One standard to judge them all - or a humble foreign policy?

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A week back or so Chandos got a somewhat impassionated after I was bitching around about local culture and Islam in particular in the infamous '200 lashes' thread. Yet I was just too lazy to explain what I have in mind, and left him hanging. Now, to my delight, along comes along Robert Kaplan and spares me a lot of the work with an excellent article about humility, titled "It's the tribes, stupid!".

So, let the discussion begin.

 

There are reasons for that humility of a nature different from merely humility's sake - considering full and equal rights for all citizens have only been around since 1964. Apart from the all-too-well-known question of black citizens, there's also the problem of what was done to Indians before and that's not quite a happy history of democracy. Democracy starts with demos and demos is the people. The problem is who's the people and who's not.

 

I guess I'm a bit slow tonight but what is he saying here?

From Wikipedia:

Our Founding Fathers claimed to found a democracy. "We the People..." Please note that this was primarily comprised of white male land-owners. Women, blacks, redskins and poor folks didn't have voting rights. Today most adults are eligible to vote but less than half do so. So what was humble about this? I'll give them an A for trying but a C- for success.

That one is easy, Chev. If you agree with me you is the people, if you disagree you ain't.

 

Democracy is a process . The natural progression of attained rights by different groups, that are mentioned here, is a logical extension of what the Founders began. It was a large step but not a complete journey. Did the Founders know this? Of course: John and Abigail Adams teased each other with the idea that women would one day have an active role in politics, yet Abigail knew that she was not living in that time. Jefferson proclaimed that later generations would improve upon what he and his Founding Brothers had begun.

George Washington ordered that his slaves be freed on the death of his wife, Martha. And Washington often complained about the treatment of the native Indians, yet he backed down on his rhetoric in the end, knowing that many just did not understand his feelings regarding what was happening to them. What people forget is that there were "white slaves" living in the colonies before the Revolution. Many of them were bought and sold "like cattle" and were given no more rights than a "herd of bulls and cows."

So we move from 1776 to 1964 in a journey towards equality. That's quite an astounding achievement considering that for THOUSANDS of years before that, the many labored in captivity for the very privileged few. No one knows for certain how the notion of the vertical hierarchy first appeared along the civilizations of Mediterranean Rim, enslaving entire populations in servitude to a tiny aristocracy. Yet, the colonies already had a foundation of "Republicanism," which was given to them by the English "liberal influences." Despite having a king and an entrenched aristocracy, the English celebrated their "rights" as no others did in Europe. The rights of Englishmen were as sacred as the "divine rights of kings."

Nevertheless, the English still had a very entrenched vertical hierarchy in which patronage was the way that people dealt with one another on a personal and a professional level. One only has to read a Henry Fielding novel to see just how vertical English society still was during the 18th Century. The American Revolution changed the entire concept of that hierarchy, fashioning a more horizontal society, or "leveling," to use a term from the English Revolution of the 17th Century. My larger point here is to illustrate just how radical the first steps of the American Revolution truly were by comparison. It's easy to look back at how "incomplete" the Revolution was by the standards of equality 200 years later, but the event has to be judged within the context of its own time.

 

One small comment I need to make. Prior to the establishment of Christianity Celtic and Nordic women had rights. Among the Kelts, women participated in government. Native American women had a lot of rights. Not sure it extended to all tribes but it certainly included many. Certainly there was a hierarchy but we still have that to some extent. Power has its privileges. Also, it is, IMO, a fallacy to believe that we are all equal. True, everyone should have the right to life, liberty and happiness. Theoretically Communism tried to equalize everyone. Didn't work.

Democracy is an ideal and prehaps in the next life we will truly achieve it.

 

Strange, I had heard that their position was generally quite poor - at least among the steppe tribes, the Cherokee and the Iroquois were a different thing.

Certainly, people are different and not always equal due to their different gifts, strengths and weaknesses. Yet in terms of rights, we are supposed to be equal - at least according to the tenets of most currently held ideologies. By the way, Nakia, in some countries it was communism that brought in the universal suffrage - of course, just because you could (rather, you had to) vote didn't mean you could choose.

