Political Violence and the Euston Manifesto
Today sees the official launch of the Euston Manifesto and Professor Norman Geras has written an article defending this document against accusations that it is in some way pro-war. Has he missed the point?
The issue can be seen as one of consistency. The Euston Manifesto is scathing in its condemnation of terrorism and those who would “understand†it. As Professor Geras puts it:
We express our opposition to terrorism and to indulgently “understanding” (where this means condoning) it because it is thought to be motivated by legitimate grievances.
This is a perfectly sensible view.
The key to my agreement is the use of the word “condone†and it’s interesting that Norm has included that only in brackets. The Manifesto does not go out of its way to explicitly make this distinction between condoning and understanding in the same way. For example, in the Elaborations to the manifesto, we have this:
We repudiate the way of thinking according to which the events of September 11, 2001 were America’s deserved comeuppance, or “understandable” in the light of legitimate grievances resulting from US foreign policy.
It is wrong to condemn those who wish to “understand†what motivates people to commit terrorism; it seems clear that understanding these issues will be the key to dealing with them. Too often, the manifesto and its supporters appear to be more interested in silencing anyone who would dare analysis and investigate the reasons for such attacks, by bandying about unjustified accusations of apologism or support for these objectionable acts, than in conducting the much needed debate on these issues.
Norm’s use of the word “condone†however, makes his premise one I’d be happy to support. I am in principle, you see, opposed to all forms of political violence. I condemn acts of violent terrorism directed against civilians unreservedly. At the same time, it is vital that we understand the reasons why these acts occur. In this, although Norm does not state the latter explicitly, he appears to agree.
The problem of consistency with the Euston Manifesto relates to the authors’ views with regard to another form of political violence. Clausewitz famously described war as “a continuation of political intercourse, with the addition of other means†and it is the attitude of the manifesto towards war which is a cause for concern.
In article 10), “a new internationalismâ€Â, the manifesto says this:
We stand for an internationalist politics and the reform of international law  in the interests of global democratization and global development. Humanitarian intervention, when necessary, is not a matter of disregarding sovereignty, but of lodging this properly within the “common life” of all peoples. If in some minimal sense a state protects the common life of its people (if it does not torture, murder and slaughter its own civilians, and meets their most basic needs of life), then its sovereignty is to be respected. But if the state itself violates this common life in appalling ways, its claim to sovereignty is forfeited and there is a duty upon the international community of intervention and rescue. Once a threshold of inhumanity has been crossed, there is a “responsibility to protect”.
This has been carefully written and sounds eminently sensible on first reading but a consideration of the implications lead to some troubling conclusions. As has been pointed out elsewhere, the effect of article 10) would be to lower the limits which international law imposes on states who wish to resort to political violence – to conduct war, in other words. While the humanitarian motives of the authors appears laudable, their willingness to support this form of political violence reveals a lack of understanding of the horrors of war. It further reveals a naïve optimism in the power of state sponsored political violence to solve humanitarian crises.
As I said above, I am in principle opposed to all forms of political violence. This includes state violence which, history suggests, is responsible for the deaths of many times more innocents than terrorism (I am not strictly a pacifist though – I do believe that war as a last resort of self-defence can be justified). International law has a crucial role to play in restricting the power of states to wage war and democratic nations should be at the forefront of moves to make war an absolute last resort. The Euston Manifesto authors, by arguing for a reduction in the limits to the restrictions placed on states to resort to political violence, are not able to make this same claim.
While not explicitly stated, the position of the Euston Manifesto is this:
We express our support for war and indulgently “understand” (where this means condone) it when it is thought (by us) to be motivated by legitimate grievances.
For this reason, many people believe that the Euston Manifesto is pro-war. I certainly do. And I certainly won’t be signing it.
(This post is an extension of a comment on the CiF article.)
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Slightly off-topically, has anyone seen any constructive engagement by the Euston authors with the debate they apparently want to encourage? I’ve seen a lot of criticisms being rejected out of hand, and a fair few complaints that the manifesto’s critics aren’t criticising properly, but not much in the way of open-minded response to critical comments. And without that it’s not much of a debate, really.
But I see our man at the Ministry of Truth was there already:
Heh. I couldn’t possibly comment.
