Living Decently In The Anglo-Saxon Fold: A Response to Josie Pagani

LIVING DECENTLY within the Anglo-Saxon fold has always been difficult, but in 2013 it’s bloody-near impossible. The self-righteousness of the English-speaking nations is now so pervasive, so unthinking, that separating ourselves from it requires considerable intellectual and moral effort.

Never has that been more true than today when, as the United States busies itself erecting a protective cordon of allies and friends around its imminent intervention in the Syrian civil war, New Zealand’s prime minister casually announces his country’s preparedness to follow the American lead.

And, if John Key experienced a twinge or two of conscience at setting aside six decades of adherence to the United Nation’s Charter, he didn’t show it.

So, now we know that the Wellington Declaration was not only the long-awaited confirmation that New Zealand’s time on America’s naughty step was at an end, but is also a striking paraphrase of Michael Joseph Savage’s famous pronouncement at the outbreak of the Second World War.

In his broadcast to the nation on 3 September 1939 the Labour prime minister declared:

“It is with gratitude in the past, and with confidence in the future, that we range ourselves without fear beside Britain. Where she goes, we go! Where she stands, we stand!”

John Key’s summation of New Zealand’s intentions differs only slightly:

“It is in willful ignorance of the past, and without care or thought for the future, that we range ourselves unhesitatingly beside the United States. Whom she condemns, we condemn! Whom she attacks, we attack!”

Foreign policy issues are often contrasted with domestic issues in ways that suggest the latter are not only quite separate from but more important than the former. In the 1970s and 80s it was a common criticism of the Labour Left that it was more concerned with East Timor and Nicaragua than it was with fundamental economic policy. The Far Left’s argument seemed to be that Rogernomics was able to succeed because the Labour Left had taken its eye off the only ball that mattered – political economy.

There is a superficial attraction to this point of view, but closer analysis exposes it weakness. In a country like New Zealand: small, vulnerable, and inextricably enmeshed in the geopolitical projects of the Anglo-Saxon power bloc; foreign policy and the debate it inspires, is of critical importance. This is especially true of the foreign policy debates that took place within the Labour Party during the 1970s and 80s.

The Labour Left’s opposition to the Vietnam War; to Indonesia’s annexation of East Timor; to the South African apartheid regime; to the United States’ harassment of the socialist government of Nicaragua; and, most famously, to the growing threat of a nuclear holocaust; was evidence not simply of their moral objection to war and oppression, but it was also an important register of their opposition to the ideologies of imperialism, racism, anti-communism and, ultimately, of capitalism itself. In many ways the impassioned debates over foreign policy remits on the floor of Labour Party conferences were an indirect means of asserting the party’s radical socialist heritage. It is no accident that Norman Kirk’s fierce determination to carve out a more independent foreign policy for New Zealand was matched by his oft-stated intention to “put people first and money second”.

Helen Clark has been criticised for her caution and her “glacial incrementalism”. But her determination to “make haste slowly” did not mean that she was opposed to making economic and social changes. Indeed, if the choice was to make a necessary change (like protecting children from parental assault) or not to make it, Clark invariably came down on the side of making it. And these progressive prime ministerial instincts were never more powerfully demonstrated than when she and her government was confronted with the greatest foreign policy challenge since the United States’ dramatic escalation of the Vietnam War in 1965. In refusing to join the illegal invasion of Iraq in March 2003, Clark signaled to the world that the wayward, anti-nuclear pinky finger of the Anglo-Saxon fist was still unwilling to clench.

It is vital that Labour remain true to its staunchly independent and ethically guided foreign policy tradition. Because the day that the New Zealand Labour Party trades-in its 80-year legacy of speaking truth to the great powers (Mickey Savage himself was bitterly critical of Great Britain’s refusal to support the Spanish Republic against its fascist foes) for a mess of Blairite pottage, is the day that it surrenders forever its quest for a more just and equal society.

JOSIE PAGANI, author of “International law is on the side of intervention in Syria”, http://www.pundit.co.nz/content/international-law-is-on-the-side-of-intervention-in-syria would no doubt dispute hotly the accusation that in following the Blairite path she has abandoned Labour’s quest for justice and equality. In fact, she begins herPundit posting with an implicit criticism of Blair:

“The disastrous American led invasion of Iraq is exactly why the West should intervene now in Syria. Those who protested against the illegal war in Iraq should be calling on the UN and civilized countries to take action under international law.”

But, the “international law” which Ms Pagani so confidently appeals to is the still very ill-defined and hotly debated “responsibility to protect” civilian populations under attack from their own governments and/or their military and paramilitary surrogates. Citing the tragic precedents of Rwanda and Kosovo, jurists in the West have argued that such in extremis cases trump the international community’s traditional reluctance to interfere in the internal affairs of sovereign states.

This reluctance is formally enshrined in the United Nations’ Charter which, above all else, is intended to protect the national sovereignty of its members from the aggression of other nation states. The only acknowledged exception to the fundamental sanctity of recognised international borders is the member states’ right to defend themselves from imminent or actual attack.

The Rwanda and Kosovo tragedies were, however, of a scale and seriousness to prompt a rethink of the doctrine of non-interference in the internal affairs of UN member states. Even so, and in spite of Ms Pagani’s confident protestations to the contrary, the “responsibility to protect” (R2P) doctrine is not an open invitation to the Anglo-Saxon powers, NATO, or anyone else, to make an end-run around the UN Charter and Security Council.

What R2P does contemplate is the recognition by the international community that since 1945 situations have arisen, and may arise again, where the “internal affairs” of a nation state reach a level of such heinousness: such imminent danger to the lives and limbs of so large a number of human-beings; that urgent intervention is required. In these rare moments, the inviolability of the member state’s borders may be set aside and those internal forces perpetrating atrocities, war crimes and crimes against humanity interdicted by the armed forces of authorised UN members.

The key word here is “authorisation”, and that can only come from the UN Security Council. To suggest any other formula is to strike a fatal blow at the very heart of the United Nations 68 year mission: the outlawing and effective prevention of aggressive war-making by nation states acting in accordance with their own interpretation of what constitutes right and proper international conduct.

Ms Pagani, a Labour Party member, argues (in advance of any independently verified  evidence of a state-sanctioned chemical weapons attack upon Syrian civilian targets) that New Zealand should align itself with a United States-led act of military aggression against a UN member which has not attacked it and with which it is not at war. Were the Labour Party to heed her advice it would not only be forfeiting – at least morally – New Zealand’s right to the UN Charter’s protection, but it would also be surrendering the progressive movement’s precious power to counterpose the ethical arguments of ordinary people against the ruthless calculations of their rulers.

Give that up, Ms Pagani, and our ability to live decently in the Anglo-Saxon fold will not only become more difficult, it will, very soon, be extinguished.