Anyway, back to the original topic: I think it depends. Certainly, sometimes the original structure performs well enough; sometimes it can be repulsive, oppressive or barbaric; sometimes it's both at once. However, what is imo more important is not necessarily always to disrupt it or to preserve it, but to be sensitive about what one's actions will bring. There's usually a reason why the so-called backward structure has survived so long, and it's probably for the same reason that a supposedly more "advanced" form of government will not be stable. After the fall of the Iron Curtain in 1989, perhaps a lot of people thought that everyone, after getting a whiff of democracy, would do all they can to get more and will not be deterred regardless of the cause. It sounds great and self-assuring, and there were definitely a lot of great soundbites and clips about it (I suppose you can still find them at YouTube) but that view fails to account for the ripening of trends and movements that took decades.

I can't say that sometimes a society can't be radically reformed (whether from outside or not) or that it can't be for the better, but usually it takes a lot of care and planning - or a stunning campaign of bloodshed - to do it right. When one tears down old institutions, one should be also thinking about what, and how, will take their place. A while ago, I read an article contrasting the situation in practically-independent Somaliland with that in Somalia proper. The author made a good case that it wasn't that the former colonial governments - respectively British and Italian - that did such a different job, but that their approach led to the differences: the British had tried to incorporate the tribal structure, while the Italians sought to replace it. Therefore, when both colonial governments were no more, one part had traditional institutions to keep order - and the other didn't.

 

Time to intervene: It was my intention not so much to discuss woman rights here but the way we approach the foreign world when we interact.

For an individual traveller, to adapt is a means of survival. You're alone in a foreign place, with limited insight in the place, the people or culture, language even. Or think of meeting your new partners family or friends for the first time.

For troops sent on a mission to spread democracy and liberty to the benighted hordes down south-east somewhat the situation is both similar and different: They are just like the traveller, with the added disadvantage that they want to change something by force in a foreign place.
So, they are in inferior numbers, and while they can due to superior training, weaponry and organisation 'outkill' anyone, they can influence, but only so far. Iraq shows up the limits, strongly underlined by the US being forced by necessity and not intent to arrange with their former arch enemies - the Anbar insurgents. The original intent to spread western style liberty is on the trash yard there. The tribes join the US there not to become little Americans but to the contrary, to defend their lifestyle against Al Qaeda's zealots. That doesn't mean they won't resist, too, when the US try to impose on them a way of life they don't like.

So, when we throw our weight around to change things, we ought to be aware that ignoring local culture and customs will generate resistance and resentment. That is very simple, and a question of the human nature. So do we, when we utter political demands for reform, ignoring local culture and customs of the countries we direct that at, generate resistance and resentment and opposition, not so much because the government is so vile, but because the people actually like it, no matter the jolly tunes to the contrary that our favourite, western educated pet-exiles sing for us?

Point is how that again influences the way we do politics. Do we accept their norms on their turf, out of necessity, or respect? Or do we simply say: Retards, primitives! There is only one way - ours - and we have taken banner of the the white man's burden, the 'mission civilisatrice' to bring the light to you! Which conveniently also suggests that any resistance to liberty is irrational, and because it dares question the benignity of the our Western motives, malicious.

That is without my snide side to it, what the classical neo-cons say, as expressed best by Fukuyama in his essay 'End of History': Free market capitalism and western liberties are the way to go and the end result of the human condition, no matter what the cultural context. With western (US as for the neo-cons) style liberty history ends, it can't get any better. Any conservative Muslim (or the Chinese) will beg to disagree and point to his religion's and culture's old and strong collectivist tradition (the Chinese in particular). To get back to Kaplan:

Can we derive from that that it is sensible in foreign policy to accept deviation, violation of our norms abroad because 'them over there', as a result of their tradition, don't see them as norm violations? Are we right and they wrong? Are our norms and views right, and their norms and views, as the traditions that inform them, wrong? Is ours the only way to create a stable, just and dignified society?

 

Sorry, Ragusa, I didn't intend to sidetrack your topic. What I intended was to point out that intervention can actually cause a society to regress.

