Internationalism and Us

There is one element of Labour policy fixed in aspic: our internationalism. It nearly wasn’t so. If the likes of the Left anti-Imperialists had their way, Labour would have disengaged abroad not just for the generation prior to the Second World War, but thereafter. Attlee wouldn’t have built the Socialist ‘bomb’ under a Labour government, but handed the national security agenda over to the Tories for a generation during the height of the Cold War. But the isolationist Left didn’t win the ideological war then and neither should they now.

There is a pernicious argument that has seeped through the Left, it says that what happens in another sovereign territory is none of our business, because after all ‘it’s their culture’. It isn’t the same as saying, as Tories do, ‘none of our business’, but in terms of political praxis it means exactly the same. Once you retreat from universal values; a defence of women’s rights, attacking homophobia and racism, supporting trade unions, you can no longer be a progressive. Our problem is, much of the Left, spurred on by anti-American sentiment have allied themselves with those who despise the aforementioned values, the Left’s defence of the Iran regime and as a lesser evil support for Chavez in Venezuela show that my enemies’ enemy cannot and should not be a friend.

The Euston Manifesto celebrated its first anniversary with a series of Parliamentary debates (youtube.com/EustonManifesto) and an excellent conference at SOAS on May 30th. If nothing else, the Manifesto aims with forceful clarity of purpose to reemphasize the very basic foundations of what it means to be on the Left, put simply: don’t support suicide bombers in any circumstance, don’t give a platform to fascists, don’t back down from set universal human rights standards anywhere, and do not pretend that the Left can survive in one nation (your nation). Nick Cohen calls it, ‘a statement of the blindingly obvious’, but from the adverse media reaction when printed in the pages of the New Statesman, not so obvious that it didn’t warrant a good old-fashioned kicking from ex-Trots, the liberal intelligentsia and that section of academia who’d rather spend hours comparing Bin Laden to Che Guevara (both murderers, I suppose), than proposing a sensible alternative foreign policy.

In the coming years, once the dust has settled on the Blair era, there are to be a series of foreign policy debates within the Labour party. Do we go forward with internationalism and complex solidarities, or do we retreat into a comfort zone of meaningless rhetoric about Palestine, US ‘imperialism’ and the ‘root causes of terrorism’? The temptation to go down the later route will be greater than ever before in our party’s history, for unlike the eighties, sloganeering about US ‘imperialism’ is actually quite popular amongst middle-class swing-voters. Blaming the US / Israel (even ourselves) for Islamism and 9/11 is no longer the preserve of the lunatic Left, but mainstream, even ‘common sense’.

But to play the hard Left’s blame game, will mean the abandonment of our values, and in a vivid sense the death of what our party strove for in the second half of the twentieth century for women, ethnic minorities and gay people. If we say that the West is to blame for Islamism, and its culture of misogyny and homophobia, do we then retreat from these values or hold firm regardless, knowing it will bring another series of suicide attacks on our nation? The recently convicted terrorists Omar Khyam, Jawad Akbar, Salahuddin Amin, Waheed Mahmood, and Anthony Garcia, all wanted to destroy decadent symbols of the West, the Ministry of Sound and Bluewater Shopping Centre. Plots have also involved the G.A.Y nightclub in Soho. But whilst there is supposedly a root cause for Islamist terrorism, the Left made no such justifications for fascist nail-bomber David Copeland when he committed his heinous crime against drinkers in the Admiral Duncan pub.

Labour must justify its foreign policy, but not renegade from the principles that underpinned our support for Muslims in Kosovo, or play into the hands of the Left by pretending the government has not tried hard to build a Palestinian state (as well as being the 2nd biggest donor to the Palestinian people). We need to keep vigilant against the conservative instincts that want to blame us for the act of autonomous actors and be vocal in defending the rights of women, gay people, and ethnic minorities (such as Darfuris) abroad. For we are nothing if not internationalist.

Comments

[el Tom]

Agree with all of this apart from this:

"We need to keep vigilant against the conservative instincts that want to blame us for the act of autonomous actors"

No, it's blaming you for facilitating their capability to carry those acts out, thereby causing a death toll and social collapse beyond Saddam's wildest dreams...

[Stan Rosenthal]

Excellent post, Michael. As for El Tom's (usual) point, what it amounts to is don't stand up to terrorism; it only makes things worse. A guy called Neville Chamberlain had a similar idea back in the 1930's.

[donpaskini]

Hi Michael,

I don't quite understand whether what you are saying is 'we should support the Labour government's current foreign policy', or 'we should change our foreign policy so that it is based on a universal set of values'. These are two very different arguments.

