Timothy Garton Ash (Guardian Utd): Beyond the west

[Jack Rabbit]

From the Guardian Unlimited (UK)
Dated Thursday June 10

Beyond the west
The free world has global responsibilities - and the most important is to end the poverty that blights millions of lives
By Timothy Garton Ash

In today's world, more people are more free than ever before. Our possibilities of helping the others out of unfreedom are also larger than ever. But what are the basic terms of engagement that we, in the west, propose to the rest of the world? At the moment, there are two extreme positions, the western triumphalist fundamentalist and the western cultural relativist. The first is well captured in the opening of the Bush administration's 2002 national security strategy. "The great struggles of the 20th century between liberty and totalitarianism ended with a decisive victory for the forces of freedom," it begins, with perfect accuracy, but then goes on "and a single sustainable model for national success: freedom, democracy and free enterprise." A single sustainable model? What titanic hubris.
The cultural relativist position says: "These values are peculiar to the west; we cannot expect Muslims or Confucians to share them; therefore we should not expect of them the respect for human rights, free speech, democracy and so forth that we expect among ourselves." This is equally misguided.
The right way lies between these two extremes. It can be described, without apology, as the path of freedom - not just for us but for all. Freedom is hard to define, let alone achieve, but those who are unfree know exactly what unfreedom is. A Confucian no more enjoys having his nails pulled out than a Christian. To see your daughter raped by a militia gang is as soul-rending for a Muslim as for a Jew. So many people in the world still live, and die, in an unfreedom that we can be quite sure they do not want, simply because they are human and we are human. What is now the most widespread form of basic unfreedom? Sixty years ago, when Franklin Roosevelt spelled out his "four freedoms", most of us would probably have said dictatorships and the wars they cause. Today, the answer must be poverty. The first freedom towards which we should now work is Roosevelt's "freedom from want".

Read more.

[Hoping4Change]

1. The two extreme positions are both profoundly misguided

as he points out. As a progessive I get particulary teed off with others of the left who suscribe to the cultural relativist position because it like fundamentalism is too static. Both want to hold tradition and cultural as hallowed, and beyond repoarch. My position is that everything should be open to criticism and tradition should never be allowed to trump thought.

The only way however to convince the Right that suffering matters is to forget appeals to high ideals and start ramming down their throats that ignorance and suffering are breeding grounds for terrorists.

What would the world be like if the West had funded real schools in Pakistan instead of letting fundamentalist Madrasses get a foothold? The West had an opportunity to instill Western values but didn't want to spend the cash.

Personally I believe that there is a moral imperative to alleviate suffering but appeals to morality unfortunatley won't move mountains.

[IrateCitizen]

2. I've got mixed feelings on many of the thoughts in this article

I am certainly no fan of the kind of hubris engaged in by the right wing here in the United States. Plus, the author is spot-on in highlighting the need for the rich nations to pony up funds to assist the developing world.

However, I am a bit leery of his reliance on two words as part of the cure -- FREE TRADE. Personally, what I think we need more of is the way that China and Brazil helped galvanize the opposition to the US and EU at the recent Cancun summit of the WTO. Brazil held a similar capacity in scaling back the reach of the FTAA.

In short, the developing nations of the world need to ORGANIZE and come together to form regional trade blocs that the US and EU will have to pay attention to. As I pointed out above, Brazil is already assuming this role within the South American bloc. Frankly, the developing nations of the world cannot sit around and wait for the EU and US to play fair, because they are not going to. Rather, trade needs to be freed up between relatively equal partners within a region, while these regions form "blocs" that unify in ensuring fair deals with other trade blocs -- a mix of free trade AND protectionism. IMHO, the EU provides an excellent role model in this instance, especially in regards to the way in which it has sought to actually RAISE the living standards of people in new entrants, to ensure a level playing field (as opposed to the US approach, which is to push standards down).

Furthermore, as much as I can appreciate his disdain for cultural relativism, modernizing societies must, at the same time, be permitted to find their own path toward modernization as much as possible. While it is tempting for the industrialized world to stand up and proclaim its virtue and respect for human dignity, let us also remember that the process of modernization in Europe was perhaps bloodier than anywhere else on the planet, with millions upon millions killed in near-constant warfare, culminating with the rise and defeat of fascism in WWII.

French historian and demographer Emmanuel Todd highlights this modernization process in his book After the Empire. He points out Iran as a prime example of a country finding its way toward modernization on its own terms, supported by the increasing literacy of its society and, more importantly, a birth rate (2.1) nearing the range of Western societies. As a counter example, Todd offers up Afghanistan, whose modernization process may actually be hindered by the recent well-intentioned intervention of Western women's rights groups following the US invasion, because now the two are equated with one another, and warlords are able to connect fighting off the invading "infidels" with a maintenance of their "cultural values" which condemn women to second class citizenship, at best.

[muriel_volestrangler]

3. True; but his audience is primarily the British

(a lot of the preceding articles are about how he thinks the UK should relate to the rest of the world), and he does say:
"The first step is to practise what we preach: free trade. We should open our markets to their goods and cut our agricultural subsidies. This can only happen if America and Europe do it together."

And he sort of agrees with you about Europe having to let other find their own way, and having problems in its past:
"We also need to be modest about our ability to find the answers for other societies. Liberal democracy is the best form of government yet discovered. But if you rush to a multi-party election without first developing the underpinnings of liberal democracy - the rule of law, civil society, private property, independent media - you can end up with what Fareed Zakaria has called "illiberal democracy". We can, and should, offer a toolbox of experiences in all aspects of transition, from how to write a constitution to how to deal with a difficult past. But then it's up to them."