Payam Akhavan[1] (Harvard LLM ’90 SJD ’01) is Professor of International Law at McGill University in Montreal, Canada, and Fernand Braudel Senior Fellow at the European University Institute in Florence, Italy. He was previously Senior Fellow at Yale Law School and Distinguished Visiting Professor at the University of Toronto. Professor Akhavan was the first Legal Advisor to the Prosecutor’s Office of the International Criminal Tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda at The Hague (1994-2000) and has served with the United Nations in Cambodia, East Timor, and Guatemala. He has appeared as counsel in leading cases before the International Court of Justice, the International Criminal Court, and the European Court of Human Rights.

Joseph Kony and George Clooney, seemingly disparate, occupy a common space in our imagination: wanted criminal and vaunted celebrity, both are human rights spectacles of our times.  Kony, leader of the Lord’s Resistance Army messianic cult, is wanted by the International Criminal Court.  He stands accused of crimes against humanity for the horrific abuse of child soldiers and terrorization of civilians in northern Uganda.  He became globally infamous by the efforts of Invisible Children, a hitherto obscure organization that made the appealing but simplistic Kony 2012 short film calling for his arrest.  They succeeded in spreading the film virally on an unprecedented scale: within a few days of its release, it registered 100 million views on the YouTube video-sharing website and raised millions of dollars.  Clooney, a Hollywood actor of great renown and wealth, has starred in numerous best-selling films and is the subject of much idle gossip in the tabloids.  Among his many accomplishments, he has received the Academy Award – the so-called “Oscar” – the pinnacle of success in the film industry.  He is also famous for his human rights activism and celebrity diplomacy concerning mass-atrocities in the Darfur and South Sudan.  There is an obvious contrast between Kony and Clooney.  But there is also an intriguing similarity: they are both personalities that the average person “on the street” can probably identify with global human rights issues.  Both public figures owe this distinction to successful engagement with the hyper-culture of cyber-compassion: amidst myriad distractions just a click away, worthy causes must assume an air of glamour to compete for our fleeting attention.  In short, in affluent consumer societies that privilege superficial sentimentality over profound commitment, mass-mobilization and public awareness usually depends on making human rights sexy.  What should we make of this reality?

Whether it is the Kony 2012 video or the star power of Clooney, the contemporary discourse surrounding human rights activism is seemingly a struggle between utilitarianism and authenticity.  Consider Nigerian-American writer Teju Cole decrying the “White Saviour Industrial Complex” and disparaging Kony 2012 as “a big emotional experience that validates privilege” rather than justice:  “The banality of evil transmutes into the banality of sentimentality.”  By contrast, New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof praised the video “for galvanizing young Americans to look up from their iPhones and seek to make a difference”, retorting that “if I were a Congolese villager, I would welcome these uncertain efforts over the sneering scorn of do-nothing armchair cynics.”[2]  Amidst public apathy, the question seems to be whether “slacktivism” – substituting “feel good” activism for meaningful engagement – is better than doing nothing at all.  This meagre utilitarian discourse and its contrary polemics are hardly sufficient to address the enormity of the moral challenges facing us in the struggle for justice.  What then is the appropriate context for addressing the glamourization of human rights and its implications on our self-definition?  Exploring this query requires a brief deviation from the topic at hand into the historical journey that has resulted in the fusion of the superficial with the sacred.

The etymology of “glamour” is itself an instructive illustration and starting point.  The Oxford Dictionary traces the word to the early 18^th century – originally a variant of the Scottish gramarye – meaning “enchantment” or “magic”.  It was an alteration of the English word grammar with a medieval meaning of “scholarship” or “learning”.  Grammar was about the proper form of words and sentences as it is today.  But since only a few religious clerics could read and write in the European Dark Ages, and much of scholarship related to knowledge of occult practices, the learned grammarian’s craft was perceived as mysterious and magical.  Use of the word “glamour” was popularized in English by Sir Walter Scott’s Letters on Demonology and Witchcraft, published in 1830.  It referred to a magic spell likened to a “delusive or alluring charm”.  With the decline of religious thought, “glamour” assumed a non-magical meaning, referring to the impression of attraction or fascination; an impression that is better than reality, but ultimately deceptive.  In its archaic use, glamour is still defined by the Oxford Dictionary as “enchantment” or “magic”.  Its contemporary meaning however is “an attractive or exciting quality that makes certain people or things seem appealing”.  Its usage in American English – in the Merriam-Webster Dictionary – is also variously “a magic spell” or “an exciting and often illusory and romantic attractiveness” (the example offered is “the glamour of Hollywood”).  The American cultural critic Virginia Postrel defines glamour in contemporary usage as a “calculated, carefully polished image designed to impress and persuade.”  In other words, glamour invites us to transcend the mediocrity of everyday life to enter into an idealized world; a world of glitter that is ultimately an illusion.

The linguistic evolution of “glamour” is thus situated in the broader historical context of the European Enlightenment which the 19^th century German sociologist Max Weber described as a process of “rationalization and intellectualization and … the disenchantment of the world.”  In his worldview, modernity, progress, and secularization were synonymous.  Belief in the mystical world was gradually extinguished as the rationalism of scientific inquiry and separation of state from church triumphed.  In brief, the magic was gone.  In its stead, materialistic ideologies emerged to offer new utopias, not unlike substitute religions.  Hitler and Stalin appropriated modern-day prophets like Nietzsche and Marx, in pursuit of modern visions of glory and transcendence. Others worshipped the creed of racial superiority and colonial domination in the name of civilization.  Millions of lives were sacrificed at the altar of these modern ideologies, each with an illusory better world.  The unprecedented magnitude of this violence shattered modernity’s promise of progress. 