For example, does what you are arguing mean that we should withdraw from co-operating with countries where women, gay people and ethnic minorities are discriminated against? Or at the very least, stop giving them aid, as we do at the moment? People I know who fled from Gaddafi's fascist regime in Libya were very angry when Tony Blair recently went to visit Gaddafi, for example.

[Michael Harris]

el Tom, again you are taking responsibility for the action of suicide bombing say markets full of people, from the bomber himself to our actions as democratic nations. The responsibility lies with the bomber: he decided to attack a 'soft' target, civilians, and not 'hard' military targets.

Thanks Stan - I agree, terrorism is not justified full stop.

Donpaskini, its an appraisal of the Labour party's current foreign policy (albeit imperfect) but also a call for a more strident defence of universal values.

I think that Blair's meeting with Gaddafi could bring Libya back into the international community, but I think that our current position vis a vis Saudi Arabia simply isn't good enough. We need to make it clear to the Saudis that they need to reform, or cooperation shall not be forthcoming. It is difficult, but Blair could have used his final days in office to enunciate this worldview to the Saudis, as well as not backing down over the SFO investigation into BAE (there's one important universal standard: the rule of law). He didn't and I think that is a real shame.

[donpaskini]

Hi Michael,

But isn't meeting with a fascist leader such as Gaddafi a form of appeasement? After all, so-called 'realists' used to make the same arguments about why it was important to meet with Saddam Hussein.

I agree with you about Saudi Arabia. There is a real problem in areas where the choice is between a corrupt dictatorship and an Islamist movement which would win power if there were elections. Islamists get a lot of support from people who don't share their agenda but see them as the only alternative.

It can be very difficult for Western governments to support democratic objectives (and, to be honest, the current American government wouldn't have any interest in building up social democratic parties based on the labour movement and trade unions in the Middle East - this isn't an anti-American point, just that the Republican Party comes from a different political tradition). But I think more international co-operation 'from below', probably led by trade unions from around the world working together across borders, will be needed to build up an alternative to dictators and Islamists.

[el Tom]

"what it amounts to is don't stand up to terrorism"

How and where have I said anything to that effect? This is one of the most poorly constructed straw men I have had the occasion to meet.

If anything, I am lamenting strategies which cause civil breakdown and a desert of political support precisely for the fact that they fail to stand up to terrorism; indeed, they create conditions in which it is far easier for terrorism to prosper; hence the ease of the terrorist insurgency in Iraq.

All terrorism is morally reprehensible.

The argument in which we are engaged, however, is more about how it is to be prevented and countered. Or indeed, if it is to be prevented at all. It is clearly distinct.

The political strategy which Iraq has represented, form day one, has in fact included not a single element of preventing terrorism, but has relied solely on countering it, after providing it with the perfect conditions in which to prosper.

Further, you should remember that fighting terrorism was not a commonly used UK justification for Iraq; there were no terrorists there. I think though, that we should have taken into account, in our weighing up of the factors in going into Iraq, the likelihood of our removal of Saddam leading to a civil breakdown (bad enough), and the separate problem of it a) giving terrorists something, rightly or wrongly, to react against and use as a recruiting tool, and b) causing a logistical, social and political collapse of a country besieged by supporters of terror on all sides.

Before the war I think it was fairly evident that this would happen. Completely predictable. I also think the scale of the death toll (completely putting that of Saddam to shame, rendering him, rather disgracefully, a 'pretty nice bloke' in comparison to the terrorists who now run riot) was completely predictable, making the war itself thereby unsustainable in a utilitarian moral context.

I think we should, instead of doing this, allowing it to happen, knowing in advance, before reacting in a fashion which could only be futile, concentrated on prevention, by building civil societies capable of preventing terrorism, and political support against it, by undermining those terrorists who seek to foster a 'clash of civilisations' mentality.

Just as I believed that, one of my many reasons for opposing the war in the first place, I also supprt that as a future strategy. I feel that 'hard' power is best used reactivley in these circumstances, and welcome Gordon Brown's renewed emphasis on an economic solution, and a 'hearts and minds' strategy. I just hope it's not to late.

In my view, we should be fighting something very similar to a new cold war. We should concentrate on helping people to undermine their own abusive regimes, by building, via material aid, political support for democracy and democratic revolutions (a lot less bloody than the path we have chosen, also a lot more sustainable and stable). We should work towards better containment mechanisms. We should fight a proxy style of warfare rather than a full frontal one, and we should engage in a new Marshall plan for poorer countries who can prove they are treating their citizenry properly.

Unfortunately the UK has a history of chronically neglecting all of the above, mostly through a lack of vision, foolishness, and impatience.

