Towards a new political ethics

By

Stuart Yates

Politics and ethics hardly seem to go together, but we are in desperate need of an ethical framework on which to base our political strategy and decisions. A recent candidate for this is the work in the psychological field done by Karen Kitchener in the Counseling Psychologist, 1984. These principles are (my summary):

Autonomy - respect for the self-determination of individuals and states

Beneficence - strive to do good

Non-maleficence - strive not to do harm

Fidelity - continue to support individuals and states, rather than abandoning them

Justice - treat people and states fairly

It should be borne in mind that these principles are based upon the dynamics in the counselling/psychotherapy room: one person is relatively powerful and the other(s) less so. They are particularly appropriate therefore for Western states in relation to the less developed nations and for states in relation to their citizens.

Let us look at how they are not at present being applied and how they might be applied. Some examples breach several or all the principles - a sad reflection of our so-called Western civilisation.

Failures to respect autonomy

Afghanistan. The presence of Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan was a pretext to overthrow the Taliban (set up by the West in the first place). We know that the US had plans to invade Afghanistan before 11/9/01.

Terrorism Act 2000 (UK), Anti-Terrorism, Crime and Security Act 2001, Prevention of Terrorism Act 2005. These acts have steadily restricted individual freedom, such that the UK state authorities can now detain anyone on suspicion of being associated with terrorism indefinitely without evidence, without charge and without trial. Planned legislation will make it an offence to condone terrorists activities. The term 'condone' is open to all sorts of interpretations. The rule of law is sadly compromised.

Palestine. Palestine, alas, figures in all categories. The inhabitants of Palestine have been stateless for over fifty years, so have no rights. The international film community does not even allow a Palestinian to enter a competition because Palestine is not a state. They are at the mercy of an 'occupying power' (the UN phrase) of one of the most powerful states in the world: Israel. For an 'occupying power' read a 'colonial power' which drives Palestinian individuals off their land in a process horribly similar to that meted out to the native Americans. The West Bank and Gaza are little more than neglected and shrinking reservations.

Iraq. The invasion of Iraq equally had no respect for the nation's autonomy. Apart from all the well-known reasons for the invasion which we know were spurious, there was no coherent and representative faction that invited foreign troops into the country.

It is not argued that the autonomy of a nation/individual should always be honoured, but the breach of it should be clearly justifiable.

Opportunities to respect autonomy

The main way in which the West can honour and respect the autonomy of the less well-developed states is to listen to what is being requested in terms of aid and support and provide this, if this is possible, and provide it without strings, either political or commercial. It means that local culture should be respected rather than being forcibly replaced by the Western way of life. Democracy developed over a long period of time; there is no logical reason to suppose it can just be grafted onto any society just because we think it's the best system. If our way of life is so superior it will be adopted without any persuasion and coercion.

Foreign nationals are entitled the same process of justice in the UK as any other resident, otherwise they are being treated as less than human. We grant the Rosemary Wests of this country a trial for heinous crimes, why should a person who may or may not be a terrorist be treated any differently. The Terrorism Acts should be amended/repealed.

The UN should enforce its various resolutions on Israel, not only to cease the ever-increasing growth of settlements, but to repatriate those Israeli expatriates to Israel proper. Israel proper should be no larger than the originally agreed area. Palestinian statehood should be simply announced and a process of supervising the transition to a properly functioning state got under way. Both Israel and Palestine would have the obligation to respect each others' autonomy: no more suicide bombers, no F-16/helicopter gunship terrorism. The UN has the power; it, or rather the US and UK, lack the will.

Iraq. Iraq's autonomy is still not being respected in spite of the elections. There is still no effective Iraqi government, there is still the threat of civil war; however we may deplore suicide bombers, let us remember that suicide bombing is a last act on the part of the individual which has deep-seated causes. We cannot just dimiss them as 'brain-washed' etc. The root causes lie beyond the invasion but are located primarily in the West.

Failures in beneficence

Palestine, internationally, is the obvious and glaring example. The West fails to enforce UN resolutions which would at least reduce the remorseless inhuman treatment of innocent Palestinians by the occupying Israeli troops. The practice of destroying the homes of the families of suicide bombers: is this not the same as the Nazi destruction of French villages following resistance attacks? Our failure in not supporting basic human rights in Palestine speaks of our politicians' bias in favour of Christian/Jew and against Arab/Muslim. We are all brothers and sisters and are entitled to equal beneficence.