The monstrous atrocities of the 20^th century were scarcely imaginable during the Dark Ages.  The incantations and rituals of modern ideologies had cast a magic spell of such destructive force that it rendered medieval ignorance and superstition comparatively benign.  In 1948, in the shadow of the Holocaust, in a ceremonial exorcism of Nazi excesses, the UN adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.  Redolent with the promise of a better future, its preamble proclaimed “recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family” as “the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world”.  Bemoaning the horrors of the war, it recognized that “disregard and contempt for human rights have resulted in barbarous acts which have outraged the conscience of mankind”.  In a testament to its universality, the Declaration was enshrined as “a common standard of achievement for all peoples and all nations”.  Conceived as a transcendent and unimpeachable axiom at the core of a new global ethos, human rights discourse assumed the role of the sacred.  Even if it was clothed in secular terminology, it defined an inviolable space from which all things good flowed.  As Émile Durkheim maintained [in The Elementary Forms of Religious Life], “the distinctive trait of religious thought” was the division of the world between the domain of the sacred and the profane; not between the sacred and the secular.  Thus, amidst a disenchanted Western civilization in desperate search of a moral compass, enchantment with inalienable human rights fell manifestly within the socially constructed domain of the sacred.  Beyond reproach, these fundamental norms became the magic incantation of both state and society; a cosmopolitan faith complete with its own deity, temples, and rituals.

With decolonization, globalization, and the collapse of communism, Western liberalism and human rights ideals spread.  But the market economy’s consumerist culture spread even more rapidly.  In place of spent totalitarian ideologies, hedonism and self-indulgence increasingly define the pursuit of happiness.  The seduction of the American dream, the relentless propaganda of mass-culture, has cast a magic spell on people from all corners of the world.  Consumption and greed have become a pervasive belief system, the seeming purpose of existence, the true opiate of the masses.  This materialistic ideology is not without its competitors.  This is captured in Benjamin Barber’s juxtaposition of Jihad vs. McWorld, symbolizing the struggle between economic globalization and religious fundamentalism.  But it seems both that McWorld is winning the contest, and that Jihad manifestly fails to provide an appealing alternative.

It is telling that in American English, the archetypal image of the “glamour of Hollywood” is so integral to cultural self-definition.  In the virtual pantheon of consumerism, star power and entertainment are the pillars of escapism and instant gratification. As Neil Gabler puts it, “Hollywood has always been an irresistible, prefabricated metaphor for the crass, the materialistic, the shallow, and the craven.”  In this realm of kitsch, authenticity is worthless.  Why pay a steep price for the original when the imitation is readily available?  Why fill in the emptiness with depth and sacrifice when escape is but a click away?  And why heartfelt empathy when exaggerated sentimentality can provide effortless meaning?  It is here that glamour intersects with human rights, to cast a magic spell likened to a “delusive or alluring charm”; an “exciting” and “romantic attractiveness” that appropriates the discourse and imagery of the secular sacred to create the illusion of authenticity.  In this exercise, the reality of the victims is lost as people marvel at the beautiful spectacle of the saviour.  Adventures, adrenaline, and awards become tantamount to action.  The suffering of others becomes a platform for demonstrating virtue.  Vanity and justice embrace.

But why should authenticity matter?  If glamour can persuade young Americans to momentarily look up from their iPhones and learn that there is a place called Africa where people suffer, is that not praiseworthy?  The utilitarian argument it seems accepts this superficial culture far too casually, especially when it implicates the human rights industry itself.  It abruptly dismisses deeper contemplation in the name of sensational activism, without consideration to how the voices of the dispossessed constantly fail to penetrate the self-contained world of the saviours.  The scale of injustice and despair, the nobility of the human spirit, our capacity for profound compassion, the extraordinary means at our disposal, these demand something far greater than fame-seeking and righteous platitudes. Authenticity matters because only true seeking and genuine empathy allows us to penetrate the veils that delude us into believing that we are doing good when we are not doing nearly enough.  By being true to our self, by connecting with others in a communion of oneness, we begin to conceive the world in a different perspective, to imagine other possibilities.  The greatest acts of heroism, the daily struggles of those that suffer, are not headline news; they do not entail prestigious awards or chasing the latest mass-atrocity.  They are not entertaining.  The tortured prisoner of conscience whose youth wastes away in prison; the mother mourning her activist daughter’s execution; a child struggling to survive in the streets amidst crushing poverty; a father’s despair for his starving family in a corrupt world of plenty; these images call for humble contemplation so the depth of reality and the moral challenge in its wake can fully sink into our conscience.  These are felt experiences that cannot be reduced to “feel-good” sound bites and tweets in a consumer culture that has emptied itself of all depth and meaning.  Without being touched in this profound way, we are not wont to make any profound changes.

Sentimentality is not spirituality.  Self-indulgence is not sacrifice.  The learned grammarians of the Dark Ages dabbled in occult practices.  They confused magical incantations with mystical experience.  In seeking the divine, they mistook the illusion of rituals for the reality of love that is at the essence of our humanity.  The learned grammarian – magical and enchanting – the glamorous activist – superficial spectacle – both represent our capacity for self-deception, our propensity to avoid the hard work by portraying hypocrisy as righteousness.