In this context, impatience is a killer.

[Stan Rosenthal]

Sorry el Tom, I should have said "what it amounts to is don't stand up to terrorism EFFECTIVELY i.e. using force as well as addressing the root causes."

Your response will no doubt be to gleefully question how effective that strategy has been in Iraq, bearing in mind the current mayhem. To which I would reply that the soft option alternatives of in effect allowing Saddam and his psycho sons to get away with their mass murders or giving in to the post-invasion mass murderers might have been even worse, both locally and globally.

"Containment" and "helping the people to undermine an abusive regime" was tried in Iraq ( to the extent that this was possible in a police state) and failed miserably. And how the hell would you have "built a civil society capable of preventing terrorism" under Saddam, unless it was by leaving him to it?

[David Floyd]

"Do we go forward with internationalism and complex solidarities, or do we retreat into a comfort zone of meaningless rhetoric about Palestine, US ‘imperialism’ and the ‘root causes of terrorism’?"

Given a choice between those two options, we obviously do the first one.

But internationalism and complex solidarities involves picking and choosing when we do and don't attempt to remove nasty regimes.

Unless your position is that we remove all governments that don't back: "a defence of women’s rights, attacking homophobia and racism, supporting trade unions,"

In which case we'll have get to virtually every man, woman and child in the country into the British army and prepare to invade over 100 countries to replace their governments.

Assuming you're not supporting that, we need to make practical judgements on a case by case basis.

[freeradical]

"If the likes of the Left anti-Imperialists had their way, Labour would have disengaged abroad not just for the generation prior to the Second World War"

The Left certainly had no time for the British Empire and supported colonial freedom. It was an internationalist position-the same people were advocates of collective security against the fascist threat, not isolationism. They supported sanctions against Mussolini's invasion of Ethiopia, helped give moral and material assistance to the anti-fascist forces in Spain, and criticised the Munich Agreement.

"Attlee wouldn’t have built the Socialist ‘bomb’ under a Labour government"

Frankly, the possession or otherwise of nuclear weapons by the UK were an irrelevance in the superpower conflict. Also, surely it is widely accepted now that the scale of the post-war UK rearmament programme was simply unaffordable given our welfare state ambitions, split the Labour party (Bevan's resignation), and thus was a contributory factor in the 1951 electoral defeat?

"There is a pernicious argument that has seeped through the Left, it says that what happens in another sovereign territory is none of our business, because after all ‘it’s their culture’."

How many people on the Left can you point to who actually make such an argument? I don't deny there are some who think like that, often on the irrelevantly extreme non-Labour left, but I don't think that stated in that bald form such relativism is as prevalent on the Left as you suggest. It is perfectly possible to be an opponent of the war in Iraq and other aspects of US foreign policy without being a moral relativist.

"the Left’s defence of the Iran regime and as a lesser evil support for Chavez in Venezuela show that my enemies’ enemy cannot and should not be a friend."

The two states cannot be compared. Iran is a right wing theocratic state. Few on the Left would support it. Opposing a US military invasion of Iran does not make you a supporter of the Iranian regime.

Venezuela has a democratic socialist government that is redistributing wealth to the poor and which internal and external reactionary anti-democratic forces are seeking to undermine. That does not place the policies of Chavez beyond criticism-anymore than we should refrain from criticising the policies of the Labour government here when needed-but, like our Labour government, his government does deserve the solidarity of all those who claim to support the universal values of the Left.

"We need to keep vigilant against the conservative instincts that want to blame us for the act of autonomous actors"

No, it is your view that is very simplistic right wing individualism. The Left recognises that actors have autonomy, but they operate within a social context. In effect you are making the same argument that conservative moralists do when they say we don't need to bother about dealing with the causes of crime.

"For we are nothing if not internationalist."

If so, where is your recognition of the tremendous harm caused past and present by rich powerful nations on poorer, less powerful ones? You seem to lack any intellectual critique or even concept of imperialism.

Stan Rosenthal said:

"the soft option alternatives of in effect allowing Saddam and his psycho sons to get away with their mass murders or giving in to the post-invasion mass murderers might have been even worse, both locally and globally."

This is really very weak. You are now having to resort to justifying the war by saying we cannot *prove* not going to war might not have been worse!

[el Tom]

"Your response will no doubt be to gleefully question how effective that strategy has been in Iraq, bearing in mind the current mayhem..."

Correct, naturally...

"To which I would reply that the soft option alternatives of in effect allowing Saddam and his psycho sons to get away with their mass murders"

Above I broadly picture a different direction to achieving the same ends as yourself; without the unnecessary bloodshed and wholesale destruction of infrastructure.

