[Debate] "The worst treatment of Gaddafi loyalists appeared to be reserved for anyone with black skin"

[Riaz K Tayob]

Moral relativism is hard. There are crossroads where differences arise 
that come down to judgements that can be somewhat personal.

But it is this kind of reasoning by Devan that gets to me. Would Devan 
support Mark Thatcher's "coup" in Equitorial Guinea for example? Or 
regime change in Bahrain? It is the lack of search of or development of 
principles amidst this morass that worries me most.

The issue many of the neohumanitarians used to make their claim was 
protection of civilians. But even from Achcar we know that many of them 
did not expect NATO to stick by the fig leaf UN Resolution. Now regime 
change, which is merely a reaction to the NATO agenda and facts on the 
ground, is the plot! What does not fit the world view is automatically 
excluded - and this speaks of ideology as much as what Yoshie is accused of.

Some plain speaking on this issue would be very good, particularly if a 
reasoned approach is to be adopted toward what is essentially the West's 
project to define the "Democratic State" (with all its susceptibility to 
neoliberal/corporate power) coupled with the "right to interfere" as 
many of these position make common cause with that BHL cause de celebre. 
This is the issue from a wider perspective. It is not beyond the US to 
donate food aid that has GMOs to starving Africans who have laws against 
it or to give food aid so that local production systems are decimated. 
That said, it is not that the US is incapable of doing good. And by 
analogy, preventing compulsory licensing of Aids meds certainly is not 
case to celebrate their donations to People Living with HIV and AIDS!

 From my vantage the progressive neohumanitarians have yet to make a 
case for intervention as well as sustaining it. Now that events have 
surpassed these issues, they are neither irrelevant nor out of bounds of 
scrutiny. We do find ourselves in circumstances not of our making, and 
how these come about are as important as the current conjuntures.

Let us hope neohumanitarian interventionists realise that their "right 
to interfere" should stop where the rights of the ordinary Libyans to 
self determination begin. Or perhaps I am just being quaint and old 
fashioned? They failed in articulating safeguards and now the powers 
that be may run amok. Or not. Let us see.



On 2011/08/27 02:34 AM, Yoshie Furuhashi wrote:
> Devan says "Qadafi has to leave (almost) at all cost!"
> I ask: Even at the cost of war and racism?
>
> <http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle-east/libyan-rebels-fight-pockets-of-resistance-continue-hunt-for-gaddafi/2011/08/26/gIQAM2BpfJ_story.html>
> Libyan rebels carry out reprisal attacks
>
> By Simon Denyer, Updated: Friday, August 26, 10:30 AM
>