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Politics : Sharks in the Septic Tank -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Lane3 who wrote (10887)	4/9/2001 7:09:58 PM
From: epicure	Respond to of 82486

Oh damn- I didn't even read your post before I wrote mine. See, the ditto thing is going to work for me.

To: Lane3 who wrote (10887)	4/9/2001 11:30:23 PM
From: E	Read Replies (4) \| Respond to of 82486

I think it's an extremely convenient position to take, that the world is so overwhelmingly diverse in the tragedies it presents for our consideration that, since the development of some scale of judgment is and always will be difficult, the best thing to do is something easier. The fact is, a great spectrum of engagement is accessible to the averagely conscient democratically-based government, and/or its officials with influence. Governments respond very inconsistently and unevenly, just as individual human beings do; but some do make sincere, even if clumsy and incomplete efforts; and more could, including ours, if we wanted it enough, or if enough of us wanted it. What efforts government officials make are going to be based for the most part on whether they think some significant constituencies are taking notice. The only ameliorative act available is not a military invasion. Our government has an array of restrictions, economic and other, official and unofficial, that it imposes on countries it determines to be sponsors of, for example, international terrorism. Some other array might well be developed for countries that permit human slavery, or terrorize their own populations. Putting aside any sort of official government/economic sanction, there are actions that could be taken to spectacularly morally humiliate the evil parties in the eyes of the world. Our leaders have access to the airwaves. They make speeches. When my Amnesty group was working (successfully) to get a Turkish prisoner released, we went to our local (Republican) congressman and convinced him it was in his interest to write a letter expressing his personal concern to the Turkish Ambassador, the U.N. Representative and the Governor of the Prison in which Bektas was being held -- a letter on his Congressional letterhead. He even offered to mention the matter in a personal, unofficial conversation with a high Turkish diplomat. (We made sure our congressman got plenty of good press and credit.) There are innumerable small sanctions -- the delay of diplomatic representation, keeping the issue on the front burner of public awareness, mentioning it in speeches, in passing, as examples of immoral state behavior. Making slavery not "feel" like SOP. Look what the Christians are doing about the suppression of non-official Christian organizations in China. The issue is being raised continually before Congress. When decisions about trade, and other policies, are to be made, these Christians are fighting for the rights of their Chinese brothers and sisters, and the issue has been elevated to the agenda that is now routinely taken up at the diplomatic level. Would you suggest the Christians not try to influence their Congress or their State Department to help oppressed Christians in China? Whyever not? This is America, they have the interest, the right, the moral indignation, and the leverage. Why shouldn't you and I and Christopher and X try to get our indignation and interest in ending human slavery called to the attention, and on the agenda, of those who represent us? If they know we care, and are noisy, they'll do what they can to please us, which can not be worse than nothing. Despots hate publicity. That is why it is against the law, punishable under the National Security Act, to discuss slavery in Sudan. Isn't that proof they are sensitive on the issue? Ashamed for a light to be shone on their evil? One of the great counterfeits in arguments is synecdoche-- taking the part for the whole. In the case of injustice, real, serious, bloody injustice, one thing a country can do is invade. But that's not the only thing it can do. And what it can do is a lot of things on the spectrum that stop short of invasion-- running from embarrassing to mortifying to seriously inconveniencing to materially damaging the abductors and slave masters. The collective throwing up of hands takes almost as much energy as it does to get your congressperson on your side by convincing him or her it is a very good idea to be.

To: Lane3 who wrote (10887)	4/9/2001 11:49:49 PM
From: E	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 82486

A classic case study in public outrage on a moral issue bringing an end to a hideous, entrenched system of personal pillage and cruelty and exploitation took place in Belgium and its colony. King Leopold ran the Congo as a personal, and very profitable, labor plantation. Public outrage began with the work of one English journalist, E.D. Morel, and grew into an international campaign ultimately involving other states that forced the King to relinquish his hold on the Congo. There was no invasion of Belgium. Sheer publicity, international publicity, of the horrors that were being perpetrated made the King see the light. Here's another small but perfect example you'll have to take on faith (I'll tell you or any friend of mine in PM who it is, and what his position was, and when, if they're curious), because i'm going to disguise the person involved, who is a longtime personal friend of ours. (We spent a couple of weeks with him and his family in Vienna a while back, and I wrote something about that visit on SI. Steven Rogers knows his name, and what his position was-- I say all this, including offering a testimonial to this connection by Steven, because a poster on SI accused me of lying when I told a relevant anecdote involving someone I knew personally.) Anyway, this friend was a diplomat attached to an international organization, representing the United States. In his routine contacts with the head of state in a newly independent government in the Caucasus, our friend sought the release of a group of political prisoners who were being held in terrible conditions. The list of names and prisons was given to him by an International Human Rights organization (not AI.) This head of state had an interest in improving his relationship with the larger organization that our friend represented. He had the power, with a word, to free these individuals. (The story is very... human. One of the group had been framed by a bomb "found" in his apartment. When our friend raised the issue, and the head of state rationalized with that story, our friend said, "_____, do you know that that the drawer that that bomb was claimed to have been found in was the children's room? We are both fathers, _____. Tell me. If you were going to hide a bomb in your house, would you choose a drawer in your children's room?") The prisoners were freed. That's a story about what one motivated diplomat can do about human rights violations in one case. We could have dozens, hundreds, thousands, of motivated diplomats around the world having just such casual conversations at just such gatherings. In fact, we do. But very few of them are talking about slavery. And when we talk about it, we act as though the choice was military invasion or keeping it off our radar screens, and off our representatives'. That's not because there's nothing we can do; it's only because we don't give a shit, as I believe I pointed out earlier.