In any event, He was under the watch of an entirely effective no-fly policy, and his country was riddled both with UN and intelligence agents. By the time of the war, Saddam's genocide were a thing of the past, and would have been suicide were they to be carried out in the future.

Further... what is worse: to watch Saddam (in rather unlikely fashion) continue to behave in such a manner, or to watch what is currently happening kill at around 400 (work it out) times the rate Saddam managed? I'd rather the former.

"or giving in to the post-invasion mass murderers might have been even worse, both locally and globally."

I don't see how. Saddam was a bulwark against the al-qaedist scum who now have an effective arc of power over the whole middle east, having even overwhelmed material poltical opposition in Syria, of all places. Also see my paragraphs above. Then factor into the equation that the decision at the time was made factoring in WMD into the threat Saddam created (despite the fact that we refused to re-insert weapons inspectors, even when invited to do so).

""Containment" and "helping the people to undermine an abusive regime" was tried in Iraq ( to the extent that this was possible in a police state)"

Indeed, completely halfheartedly. Look at the catastrophic failure of the west to provide political or logistical support to the moderately minded shia uprising against Saddam. That's just one example (probably the biggest).

"and failed miserably."

Largely because it was half-arsed.

However, it result in the destruction of Saddam's WMD, weapons inspectors, and an end to his genocidal streak; all without making Iraq int oa terrorist's playground.

"And how the hell would you have "built a civil society capable of preventing terrorism" under Saddam, unless it was by leaving him to it?""

I would have started off in the 1970s, for a start; but of course, that's hardly an option.

I would have encouraged arms build ups on both sides of the Iraq/Iran border, in coupling with economic isolation of both; ensuring that while their governments remained, and they were sucked towards mutual conflict, they were robbed of the ability to remain independent (remember that their respective governments would have the incentives of coercion-maintenance on their own soil) under sanctioned conditions.

I would have used trade and economics as a weapon to bring friendly Arab states to bear on him, and secured that by lifting the less necessary sanctions as part of a deal.

I would have subjected Saddam to a sustained propaganda war, smuggled in illicit funds to civil society groups, as well as supporting those revolutionary forces I described above.

There are plenty of ways to undermine and bring bulwarks of support against leaders, so long as you're willing to commit the time and resources; which we weren't. War, on the other hand, has paid for itself, in reconstruction contracts and siphoned oil revenues.

To be honest, I would rather have splashed the cash on doing it properly; like I said, in the style of Marshall aid.

My feeling is that had we done this, we would eventually have had majority support in Iraq, while isolating it from the islamic extremist minority which also plagues it today. Iraq had the potential to become a democratic state, but when you have to bomb someone's relatives or children to install a democratic system, it often has far less support than it rightfully should on merit. Democracy itself becomes stigmatised and associated with both violence and geopolitical/military domination (i.e. democracy, perversely, becomes popularly associated with an actual loss of self determination!)

Actually, I think that Iraq provides a perfect example of that.

Now, I don't claim to have a monopoly on correctness about anything that I've said above. I'm not the Prime Minister, Stan. But we do all have a right to consider and scrutinise, as well as to suggest our own ideas.

What I am trying to say, I suppose, is that in each situation there were multiple alternatives which were not taken, and the solution chosen in the end was the opposite of adequate for all parties involved, in any event.

[el Tom]

In any event, better life than democracy. If my alternative failed, it would still be better than allowing at least 655,000 be slaughtered by, in the larger portion at least, the fundamentalists.

[el Tom]

More on containment:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=9ffbd-ZU380

[el Tom]

And I'd probably do stuff like this:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,,-6731263,00.html

[Stan Rosenthal]

el Tom, as I've pointed out to you elsewhere, Saddam, through his invasions and mass murders was responsible for the deaths of MILLIONS (compared with the thousands regrettably killed by the coalition in getting rid of him). Who knows how many more killings there might have been if he had been allowed to stay in office and eventually transfer power to his psychotic sons.

Better that kind of repression than the numbers of deaths you mention? Tell that to the millions of Iraqis who risked death to vote in democratic elections, and to the 60% majority in fairly recent opinion polls regarded as reliable by even critics of the war, who declared that getting rid of Saddam was worth the hardship entaiiled.

In your world, el Tom, The Magnificent Seven would become The Seven Dwarfs scampering away at the first whiff of danger.

[el Tom]

Outside of his response to the Islamists in the Iran-Iraq war, I struggle to see where you get you (quite unspecific) numbers from. I invite you to lay them out. Especially if you wish to do it against a timescale.