By Leila Yasmine Khan and Daud Khan
AMSTERDAM/ROME, Jun 24, 2019 (IPS) – As China rapidly replaces Europe
and the USA as the key player in developing countries, the Western press
is full of articles about the dangers of dealing with the Chinese.
China, it is said, is not liberal and not democratic and hence is not a
trustworthy partner in strategic and economic matters. An often cited
example is that of Hambantota – a strategically located port that was
handed over by the Sri Lankan Government to the Chinese in lieu of
repayment of loans.
Of course,
closely corresponding examples of what was done by western countries are
not mentioned such as Diego Garcia. This is a strategically located
island in the middle of the Indian Ocean. In the late 1960s, the USA and
United Kingdom forcibly removed the local population and established a
military base.
Acts like that of
Diego Garcia are justified by the excuse that they were necessary to
safeguard democracy and liberalism. The most glaring recent example for
western countries going to war to defend democracy is in Iraq.
The USA invaded Iraq to save democratic countries (read Israel) from
Iraqi weapons of mass destruction and to liberate the Iraqi people from
an undemocratic regime. This narrative had strong resonance in Congress,
in the Senate, in the popular media and among the general public and
created a groundswell of support for the Shock and Awe campaign.
In a few weeks over 1,500 air strikes were launched against Iraq and
almost 7,000 civilians were killed. A triumphant President Bush was able
to proudly announce “Mission Accomplished” to an adulating public and
pave the way to a second term in office.
An important question for developing countries is: are these patterns
of behavior aberrations in what are otherwise free, peaceful and caring
societies; or are they an integral part of the political systems of
these countries?
Would things be
different if more leaders of the western world were like Justin Trudeau?
Would things be different if Hilary Clinton had won the election
instead of Donald Trump? Will things be different if the aggressive
tendencies of the deep state and occult elites, such as the
military-industrial complex, are harnessed by more democratic
institutions? In order to answer this we need to look a little into the political philosophy and social consensus that underpins these societies.
Over the last two to three centuries, the values espoused by the Enlightenment – freedom, equality, dignity and independence – have come to dominate the political and socio-economical mainstream in Europe and the USA.
This classical liberalism was complemented by shared views on social
justice, the welfare state, and a reliance on the free market for the
allocation of a society’s resources. The view that the liberal,
democratic, free-market system is the best way to organize society is
now widely shared in the West.
A
somewhat deeper look suggests that aggression and exploitation are not
an aberration but are very much part of western liberalism. In their
critique to John Rawls’ liberal theory, modern political philosophers
such as Charles W. Mills, Leif Wenar and Branko Milanovic point out that
a liberal society is “a cooperative venture for mutual advantage”
regulated by rules for advancing the interests “of those taking part in
it”.
The practical manifestation of
this is that the social commitment to liberal beliefs often tends to
translate into a belief that if the system is under threat, or perceived
to be under threat, it is legitimate to defend it against others – by
violence when necessary.
As a result the values of peace, freedom and
liberty, which are the pillars of western liberal society, tend not to
be extended to countries outside this system. Diplomatic pressure,
collusion, corruption and, when necessary, war are justified by the fact
that these other societies have systems and values distinct from the
liberal ones.
As in the case of the Iraq war, the 9/11 attacks and the perceived threat to democracy, and the western way of life,
created an unprecedented wave of popular indignation. It was
considered more than sufficient cause to bomb Afghanistan back to the
stone-age and to threaten other countries with a similar fate.
History abounds with similar examples where liberal societies have had
no qualms about going to war with the excuse of bringing civilization,
trade or democracy to other countries. In the same vein, western
democracies have no second thoughts about making alliances with
repressive and undemocratic regimes whenever it suited them.
The fact that western liberal societies are capable of colonialism and
war does not mean that China is going to be heaven-sent, or that
developing countries should abandon our progress towards liberal values
such as tolerance, freedom and equality. However, it does mean that they
should not get swayed by the anti-China rhetoric of the western press
but take a pragmatic approach way for the good of the country.
(Leila Yasmine Khan is an independent writer and editor based in the
Netherlands. She has Master’s in Philosophy and a Master’s in
Argumentation and Rhetoric from the University of Amsterdam, as well as a
Bachelor’s Degree in Philosophy from the University of Rome (Roma Tre).
Daud Khan a retired UN staff based in Rome. He has degrees in economics
from the LSE and Oxford – where he was a Rhodes Scholar, and a degree
in Environmental Management from the Imperial College of Science and
Technology.)