I left Iran for Canada as a child because my family belonged to the persecuted Báhá’í religious minority.   After the establishment of the Islamic Republic following the 1979 revolution, life in exile gave way to unbearable anguish.  On 14 June 1981, my uncle Dr. Firouz Naimi – a physician of great renown and friend of the poor – was executed in the city of Hamadan after enduring horrific torture.  His sole crime was that his religious belief was deemed a “heresy” by fanatical clerics.  Two years later, on 18 June 1983, my contemporary, Mona Mahmudnizhad, was hanged in the city of Shiraz at the age of 17, also because of her religious belief.  The infinite courage and dignity of these souls in the face of the unthinkable, and the many others whose suffering is beyond words, profoundly shaped my understanding of human rights.  Suspended somewhere between Jihad and McWorld, between the violence of religious fanaticism and the vulgarity of fanatic consumerism, I have since grappled with the human condition in our world of extremes.  As a young lawyer, I spent my early career as a UN war crimes prosecutor in The Hague, served in Bosnia during the war, and subsequently in Rwanda, Cambodia, Guatemala, and other battered, bleeding countries torn apart by hatred and cruelty.  In 2003, I advised the Ugandan Government to refer the Lord’s Resistance Army case to the International Criminal Court.  By 2006, this strategy to isolate Joseph Kony succeeded in bringing an end to nearly two decades of terror in Acholiland.  I watched with interest Kony 2012’s rendition of events and the critical reactions of my Ugandan friends.  I watched Hotel Rwanda and In the Land of Blood and Honey (about the Bosnian war) and other films depicting events that transpired many years ago, but which seemingly never transpired until Hollywood took notice of it.  Yes, it is good that people who are oblivious to the world become somewhat less oblivious.  But it is grossly inadequate.

I have had no shortage of exposure to grim realities.  Nor am I unaware of the urgency with which we must come to the help of those in distress.  But I am of the view that the knowledge we fundamentally lack is not how to find practical solutions, or to achieve mass-mobilization through attractive awareness campaigns.  Making human rights sexy may be better than nothing.  But it will bring meagre results.  It will rationalize our sentimental self-delusion and justify our manifest lack of sustained and profound commitment.  The knowledge that we lack in a culture of crass materialism is the magic of painful struggle, the enchantment of genuine empathy, and the transforming power of mystical experience that awakens us to our extraordinary potential for good.  If we are to move beyond the narrow confines of glamour to the vast expanse of authenticity, then we must first learn to distinguish between illusion and reality:

“The story is told of a mystic knower, who went on a journey with a learned grammarian as his companion.  They came to the shore of the Sea of Grandeur.  The knower straightway flung himself into the waves, but the grammarian stood lost in his reasonings, which were as words that are written on water.”[3]

*********

Muna Ndulo is a Professor of Law, Cornell University Law School, and Director of Cornell University’s Institute for African Development. Muna Ndulo is an internationally recognized scholar in the fields of constitution making, governance and institution building, human rights and Foreign Direct Investments.

Tinenenji Banda is a Lecturer of Law, University of Zambia.

(a)   Introduction

 Invisible Children’s Kony 2012 drew both praise and criticism in its efforts to call attention to one of the most brutal war criminals the world has seen. Many critics assailed the documentary for things it did not claim to do.  It did not claim to offer a panacea for the problems of Northern Uganda. Neither did it assert that the arrest of Kony would decisively end the violence and upheaval.  The documentary’s main import was to advocate for the capture of Kony so that he be held accountable for the numerous abuses and atrocities he has inflicted on the people of Northern Uganda.  This is a noble objective on which there should be no disagreement.

There should also be no disagreement that the Kony-led atrocities are a scar on our collective conscience and that it is partly through international activism and awareness efforts (of which the Kony 2012 video is but one example) that these atrocities have been unearthed and publicized. There is thus inherent value in investigative documentaries that seek to expose the mammoth suffering created by perpetrators of gross human rights violations.

The locus of debate following the release of the video centered not on whether Joseph Kony is an unconscionable criminal—of that there can be no serious debate, but on whether the paradigm offered by the documentary is an appropriate lens through which this tragedy of vast proportions should be viewed. The video reignited an old debate on the savage/savior mentality that has, for centuries, bedeviled North/South discussion on human rights and democracy.  Those who criticized the video perceived it as a sensational bid to “stir up” western outrage so as to rally the archetypical “savior” to convene on this savage space in some kind of messianic intervention.

In this paper we do not comment on the intent of the documentary, but rather on its effect on the broader humanitarian discourse surrounding Kony and the Lord Resistance Army (LRA).  We argue that the North/South relationship will always be problematic because of the historical context in which it developed, and that the stereotypes that are prevalent in Northern societies about Southern societies have often led western researchers to extrapolate anecdotal acts as evidence of general practice.

So for example, despite the fact that Idi Amin is an odd figure even to Africans themselves, he continues to be a continuing reference point as to African presidential behavior.  The caricature of African leadership is immortalized in the figures of the excessive leadership of the Mobuto Seseseko’s and Bokassa’s of a bygone era.  Far too little has been made of the exceptional statesmanship of the Massire’s, Chissano’s and the Mogae’s, and while unconstitutional changes of government have become the touchstone of African politics, too little is made of the many successful constitutional changes of government that characterize many African democracies today. These successes are very real, and are often overlooked in favor of sensationalist stories that reinforce the quintessential stereotype of an Africa “run amok”.

It should be accepted that neither the North nor the South have clean hands when it comes to the protection of human rights—they all have a chequered past. Following its own atrocities of slave trading, colonialism, environmental degradation, the North has not really earned the moral right to lecture countries of the South on human rights.  Indeed, many protracted humanitarian crisis in Africa have been inflamed and prolonged by outside interests and influences. External interests continue to play a large and sometimes decisive role in suppressing and sustaining conflicts in the competition for oil, diamonds and other natural resources[1].

There is a however a grave danger in letting these uncomfortable realities  undermine the promotion of human rights and the campaign to end impunity for human rights violations. That there is a crisis of governance in several African states is undeniable. And the gross abuses, violations and excesses of the Bashir and Mugabe regimes, among others, can certainly not be condoned. Despite the compelling evidence of human rights violations in their respective countries, these African leaders make the preposterous claim that the vehement criticism levelled against their regimes are western projects.  To this there is clearly no merit.

