Phill took deeply corrupt labor party hack,bob hawkes seat as an independent.
The problem with defending America's 'cause'
February 11 2003
If Saddam is a criminal, then so too was Richard Nixon, Lyndon Johnson and
Queen Victoria, writes Phil Cleary.
Pamela Bone, in her column "Losing patience with the left" last Saturday,
only confirms how tough it has become to defend America's war plans. Even
Robert Manne, who could hardly be accused of being from the left, accepts,
in his column yesterday, that the "democratic-humanitarian" argument for
war in Iraq is flawed. Contrary to Bone's assertions, the left's opposition
to the proposed US war on Iraq has nothing to do with cultural relativism.
In recent times Bone has unearthed some barbaric acts of terror against
women in "fundamentalist Muslim" countries and has quite reasonably asked
whether cultural relativism had been behind the West's refusal to act
against these governments. And although Saddam Hussein doesn't qualify as
"fanatically Muslim", she can still find an outrage - the alleged public
beheading of two prostitutes in Iraq - to tug at our heart. Such acts
should be condemned. But if true, should they help persuade the left to
support the invasion of Iraq?
If the answer is yes, how do we defend our own legal and political system's
acquiescence in the family violence now being unearthed in Australia? A
society doesn't have to behead prostitutes or engage in genital mutilation
to be a partner in terror against women. Ask the battered women who flee to
dehumanising refuges or experience humiliation in our criminal justice
system whether they know terror. Sadly, I hear so many stories that I'm
past the "it only happens in Muslim countries" mantra.
If our record on family violence hasn't been bad enough, how do we explain
the murder and dispossession of indigenous Australians and the stealing of
their children - something close to Manne's heart - by the state?
I'm no cultural relativist. I'm just conscious of how easy it is to be well
meaning yet unwittingly practising a mixture of cultural imperialism and
hypocrisy. And we shouldn't forget that the most vociferous proponents of
military intervention to "free Iraqis from Saddam's terror" are often the
same people who demand that refugees from Iraq should be treated like
criminals and sent to barbed-wire zoos in the Australian desert.
On the road to democracy, Britain and America were guilty of some of the
worst crimes against humanity. British government complicity in the Irish
famine, the grinding poverty and social dislocation of industrialism and
convict transportation, and barbaric public execution don't belong in
Britain's dark ages. The slaughter of the American Indian, the enslavement
and murder of black Americans, the blood-soaked Civil War that brought
about the union, and the napalming of Vietnamese villages are part of
America's recent history. Yet the kings and queens and presidents who
presided over these epochs are treated as heroes in the history books. If,
as Bone argues, Saddam should be put before the International Criminal
Court, should presidents Richard Nixon and Lyndon Johnson, and Queen
Victoria's ancestors, be dealt with posthumously to show we are not hypocrites?
Do the defenders of war think Nelson Mandela was missing the point when he
told the world that George Bush couldn't think straight and this war was
about oil? Was Mandela being a "cultural relativist" when he asked why no
one condemned Israel for having nuclear weapons?
Bone provides us with an answer when she says "criminal states cannot be
allowed to have weapons of mass destruction". It's right for Israel, the US
and Britain to stockpile nuclear weapons, but we can't let those Arabs
follow suit. Is it any wonder Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad
likens us to a Western sheriff and Muslims generally believe we are racist?
Racists could never be accused of cultural relativity.
A war against Iraq won't liberate the people of Iraq or stem the potential
for terror. And imposing a puppet government won't lead to an improvement
of human rights or end the jarring infant mortality that cripples Iraq.
Instead, it will reinforce the view in the Arabic world that Western
governments are blind to the fabric of their life, but cunning and
mercenary where their own economic interests are concerned.
The responsibility for regime change in Iraq - as it was when Americans
embarked on their War of Independence against England, and when Oliver
Cromwell began the struggle that culminated centuries later in English
Chartism and the vote - belongs with the sovereign people, not some
imperial power.
The political arguments aside, I wouldn't follow George Bush into the park
to play ball let alone into the Gulf to play war. I'd rather sit and listen
to Nelson Mandela.
Phil Cleary is an author and former independent federal MP.
www.philcleary.com.au
http://theage.com.au/articles/2003/02/10/1044725732460.html