Asylum seekers. These too are human beings, many having suffered terribly. Even those who are fraudulent, seeking only a better life here, are entitled to be treated humanely and with respect. The UK has received around three quarters of a million applications for asylum over the last twenty years: Germany has received over two and half million applications. In 2001, there were around one hundred and fifty thousand refugees resident in the UK, compared with nearly a million in Germany. Percentage of refugees to population? Germany: 1.1%, UK 0.2%. Source: UN. The politicians collude with the media to demonise the asylum seekers (the term is now hopelessly debased) and exaggerate the 'problem', leading to the shameful protests at attempts to house them. Quotas on genuine refugees are not only morally indefensible but in breach of the Geneva Convention.

Opportunities for beneficence

Debt relief without strings and practical aid, also without strings. No linking action to trade or buying unwanted armaments. Just a little sharing of the vastly disproportionate wealth of the developed nations would make a huge difference. People do it via charities but governments hang on to a neo-colonialist control. A gift with strings attached is not a gift, it is a noose.

Asylum seekers. They arrive with nothing, they are entitled in common humanity to be supported, rather than the Scrooge-like insistence on obeying rules of which they can know nothing when they arrive.

Palestine. We in the West could start by helping to build some basic infrastructure - you never know, if we have spent some of our money in this way, we might start objecting when the Israelis start knocking it down again. We could stop assuming the worst of Palestinians and assume rather that, one way or another, some of the money will be spent on the people: except for a military dictatorship (and Palestine does not have the arms for such a regime), all leaders have to keep a wary eye on their people, lest they lose support.

Iraq. Before the invasion aid schemes which could not be subverted by the regime for their own purposes and ensure more help gets to the people who need it could have been devised and implemented. The installation of UN weapons inspectors could have been accompanied by UN humanitarian workers. Sadly, Western leaders, in their desire to demonise Saddam Hussein, had a vested interest in keeping the Iraqi people in desperate need. Those opportunities were spurned, creating a worse situation in many ways that the Iraqis suffered before the invasion. The only transparent way to help Iraq is via the UN. The US especially is hopelessly compromised in Iraq. The UN should have control over every aspect of aid to Iraq, including security, to demonstrate the world's intention to help Iraq to autonomous statehood, chosen freely by the Iraqi people.

Failures in non-maleficence

Guantanamo Bay is an enormous open wound. That Western politicians can stand idly by as hundreds of people are rounded up, transported across half the world and then incarcerated without charge, without trial, without representation makes a mockery of our claim to be civilised. It is worse than the transportation to Australia of sheep stealers: at least there was then some form of 'justice', however harsh and perverted, and the people were able to make another life elsewhere. The detainees in Guantanamo Bay are just being left to rot and die one by one.

Palestine, again. The US in particular, but the UK also in terms of armaments, supply Israel in the full knowledge that these weapons are going to be used against Palestinian civilians. We know, we have seen, what tanks have done to youths throwing stones, we have watched the callous destruction of buildings with people still inside, we know how Palestinian civilians have been used as human shields. Rightly we condemn suicide bombers, individual acts of terrorism. Wrongly we turn a blind eye to state terrorism.

Opportunities for non-maleficence

Israel. As the world did in the case of South Africa, we have the opportunity to express our repugnance for what is being done to the Palestinians by means of UN resolutions i.e. enforcing those already passed and initiating trade and sporting sanctions. Pariah states tend to reduce or stop their maleficent activities.

Guantanamo Bay. To lend our support to organisations such as Amnesty International, to lobby our politicians, to bring such pressure on the US that this inhuman treatment ceases. Worse happens elsewhere and non-military means need to be deployed here also, but we cannot claim any moral high ground whilst Guantanamo Bay exists.

Failures in fidelity

Palestine. No apologies for yet again including Palestine. When the state of Israel was set up there were clear promises and commitments for a Palestinian state. It is often argued that the Palestinians forfeit the right to statehood because of terrorist activities. The answer to this is twofold: Jewish terrorism did not hinder the creation of Israel and which came first, the terrorism or the breach of fidelity on the part of the world leaders at the time? We in the West can only condemn Palestinian terrorism without hypocrisy when we have fulfilled our promises.

Vietnam. After devastating Vietnam in a war founded on a lie, when 'North' Vietnam was begging the US for aid and friendship, the US then walks away, yet again ignoring the needs of a people whose plight resulted directly from US military action.

Africa. The West sends aid to African countries in times of crisis, then again walks away until the next crisis. Or rather walks away in terms of practical aid: we do not walk away in terms of selling arms and infiltrating the provision of basic facilities like water through unfair World Trade Organisation arrangements. Arrangements which allow Western companies to make money from the poorest nations of the world.