We take the view that the promotion of human rights calls for the broadening of global consensus supporting democratic ideals and respect for human dignity. We argue that despite the tensions that have arisen between the North and the South due to the sullied historical context, collaboration –if properly structured– is possible and has happened successfully in the past.  Indeed, in view of the numerous grave human rights violations that are occurring virtually unchecked around the world, there is little alternative to continued cooperation in the promotion of human rights between the North and the South.  However the real focus should be on the victims of these atrocities and not on ideological battles that serve only to benefit the perpetrators of human rights violations.

In the section that follows, we discuss the need for meaningful North/South collaboration in the promotion of human rights. Before we do that however we first examine the historical context in which North/South relations are embedded and affect the way in which criticism from the north is contextualized.

(b) The Historical Context of North/ South Relations

A recurring diatribe against western human rights activists is that they adhere to a double standard.  Colonial rule, support for dictators during the cold war by both blocks, failure to condemn violations in countries of strategic important to the West (South Arabia and Equatorial Guinea for instance) are but some examples. The failure to lead by example on detentions and torture during the war on terror[2] is another. And although there have been vigorous debates about the legality of the extraordinary rendition and secrete detention program, there has not been an equally, vigorous and sustained campaign against the governments involved in the program.  Keyan Tomaseli observed for example that: “my seminar students, many of them mature activists, astonished me by directing their activism towards Palestine, Nicaragua, anti-apartheid movement, and so on.  None was engaged in challenging repression at home[3]”.

Another source of conflict is the perception that cultural differences are not respected.  Northern NGOs are often accused of lacking an appropriate understanding of cultural contexts.  Take the discourse on genital mutilation as an example. The fact that African governments have passed legislation prohibiting the practice, and the fact that many of these governments are grappling with the issue of how to change societal attitudes on the practice is all too often ignored. Instead, the debate focuses on emphasizing the primitiveness and inhumanity of the custom, thereby unnecessarily driving African societies into defensive postures about the legitimacy of African culture.

We believe that it is possible to criticize a society without dehumanizing it. Constructive criticism is one which recognizes and understands the economic and social conditions that underpin societal ills, instead of invariably resorting to simplistic backend condemnation of, for example, African customary law as the root of all evils with respect to women’s rights[4].

Similarly in the particular discourse at hand, a humanitarian discourse which begins and ends with the capture of Kony and ignores the causes of the proliferation of rebel movements is inchoate. After Kony is captured (which indeed he should be), then what? The more pertinent issue is why a movement like Kony’s was able to flourish and multiply. What fuels extremism and how can it be contained and suppressed? And while it can credibly be argued that these broader, normative questions are beyond the scope of Kony 2012, we advocate that the humanitarian discourse on Kony should shift from a fixation with his capture, to a deeper and more meaningful conversation on what it is that allows offenders like Kony to thrive.

(c)   The context for a successful international collaboration on the Promotion of Human Rights

Many view Global human rights campaigns as emanating from the North without proper engagement with local NGOs in the South. The thematic schemes of such campaigns are defined in the North and Southern NGOs are enlisted after the fact. What is in fact needed is meaningful collaboration between Northern and Southern NGOs.  Northern Ngo’s can help promote human rights and ensure that human rights standards are being articulated, provide requisite expertise and resources for the promotion of human rights and help in capacity building,  knowledge networking and the sharing of best practices.  This includes developing ways and means to contribute to the shaping of a policy framework for democracy assistance and promotion of human rights at the inter-governmental level.[5]  As Phil Harris observes: NGOs have five major roles to play: (a) they are organizations working directly in the field with the problems of “grassroots” communities and their development prospects; (b) they can act as go-betweens, transforming official government policies into concrete action at the local levels; (c) they can often act as surrogates for government in areas where either the government is inert or the local community is reluctant to recognize the authority of government; (d) they are catalysts for action, putting new issues on the public agenda and pressuring governments to take action; they can be instruments for identifying common issues and strategies that cut across South-North divisions, and creating mechanisms for joint action[6].  But what they do and how they do it is crucial as to how their action will be perceived and subsequently received.

The international community should however, remain mindful of the need for inter-regional cultural dialogues that provides an ethical underpinning for an ever more inter-dependent, and increasingly vulnerable world community.  In its support for the promotion of human rights, the North should refrain from being solely prescriptive, and imposing solutions without due regard to local conditions.  International NGO discourse in the south has for far too long  been characterized by the simplistic “savior/savage” dichotomy which ignores many of the complex realities that pervade North/South relations and all too often presents African countries as failed states, with the latest upheaval constituting yet another round in the ever continuing series of the “rumble in the jungle”. The portrayal of Africa as a monolithic unit in which there are no divergences or nuances is inaccurate and out of touch with prevailing realities.

Northern Activists must make every effort to acquire local knowledge and demonstrate the capacity to operate with cross-cultural awareness in order to manage the dynamics of difference and adapt to diversity and the cultural context of the communities they serve. It should not be forgotten that local communities have the best understanding of the culture, history and conditions of their communities and as such they are in the best position to create solutions to address the root cause of injustice and inequality in their own communities.

Cooperation between the North/South should be based on constructive dialogue and mutual respect, not on acrimonious confrontation.  When violations are identified, they must be presented in a dispassionate, objective, principled manner that is more likely to win support from the local community.

To aid legitimacy, the North must be mindful that they must lead this fight by example.  Condemnation of the excesses of the war on terror must be as loud as the condemnations of Kony and Bashir. Only to the extent that the northern countries set a positive example for the construction of human rights within the framework of a world community united in the promotion of human rights regardless of the identity of the violator, will human rights campaigns garner universal appeal. And although it is important that the promotion of human rights should essentially be driven by local stakeholders, international actors can and do play an important role in the process.[7]  Often, local stakeholders lack capacity and space to operate in highly authoritarian regimes. In such cases, international collaboration empowers local NGOs by  offering protection from harassment.

In their work, international activists should also be mindful of the work of local experts.  The value of the expert’s comparative experience is widely acknowledged in other contexts.[8]  Access to comparative experience is particularly useful as it provides a wide range of information on possible options and lessons on what works and what does not work in terms of strategies for the promotion of human rights.