No, intervention can actually cause the society to become unstable and chaotic. It loses the good it had and fails to take on the good of the intervening society. Case-in-point, just look at how society in the USA has changed during my life time. I approve and supported many of the changes but ,IMO, we have lost a great deal of the 'stability' that existed prior to 1964. However, we can't progress without causing some upheaval even if the intervention comes from within the society itself.

 

Nakia,
point taken Besides, no pun, whatsoever, intended.

 

What do you mean here? Liberty is the right to choose one's destiny. Sometimes people can even choose not to be free. The thing is, it's their choice. Also, do you really mean it when you comment that Bush is "spreading democracy?" If you do, then you are one of the last who believe that myth. Bush is in Iraq to defend the interests of American corporations and the investment that the West has made in the region regarding its highly prized natural resources.

There was a moment, long gone now, in which all of us were amazed to see Iraqis go vote - it was a dramatic photo-op and it held all of us in a spell for just a moment of shared humanity. But the moment has long faded into the ruins of civil war, the public lynching of Saddam and the continued occupation of Iraq, which should have ended after the founding of the Iraq Constitutional government. Now we are there, protecting the Iraqis from themselves. Yes, forgive me, that even that notion seems to lack any real credibility.

 

America today is much more stable than it was prior to '64. See the insanity of, oh, Reconstruction through the Great Depression, toss in WWII and McCarthy...

 

And the Cold War....

 

True enough. We came within a hairsbreadth of nuclear annihilation on more than one occasion. It'll be at least a few decades before we see that kinda tension again.

 

Come on now. We have a high rate of divorce thereby causing family instability, dope is much more prevalent, we have shootings at schools and now churches, we are involved in various global conflicts including but not limited to Iraq, we have men not knowing whether or not to compliment a woman or open a door for her, grade school teachers who fear their students. I am certainly not advocating a return to archaic and outdated "Good Old Golden Days" but change creates upheaval and one man's paradise may be another's hell. Not all women are feminists. We do not have the right to impose change on other nations simply because we believe our way is the best way.

My answer to this. We respect 'their norms on their turf'. We may suggest or show by example but we have no right to insist.

 

Nonetheless, our nation is much more stable now than it was 1866-1963. Compare the social instability created by divorce to the social instability created just by labor tension in the prior period. Is divorce likely to result in mass bloodshed? No. In contrast, labor disputes regularly resulted in mass bloodshed (I'll point to the multiple instances during WWI when HMGs were used on rioters). Our economy is much more stable than it was during that periodl; compare the dot com and subprime mortgage bubbles and the Savings & Loan debacle to the roller coaster ride of the 1800s, nevermind the Depression. Hell, compare the oil embargo to those periods. Consider the instability of the civil rights movement. Consider that we've been involved in global conflict since 1898--and remember the extermination of the Indians.

Now consider the examples you point to again. You're pointing at things that result in unstable situations for individuals. I'm pointing to things that resulted in instability in society as a whole.

 

Some of the problems you cite are a result of economics and are not political problems. Opening a car door for a woman is not really a political problem at all, but one of good manners. Making women sit at the back of a mosque or not allowing them to drive a car for themselves represent more than poor manners.

 

Having lived through the 1960's and 70's which were unstable I disagree with some of the above statements. Nations are made up of individuals, what affects the individual affects the nation and vice versa. You can work from the bottom up or the top down depending on circumstances. However as I understand it this thread is about the right of one Nation or group of people to impose their idea of proper government on another nation or group. The point I have been trying to make and obviously failing is that change frequently results in upheaval. There is an old saying; "The devil we know is better than the devil we don't know." Just because I see something as repressive does not mean that the individual experiencing it sees it that way. Again I repeat; society is made up of individuals. Revolutions happen because a sufficient number of individuals band together to revolt.

 

Yes, and some of them may even want to think for themselves.

 

Yes, Chandos, and they may think that the way they do things is better than the way you or I do things.

 

That would appear to be the point of thinking for one's self - even if it is at the expense of the "stability of greater" society.