Afghanistan. I have yet to see any evidence that the infrastructure of Afghanistan is being seriously addressed. Afghanistan is an example also of the West setting up one regime, the Taliban, to counteract warlords friendly to Russia, only to set about removing the Taliban and allowing the same warlords to regain power. Not much fidelity to anything there, except to self-interest.

Opportunities for fidelity

Fidelity is a simple concept. In all the above cases and more, it means staying with the issues, the problems, the poverty, the injustices, the corruption and working with the local people to help them build the society that they wish for. This society may or may not be built on the same lines as ours. Non-governmental agencies, charities and religious organisations already carry out some of this work but it is necessary for states to be explicitly involved. Only in this way can the tasks be faithfully carried on in the name of the people: the citizens of the developed countries as well as those of the developing (would that politically-correct word be accurate!) nations.

So we could be faithful to Palestine, which does not mean being an enemy to Israel, by creating, literally at the stroke of a pen, an independent state, recognising it and then working to build up an infrastructure, both physical and political, to enable the new state to function. Such actions would marginalise terrorism and terrorists. It would give ordinary Palestinians hope and determination to build and preserve, hope which would gradually reduce hatred and make it much easier to deal with the relatively few die-hard terrorists.

We could be faithful to Afghanistan in a similar way and to African countries. It takes but a small proportion of our disproportionate wealth, a lot of listening, a lot of learning and a lot of hard work. All these things are present. What is missing is the political will. The 'failed states' in the world are not in Africa, the Middle East and Asia. The states who have failed and are failing are the industrialised countries who put self-interest first and fail to be faithful to humanity as a whole.

Failures in justice

Again the enormous open wound of Guantanamo Bay. Here there is no justice in any sense of the word, but a deliberate creation of a category of people who are designated as somehow sub-human, with no access to any 'normal' human rights. Hitler would have approved.

Hitler would also have recognised the ethnic cleansing, the ruthless control of the ghettos, the arbitrary shooting of civilians, the indiscriminate destruction of buildings and the withholding of basic necessities that are some of the injustices suffered by the Palestinians.

Meanwhile, in the UK, we have a Terrorism Acts deny people any basic right to justice. If the security forces believe a person to be a terrorist or associated with terrorism that person can be held indefinitely without reasons being shown , without charge, without trial. There is no way out. With these Acts we have thrown away the basic foundation stone of justice: that a person is presumed innocent until found guilty. In our politicians' panic to combat terrorism they have dispensed with one of the key planks of civilisation itself.

You have fled from torture and arrived in this country. If you do not present yourself to the appropriate authority (how can you find out what that is?) immediately, not even the day afterwards, you are denied any humanitarian benefits whilst your case is considered. You are destitute, on the streets, as far as the government is concerned. The courts have ruled that this violates human rights. The Home Secretary appeals against this ruling. The government considers trying to opt out of its human rights obligations. The statue of Justice over the Law Courts weeps under her blindfold.

You are found guilty of murder. You know you did not commit the crime and maintain your innocence. You will never be released from prison, even on parole let alone permanently, unless you 'confess'. You will die in prison. Is this Stalinist or simply a ghastly echo down the ages of the sort of treatment meted out to witches? "Just confess and we will let you go" - in the 21st century.

In terms of justice, even in the so-called civilised nations, we treat people in ways which a medieval monarch would have recognised and which organisations like the Inquisition and the Star Chamber practised.

Opportunities for justice

Guantanamo Bay. As above, exert relentless pressure on the US.

Palestine. Some Israeli politicians and military leaders should be in adjoining cells to Milosevic in The Hague, as of course should be some Palestinians. To her credit, Belgium is trying.

Terrorism Acts. Security forces should have to provide evidence, even if this is to a specialist closed tribunal, with appeal to special courts, including a European court. Yes, this costs time and money: justice is costly. Lack of justice is infinitely more costly.

Asylum. Similar to the Terrorism Acts. Again lack of justice is more expensive: it degrades us all, it distances us from any sense of common humanity to others, it weakens the impulse to behave responsibly and with respect to other people.

In denial of murder. Just get rid of this barbaric rule which is effectively designed to punish the innocent more than the guilty. Now.

Autonomy, beneficence, non-maleficence, fidelity, justice. If these five principles were practised by the strong in relation to the weak the world would be a more humane place, a more civilised place. No-one can force these principles on another but world leaders could act on their title and lead. By example.

February 2003

Revised June 2005

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