of the monarchy means our country is both sexist and nepotistic at heart. By endorsing the system, we cannot escape endorsing these traits, which should have been consigned to the shame of history, long, long ago.
No amount of democracy and accountability in the other apsects of government can excuse the following fact: The highly symbolic and visible pinnacle of our system is a morally barren wasteland. For a people who believe in equality, this is simply not good enough – We owe it to ourselves to devise something better…