Conclusions

To have meaningful collaboration, both the north and the South while vigorously promoting human rights and fighting to end impunity, must understand, engage and critique the assumptions on culture, conditions and programs of movements in the South. The engagement should address the stereotypes each has of the other that tend to undermine collaboration.  The North should set aside patronizing attitudes of the South, and the South must seek to urgently address their complete financial dependency on the North for funding as this external dependency is often used by authoritarian regimes to delegitimize their work.  There is a need to develop global solidarity in which sympathetic western activists take more seriously the ideas and arguments of progressive South activists.

It is evident that North/South interactions have been dysfunctional, and if any lessons have been learned from this dysfunctional interface, it is that Africa cannot be “saved” by the west; indeed this idea of a “savior” is self-defeating and immobilizing. Africa must create its own culture of accountability, and the idea that Africa needs to be jolted into self-awareness by the better educated conscience of its western counterpart is flawed and discredited.

For Epistemological and Prudent Internationalism[1]

B.S. Chimni is Professor and Chairperson, Centre for International Legal Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. He has been a Visiting Professor at Brown and Tokyo Universities. He has also held visiting positions at Harvard, Cambridge, and York Universities. He is a Vice-President of the Asian Society of International Law. He is also an associate member of the Institut De Droit International. His central research interest is to elaborate in association with a group of likeminded scholars a critical third world approach to international law (TWAIL).

Introduction

The Harvard Human Rights Journal (HHRJ) has posed three significant questions for consideration at a time when social and political movements in several countries called for democratic reforms and were met with brutal repression by authoritarian regimes, leading to the intervention of the international community. The latest instance is Syria. The three specific questions that HHRJ has posed from the standpoint of internationalism are: Is there a necessary trade-off between capturing the complexities of a situation involving human rights in a specific country or region, and raising public international support for a proposed remedy? If so, where should that trade-off be located? How can one build an activist movement that is both adequately informed as to the issues, and broad-based? How do we build an international constituency against heinous crimes without falling into the trap of a Savage-Victim-Savior (SVS) mentality?[2]

These questions are posed on the supposition that the “global civil society” and “international community” should, in a spirit of internationalism, express active solidarity with opposition movements that are protesting serious human rights violations or seeking democratic reforms, including free and fair elections, or regime change, but without being tainted with the charge of humanitarian imperialism[3]. The latter apprehension can be traced to the fact that it is anticipated—as is clear from the reference to SVS mentality—that the mobilization of broad based public international support against serious human rights violations or pro-democratic reforms is to be organized primarily by western civil society and States for intervention, including possible military action, in non-western States. The underlying assumption is that without such expressions of solidarity, including through the extensive documentation of human rights violations by western international non-governmental organizations (INGOs), and the “international community” getting into the frame, local movements will find it hard to achieve their mission. This understanding raises a number of complex issues that need to be addressed. Since non-western peoples and States are particularly concerned about military action and other coercive measures for promoting human rights and democracy, including regime change, whether undertaken unilaterally or with the approval of empowered multilateral forums, these remedies are the reference point for the remarks to follow.

My endeavor will be to make out a case for epistemological and prudent internationalism. By “epistemological internationalism” I mean the need to correct the Eurocentric bias that characterizes information and knowledge produced by agencies of western civil society and States of cultures, societies and histories of non-western nations by taking into account their self-understandings as a basis for expression of international solidarity, including suggesting different modes of intervention to the international community[4]. The essential plea is for drawing on diverse sources of local knowledge as the foundation for arriving at an objective assessment of a particular social and political situation or an ongoing conflict. By “prudent internationalism” I mean the refusal to be ensnared by options for action framed by hegemonic States at times of crisis and the exercise of caution in recommending coercive international measures, especially military action, to the international community of States.[5]

The return of liberal paternalism

The need to plead the case for epistemological and prudent internationalism has arisen because of the return of the ideology of liberal paternalism in its late eighteenth and nineteenth century variant in the post-Cold War era. In this view, “the West has a duty or a burden to remake (or civilize) the uncivilized non-Western world in the West’s image for the betterment of ‘global humanity.’”[6] The doctrines of humanitarian intervention and responsibility to protect (R2P) are manifestations of that conviction. It appears to a vast majority of third-world peoples that the West will not rest until the entire world is reconfigured to resemble western liberal democracies.[7] The desire of the West to transform the non-West goes beyond, as it always did, simple commercial and geo-strategic interests. But while the past resonates in the present, the attempt to civilize the non-West is being undertaken today in new circumstances. At a time when western dominance is being challenged by rising non-Western powers, the ideology of liberal paternalism represents an attempt to reassert that all that is good in human civilization is the contribution of the West; that it is the guardian of all laudable human values. What is perceived as being at stake is no less than the future of western (and therefore apparently human) civilization itself. The West believes that it is imperative to act before it is too late to construct a democratic and humane “empire of uniformity.”[8] The idea of cultural and political monism that informs such desire reflects the anxiety of a civilization that is slowly being rendered provincial. In contrast, non-western civilizations are more self-assured today. The non-West knows that it can deal with new forms of imperialism as it did with colonialism. It thus displays a quiet strength that is also rooted in the genuine belief that all civilizations, including western civilization, can promote the global common good.

The issue of trade-off

It is in the matrix of the return of the liberal paternalism paradigm that there is a need to consider the key issue of trade-off between capturing the complexities of a political or human rights situation in a specific country or region and raising broad-based public international support for those struggling for democracy and human rights. In my view, the key variables here are the timing of seeking broad based international support, the knowledge base on which it rests, and the nature of remedy proposed. In this section I undertake to explore in a preliminary way each of these factors. I elaborate these factors in the later sections devoted to further reflections on the ideas of epistemological and prudent internationalism.

