Global Politics After 9/11: The Democratiya Interviews.
| Author | Farook, Faizal |
| Position | Progressive Foreign Policy - Book review |
Progressive Foreign Policy
Edited by David Held and David Mepham
IPPR/POLITY, 2007
Global Politics After 9/11: The Democratiya Interviews
Edited by Alan Johnson
DEMOCRATIYA/FOREIGN POLICY CENTRE, 2008
When Nick Cohen told us what he thought was wrong with mainstream liberal thought in What's Left? (Fourth Estate, 2007), a range of voices from across the political spectrum spoke up in vociferous agreement. The ensuing debate made it clear that the invasion of Iraq, despite its disastrous progress, was, far from an indictment of the right, instead a hammer blow that shattered the left.
Faced with a questionable, unilateral, pre-emptive military action, many found themselves locked into simplistic solipsism casting America and Britain as the bad guys, and therefore viewing their enemies' enemies as its heroes. Thus charges Global Politics After 9/11: the left abandoned those it should have been supporting (democrats, trade unionists and human rights activists) and supported those it should have been opposing (reactionary fundamentalists, terror groups and totalitarian Islamists). The message of the essays in both Global Politics After 9/11 and Progressive Foreign Policy is clear: the left must recommit itself to the global promotion of human rights and democracy as universal liberal values.
Both books put forward strong but nuanced arguments to establish their starting point of a rejection of political relativism and the advocacy of universal liberal principles. David Mepham's essay in Progressive Foreign Policy warns progressives against being disorientated by George Bush's universalistic rhetoric. He chides cultural relativists who see democracy and human rights as neo-colonialism, and established thinkers who have argued that the concepts of rights are inapplicable to non-western societies. Such a position, he argues, rests on a view of cultural tradition as static and unchallengeable, ignores the role of non-westerners in shaping rights dialogue and overlooks the fluidity, diversity and multiplicity within all societies, especially in a global era.
As told to Democratiya, the core of American conservative Jean Bethke Elshtain's thesis on 'just war' echoes this idea, resting on the principle of 'equal regard': by considering all humans as of equal value we have a moral duty to consider whether we need to intervene. Elshtain outlines a pragmatic basis for deciding whether it is practical to intervene after considering whether there is a...
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