I think the crew at EM need to define the tipping point. When does state violence against its citizens become so big that it requires intervention by other countries?
And what sort of force can other countries use? What about local conditions? For example invading North Korea is out of the question because they have nukes. Invading Iran thus is not out of the question but it would certainly polarise any liberal opinion within the country and bolster the nutcase President.
Yet Iran has not committed large-scale genocide against its own citizens, though has threatened others.
The problem with the Manifesto, as you say Garry, is that it leaves things up in the air and allows people to use it to justify regime change without many checks and balances. I too find that uncomfortable.
Apropos of Phil’s comments, there’s a nice ‘gotcha’ here where Stephen Poole catches Kamm slating Chomsky for using the old ‘you can’t say A if you won’t also say B’ argument that EM uses to try and spike Amnesty’s criticism of the US on human rights.
Sunny’s right in highlighting the massive practical difficulties with military interventionism – whether Blair, Geras or anyone else wants to accept it or not, foreign policy = realpolitik. It doesn’t matter how foul the regime is in NK, sending the troops in to liberate the North Koreans is not an option, not simply because of NK’s nukes but because the country sits within what China regards as its sphere of influence and only if China is prepared to back direct intervention or look the other way, would there ever be scope for action.
The tipping point issue is another big problem – what EM says is
“If in some minimal sense a state protects the common life of its people (if it does not torture, murder and slaughter its own civilians, and meets their most basic needs of life), then its sovereignty is to be respected. But if the state itself violates this common life in appalling ways, its claim to sovereignty is forfeited and there is a duty upon the international community of intervention and rescue. Once a threshold of inhumanity has been crossed, there is a ‘responsibility to protect’.”
The key phrase is ‘meets their basic needs of life’ which could be interpreted in a very open ended way – would, for instance, the failure of the Ethiopian government to tackle a famine constitute grounds for military intervention under this interpretation of EM? Pehaps we should have sent the troops in to expel Musharraf from office in Pakistan for no responding more effectively to the earthquake? Why not have a military coup in Washington on this basis – after all Bush presided over a complete mess after Hurricane Katrina.
In all these cases there was a period of time where the respective governments failed to meet their citizen’s ‘most basic needs of life’ albeit temporarily, so where do these events fall in terms of the tipping point for intervention?
The EM crowd don’t say.
The EM crowd don’t say.
Not true. A state’s right to sovereignty is only forfeited if the state itself violates this common life in appalling ways, which quite obviously wouldn’t apply in the scenarios you cite.
Actually, I’m a little more sanguine about the bits of the “Manifesto” that sanction political violence (where the counterfactual isn’t “no violence” but “different violence”). What troubles me far more is the (conditional) carte blanche it writes for unilateral political violence. That’s Very Very Bad Indeed. Not that it should never happen (I sort-of-supported the Iraq War, on balance), but that it certainly ought never to be pre-approved, if you like, outside international law.
Actually in the case of eithiopia the state did violate the common life, as the major cause the famine was its counter-insurgency and military policies.
Furthermore I’m not particularly sure that a state that lets its people die through simply not caring about their fate is morally superior to one that kills people.
An answer that highlights the *exact* problem with EM’s vagaries. It’s not clear which exact famine you mean, nor did Unity specify, nor is it clear which “counter-insurgency and military policies” you refer to, nor to what extent they were responsible for the famine, or famines. So from that, how we can arrive at what we should do, if we should do anything, and who should do it is impossible. That’s why the development of international law ought to be the focus, not pre-approved cartes blanches for (American) intervention in possible future dictatorships that don’t conform to a vague standard of “decency”, and that we don’t yet even know about. It’s ludicrous.
On the second point, I suggest that an increase in governments that left people to “their fate” would be a marked improvement. As Sen has shown, people (read: governments) cause famines, not bad weather or anything else. A state that lets people get on with their lives, even if that means neglect, is a world apart from one that kills people. We might not like it too much, but that’s hardly a case for armed intervention.
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Yeah, but what does if the state itself violates this common life in appalling ways mean? I’m appalled by the treatment of Brian Haw, does that count? Human rights violations in Russia and Uzbekistan and, of course, Guantanamo Bay don’t seem to appall the Decents. Therefore they don’t count.
Unity is right: the manifesto doesn’t say; it hand waves a bit.