The question of trade-off is crucially related to the timing of raising international support. When the aim of raising international support is to get the “international community” to act urgently, the trade-off is seen as unavoidable. It leads to placing in temporary abeyance the practice of epistemological and prudent internationalism. The “complexities” of the situation arguably involve such an array of social, economic and political variables that any attempt to predicate international support upon thorough and nuanced understanding and thinking through possible modes of intervention may lead to crucial delays and the resulting inaction of the international community at a critical time, with possibly terrible consequences. Therefore at times of crisis there is a tendency to go with the flow, especially when the print, electronic, and social media is full of horror stories of human rights violations. It is not seen as an opportune moment to question the lack of sophisticated understanding of ground realities to seek broad-based support. The priority is to stop serious human rights violations. But it could be argued that it is precisely in times of crisis that there is a need to be alert to diversity of local voices, for it is at such times that information and knowledge is selectively produced, disseminated, and used by social forces and States that hope to benefit through eliciting particular responses from the “international community.”

A one-dimensional portrayal of events, social processes, and movements at these moments can lead to international action that may do more harm than good. By rushing into supporting the agenda of liberal paternalism, forces of “global civil society” can become complicit with the politics of empire. It may therefore often be prudent to suggest a delayed response, unless there is an overwhelming consensus in the international community that genocide is imminent or ongoing, and therefore there is no time or need to undertake a careful assessment of the both the political and human rights situation. A good example is Rwanda, in which instance the international community did not act. Prudent internationalism essentially means leaving non-western societies to deal with their own social and political problems. It calls for a degree of empathy to be shown towards internal explanations of the social and political crisis. After all, non-western peoples are not without history, including a history of resistance to local elites and foreign occupations. The strength and spirit of ordinary people in opposing vicious regimes in non-western societies should not be underestimated.

Of course there must be efforts at informing the world about ongoing human rights violations and expressing solidarity with pro-democracy movements. There must be no hesitation in condemning brutal crackdowns by those in power. But the “global civil society” should not go with the view that “only the ‘international community’—rather than the people . . . may legitimately stage a revolution in the decolonized world.”[9] Such thinking only strengthens hegemonic forces in the international system. For in the final analysis democracy and human rights cannot be effectively promoted from the outside. Indeed, to act hastily is often to undermine the efforts of local movements in this direction as these are readily accused of being aided by international forces seeking to destabilize the country.

The extent of trade-off is also crucially related to the remedy proposed. Where the remedy in issue is military action, there is a heavy burden of proof on those proposing it, to show that the complexities of the situation and the necessity and consequences of military action have been the subject of careful consideration. Apart from the human toll military action may take, it can sharpen the social, religious, and ethnic divides between different groups in society making reconciliation difficult for coming decades.[10] International support may also encourage secessionist forces leading to the breakup of States, only to reproduce renewed cycle of oppression of minorities. The consequent outflow of refugees leads to great suffering and also placing a burden on neighboring States.

Where military action is proposed the factors that need to be taken into account in determining the extent of trade-off include: the identity and interests of actors that are to undertake military action, the likelihood that the regime in question may have received material support in the past from the same actors, and finally the possibility that the oppositional movement is being encouraged from the outside (e.g., through material assistance and supply of arms and other equipment) to precipitate a situation in which military action will be seen as a legitimate response. To be sure, the situation is not always a straightforward one. For instance, it is not easy to know whether local movements represent authentic protest or are being manipulated by external forces. The modes of external manipulation are so varied and sophisticated that only a careful sifting of fact from fiction can help capture the reality of the situation. In the absence of such analysis progressive forces of internationalism may play into the hands of hegemonic States that systematically calibrate their moves: both Libya and Syria are good examples. Through portraying a facile picture of the situation they may come to legitimize the coercive actions of these States as the belief grows that only such action can help protect human rights.

From the perspective of not embracing an SVS mentality it is important not to be trapped by options framed by dominant States. The choice often assumes the form of either supporting robust forms of intervention or backing an authoritarian regime committing gross human rights violations.[11] It is important to appreciate that ordinary peoples will inevitably end up as victims if the options are framed in a binary fashion. Thus, for instance, once an authoritarian regime is threatened with military action or through the supply of arms and money to an opposition movement, its paranoid leaders will come down with a heavy hand on the ongoing structures of resistance. In the case the military option is exercised, recent history reveals that non-combatants or civilians tend to become collateral damage. Finally, we also know that low intensity democracies can heave misery on peoples. Iraq is a case in point. Therefore “free and fair elections” is not an end that should be pursued at any cost.

It is crucial that alternative options are explored by global civil society. The aim of garnering broad international support should be (i) in the short term to (a) express solidarity with opposition movements through sensitizing global public opinion; and (b) show the problematic ways in which the options are framed by powerful actors and in this respect provide objective information to people and decision makers to assess their validity, and (ii) from a medium and long term perspective support those internal social forces that have a program for pursuing the objective of “development as freedom” as opposed to a neo-liberal agenda. The “third way” does not entirely rule out military action but in general advises restraint by reference to an audit of past experience which shows that the use of force rarely produces a truly democratic society (e.g., Iraq). The best way to help establish and sustain democratic societies is to essentially leave it to local movements to achieve these goals (e.g., Egypt).

More on epistemological internationalism

I have argued that a key variable that shapes the response to a situation of human rights violation is the set of facts on the ground, especially where military action or other coercive measures are proposed. In a plural society such as the international society a sovereign state tends to be moved by “national interests” rather than the global common good. Therefore the facts, values, and norms in issue inevitably yield multiple interpretations[12]. The interpretations advanced are a function of many factors, the humanitarian impulse being only one of them. There are equally economic, cultural and strategic factors at work. The resulting state of global indeterminacy is accentuated by the reality that there are no institutions that can provide authoritative interpretations of facts, values and norms, albeit admittedly in the sphere of human rights there are treaty bodies, offices and mechanisms that claim a privileged position. But these agencies or their apparatus are not often in a position to offer an authoritative view given constraints of time and the inability of those assigned the task of providing objective information to visit the places where human rights violations have taken place. In the circumstances the “global civil society” has to be wary of accepting the information purveyed by dominant States and the INGOs they fund or support. “Epistemological internationalism” calls for the decolonization and democratization of information and knowledge networks.

It is worth considering here the twofold response of Louise Arbour to the skepticism that is being expressed with regard to the information and knowledge used for international decision-making. First, she notes that “without overlooking the notion of presumption of innocence, and staying within the context of preventive action, it is fair to say that perpetrators always seek to obfuscate reality, to discredit both the information that points to their culpability and those who provide it, routinely demanding further proof.”[13] In the context of credible information being made available she mentions the historical instances of the Holocaust and Rwandan Genocide. She is entirely correct in these two cases. But there are other cases that have invited military action where there was insufficient evidence of gross violation of human rights. Thus, for instance, in the case of NATO intervention in Kosovo the accuracy of the information purveyed with respect to the extent of human rights violation has been questioned[14]. The scale of human rights violation appears to have been somewhat exaggerated to justify unilateral military action. In such cases the identity of the agencies that provide and analyze the information can be crucial.

With respect to international institutional infrastructure available to report on human rights violations, Arbour writes that “since impending genocide is almost invariably preceded by patterns of gross and systematic human rights violations, the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) is—or should be—the pre-eminent forum for early warning and prevention.”[15] But there is no reason to believe that an international commission of inquiry or investigating teams sent by UNHRC will be able to tap into diversified sources of information in a short period at a time of ongoing conflict and often without being able to visit the country concerned.[16] The faith placed in them often reflects an unwarranted epistemological confidence that is a function of relying on particular sources of information, albeit admittedly this is not always the case. These sources are sometimes simply interviews with those who have left the country or individuals living in the region. The information gathered through this process, supplemented by accounts produced by west-based INGOs, who in many cases receive funding from western government agencies (such as USAID), provide a particular view of the situation.[17] It generates the understandable suspicion that the reports produced, especially at critical moments (i.e., when the “international community” is to take key decisions) tend to lend support to the political agenda of western governments.[18] The cultural capital of established INGOs is used at such times to legitimize the decisions of hegemonic states. The money-power-knowledge constellation therefore calls for close scrutiny. It will have to be determined whether diverse local voices are adequately respected by the reports of INGOs[19]. In its absence the constant flow of reports from INGOs or even local NGOs funded by INGOs can lead to the accumulation of evidence that creates the climate in which coercive acts of intervention are perceived as necessary.

The information and knowledge produced by Euro-American think tanks, that at times are funded by government agencies or the corporate world with stakes in particular forms of intervention, likewise need to be scrutinized. Such information and knowledge is often aligned to the strategic objectives of western States and corporations. The role of the diaspora in portraying a particular understanding of the social situation at home also needs to be closely examined, as it does not face the consequences of its hyper-activism. Its understanding of the social and political situation is often frozen in time. Its activism can also come to be encouraged by state intelligence agencies seeking to justify a particular response of governments. Finally, the role of the powerful western media also calls for careful assessment. The endless beaming by the electronic media of selective and disturbing images can produce a vision of human rights violations that represents a grossly exaggerated picture of ground realities.

In short, there is a need to take into account diverse sources of information, in particular different local voices, in determining the human rights situation in any country. But it is not diversity of sources of information per se that is to be the aim of the exercise but to arrive at an objective understanding of the situation. The overall idea should be to ensure that information and knowledge is not produced either to serve hegemonic states or authoritarian governments, but to protect the interests of the people concerned. Epistemological internationalism therefore demands among other things that the violence of both the government and opposition forces be equally reported and condemned[20]. In other words, international support has to be mobilized with a sense of responsibility. But greater caution should be exercised to see that the voices of progressive civil society do not fuse with that of ideologues of empire and views of few expatriate dissidents with sectarian and vested interests. This is where the information and knowledge produced through the practice of epistemological internationalism allows western civil society to overcome biases in perception and thinking arising from particular historical experiences.

More on prudent internationalism

Epistemological internationalism facilitates the practice of prudent internationalism as “global civil society” can avoid joining the chorus for sanctions or military action by the very social forces and States that deliberately implement policy measures to precipitate events that justify such a response. Prudent internationalists take cognizance of the wider consequences of advocating particular actions to the “international community.” They have an eye on the future.

Thus, for instance, prudent internationalists do not endorse actions that destabilize the normative consensus in the international system against the use of military action. They take into account the serious consequences of undermining the existing regime relating to the non-use of force, which has over decades served the international community well. The carving out of ready exceptions in the name of protection of human rights can become “a part of an array of political weapons inimical to the Rule of Law, to the principle of equality of States, and to the practice of genuine democracy.”[21] The contention that military action can be “illegal but legitimate” is extremely problematic. Any attempt by a nation or a set of nations to impose its own moral standards on others through the use of force reflects a SVS mentality and undermines the stability of the international system.[22] In the view of prudent internationalists the promotion and protection of human rights should be pursued through agreed international mechanisms. As the International Court of Justice (ICJ) observed in the Nicaragua case, “[W]here human rights are protected by international conventions that protection takes the form of such arrangements for monitoring or ensuring respect for human rights as are provided for in the conventions themselves . . . .”[23]

But lest the hitherto critique be understood as suggesting that the international community should not permit military action under any circumstances it needs to be emphasized that it is legally permissible to do so to prevent imminent or ongoing genocide. However, such collective armed intervention must be authorized by the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) and only when certain pre-conditions are met: (i) there must be an overwhelming consensus within the international community of states to intervene; and (ii) peaceful modes of resolving the situation must have been exhausted. In allowing the use of force UNSC must also ensure that (i) there is proportionate use of force; and (ii) the rules of international humanitarian law are strictly respected[24].

Prudent internationalists should however not merely be concerned with the permissibility and consequences of unilateral military action. They should also work against the frequent use of unilateral coercive measures for the protection of human rights. In fact the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) has urged all States to cease adopting or implementing any unilateral coercive measures that impede ‘the full realization of the rights set forth in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other international human rights instruments, in particular the right of individuals and peoples to development.”[25] The rationale behind the UNGA resolution is the negative impact of such measures on the subaltern and marginal sections of the populations of States targeted, especially on children and women, as was the case in Iraq in the past and today in Iran[26]. Prudent internationalism keeps the interests of the vast majority of peoples in view.

In the context of prudent internationalism being firmly anchored in people’s interests, it is crucial to note that liberal paternalism is today not merely arguing the case for coercive international measures but also extended intervention over time, including building post-conflict societies.[27] Humanitarian intervention is no longer about the “international community” going in, remedying a situation, and leaving. Explaining the temporal dimension of the new concept of responsibility to protect (R2P), Arbour writes that “[T]he protection duty encompasses a continuum of prevention, reaction, and commitment to rebuild, spanning from early warning, to diplomatic pressure, to coercive measures, to accountability for perpetrators and international aid.”[28] What is more she argues that “[P]owerful States may be reasonably expected to play a leading role in bolstering appropriate measures of prevention, dissuasion and remedy across a geographic spectrum commensurate with their weight, wealth, reach, and advanced capabilities.”[29] But in an unequal world order she is privileging precisely the actors that have imperial aspirations. It is true that with greater power comes increased responsibility and powerful states cannot disregard it. But in that case there must be ways to ensure (i) that relevant decisions are taken in democratic international forums; (ii) that the responsibility is exercised in accordance with the rule of law; and (iii) that the concerned States are accountable for any violations of the relevant rules of law. However, today the decisions are taken in the UNSC: a body that is far from being democratic; the demand for expanding its permanent membership is yet to be accepted. On the other hand, the International Court of Justice (ICJ), the principal judicial organ of the UN, does not have the authority of judicial review over UNSC decisions to see if these are in conformity with the UN Charter. The result often is that powerful States exercise power without accountability.

Turning to the proposal of the international community assisting in rebuilding post-conflict States, this may become the cause of other forms of oppression. Thus, for instance, the institutional actors that constitute saviors at this stage include the international financial institutions that are well known to impose a neo-liberal economic agenda on the State concerned.[30] This agenda is more aligned to the interests of the powerful States that fund these institutions than to the interests of the people of post-conflict States. In countries that have been able to avoid an internal war to establish democracy it is important to support a self reliant and independent path of development. For as Fakhri rightly cautions, “international institutions may ‘steal’ the revolution in order to implement their own socio-economic programs.”[31]

This possibility raises the question of the larger goals of the social forces mobilizing international support for those struggling for the cause of human rights and democracy in the non-western world. There is the unfortunate tendency of western civil society to represent the domain of human rights violations as simply a relationship between predator post-colonial states, and its weird leaders, and the suffering populations. Removed from the scene is the role of dominant global social forces, international institutions and powerful States in embedding and sustaining economic and political structures that lead to the gross violation of human rights. This absence allows precisely those social forces, institutions, and States that are complicit in human right violations to turn up on the scene as saviors. Therefore it is important that the voices gathering broad based international support simultaneously challenge their policies. The internationalism of progressive social forces and organizations must be “based on a critical, informed, reading” of the “past record” of liberal internationalism.[32] The broad-based international support should therefore exclude, and indeed oppose, those social forces and States that support the economics and politics of imperialism. These social forces and States are in many instances non-western, as is the case in the Arab world today. There are countries such as Saudi Arabia that support the cause of liberal paternalism if only to claim an exceptional status for itself. Thus, for instance, Saudi Arabia along with Qatar moved the UNGA resolution of 3 October, 2012 supporting pro-democratic forces in Syria.

Conclusion

For those raising international support for pro-human rights and pro-democracy movements, and proposing the remedy of military action or other coercive measures to prevent violations of human rights, it is crucial to ask the question as to why large segments of the global civil society and most non-western governments oppose such forms of intervention.[33] Of course a possible answer is that these social forces and governments have vested interests in sustaining an unjust status quo; democratization of other societies is a threat to authoritarian regimes and their supporters everywhere. But there may be legitimate reasons for counseling prudence that emanate from the practice of epistemological internationalism. These include: the assessment that the facts in issue are exaggerated (for instance, the extent of human rights violations); the possibility that the opposition activity, including violence, is being encouraged from the outside through the provision of material assistance and arms to legitimize particular responses; the recognition that given the complex social composition of societies, ethnic or religious divides will sharpen if force is used on the behalf of one or other group; the considered view that the use of force cannot promote human rights in the long run as violence only produces a cycle of violence; the belief that the forces of intervention are pursuing economic and geo-strategic interests; the historical lesson that institutions of liberal democracy cannot suddenly take roots; and the conviction that the weakening of the norm of non-use of force will undermine the stability of the international order.

In addition to these reasons there is the recognition that the principal site of struggle for democracy and human rights is the nation-state, and that concepts such as R2P represent a form of revolutionary imperialism. It is therefore important not to be trapped into engaging with options framed by powerful States and the ideologues of empire (e.g., military action versus supporting an authoritarian regime). It is critical in times of crisis to provide an independent analysis of situations and options, especially keeping in view the future of the concerned society. From “epistemological internationalism” follows “prudent internationalism.” Keeping in view the interests of the vast majority of people in concerned States, especially its subaltern sections, caring social forces and States should advise against coercive measures unless absolutely necessary. For these do more harm than good.

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