23
votes
The West needs to show it values all human life – Accusations of double standards sting because they have a point
Link information
This data is scraped automatically and may be incorrect.
- Title
- The West Needs to Show It Values All Human Life
- Authors
- Mark Malloch-Brown
- Published
- Jan 22 2024
- Word count
- 1083 words
The problem with the conflict in Sudan is that it’s not obvious what “the west” can even do? There’s not even a “side” to give military aid to. It’s a civil war between two different warlords.
Who do you give aid to? How does it not end up in the hands of said warlords? How does it not merely pour gasoline on the fire by giving the warlords more resources to play with? How do you do this without endangering humanitarian workers?
Boots on the ground? The US has been lambasted for ages for trying to be the world police. There is no political appetite domestically or internationally for boots on the ground in Sudan. What would the end goal even be? Again, two warlords fighting.
I don't think the author is suggesting intervention – I think the question is why does Ukraine get more attention on the global stage than Sudan? Of course Ukraine is much more important to the west, but like Sudan it's a regional conflict. Yet European powers try to push other countries to condemn Russia (which I do, what the Russians are doing is beyond rapproach) on the basis of universal human rights and support for democracy, but don't do the same when it comes to other conflicts.
[edit: I don't know very much about Sudan, and Yemen would be the example I would choose, or any of the very numerous currently ongoing conflicts. I also want to make clear that I very much support Ukraine, and they don't deserve to be colonised (again) by Russia.]
Because unlike many other conflicts, one party to the conflict is a hostile major power with an appetite for further conflicts. Sure, NATO could say "fuck that" and not provide aid, or news coverage. But then you're basically selling Moldovia, the Caucasus and maybe some of the former soviet -istans to Russia. Maybe even tempt Russia to test NATO's resolve of defending, say, the baltics. There's a good reason for military aid, and there's a good reason to watch the conflict, both geopolitically and doctrinally (it's the closest thing to the worst case for our militaries that we can currently find anywhere). And wherever aid or other intervention goes, our attention rightfully follows. Also, for Europeans, this war is right on our doorstep. Ukraine has cultural ties to the west; Ukrainians are in our online spaces; they're trading with us; and they're migrating to the west, all of it at a scale that Sudan doesn't match. Of course we're going to care more. Or do we seriously expect that if half of south and middle america invaded Mexico, the US would just shrug and awkwardly look elsewhere? (Or, to be more consistent with the advocated for position of the OP, consider it equal in importance than if a similar conflict occurred half a globe away.)
I'm not saying Sudan doesn't deserve more eyeballs or more humanitarian aid, but you can't possibly compare those conflicts, they're too different.
Also, I don't think the reason we pay attention to this or that conflict is necessarily human rights or support for democracy. It's more often our own security concerns - in the case of Hamas/Gaza, it's about terrorism and in the case of Ukraine it's about large-scale war. If you ignore those aspects in assessing what events make the news, there's likely an entire host of events (not necessarily armed conflicts) that deserve our attention just the same, but that's not happening. There's obviously other factors at work, and I think at least part of it is our own security interests.
I'm not arguing against military aid, I think it's the correct move for European states to support Ukraine and other states against Russian imperialism. My point is that the West tries to make a moralising and universalising mission out of a regional conflict. I understand why e.g. European media cares more about conflicts right next door, I just don't see why international forums should care much much more about Ukraine than Sudan (to be clear, they should care about both).
I recognize your broader point and don't disagree with it. One thing to consider might be that the Ukraine war is one (nuclear-armed) nation invading another which is being backed by the EU, so the potential for regional blowup is higher. It's the same for the Gaza war - there's a much higher risk of the conflict drawing in other (powerful) countries. Sudan, by contrast, really doesn't have the same regional flavor. I know you said before that Ukraine and Sudan are both regional conflicts, but that's not quite right - Ukraine is regional, but Sudan is internal.
And finally, for outside observers, it's a lot easier to identify with a good guy and bad guy in Ukraine and Gaza. Who's the good guy and who's the bad guy isn't always the same, but pretty much everyone has one. That's not as easy to do in a civil war - especially one in Africa.
But apart from those legitimate reasons... People just don't care about Africa as much.
I would argue that Ukraine is not regional. First, the point of the war was that Ukraine was drifting toward NATO, which is not a regional organization, both in footprint and in impact.
More importantly, any conflict involving a nuclear power is no longer a regional issue.
The current war in Ukraine is a continuation of an invasion that Russia started in 2014 in response to the Euromaidan revolution, which was about Ukraine trying to build stronger ties to EU, not NATO.
This war was never about NATO, and we know this because in the early days of the war one of the first things offered for negotiation was a promise from Ukraine to never join NATO if Russia would just leave and return to the Jan. 2022 borders. Later, they even offered to promise not to join the EU as well, but both offers were withdrawn after it was obvious that Russia wasn't interested in either.
This war is about Ukraine trying to leave Russia's orbit for good, and many in Ukraine regard this as their war of independence.
I probably worded it poorly, but if Ukraine is trying to leave Russia's orbit, there's only really one other direction they could go, and if you look at a map of which countries are in the EU, NATO, or both, it's clear that a direction toward the EU is a direction toward NATO.
Edit: made an edit and then removed it because it was pointless.
I mean, it's still a regional conflict. Most of Russia isn't affected thaaaat badly, and otherwise it's just Ukraine.
The problem is it has (low probability) potential to escalate into either nuclear war, or a major conflict of NATO against a "near-peer" (laughs in tampon bandage) adversary. Then we're clearly no longer talking regional conflict, and we'd be making billy big steps in the direction of WW3.
The war in Ukraine has massively upset food prices all across the world. It even has a major impact on Sudan because Ukraine provides them with a ton of food (actually hundreds of thousands of tons of food).
But isn't it natural that wherever our money and stuff goes, our attention follows?
I'm not getting this message at all. It is one of the reasons we should care, but in my opinion, which aligns with the opinions of the media landscape as far as I perceive it, it's not the core reason we do care. Maybe that betrays the kind of media I consume on the conflict, but a lot of the reasons for getting involved and for caring are more security minded. In other words: That moralising and universalising justification just isn't there for me.
The point isn't about Western attention, it's about the west claiming that everyone else should be concerned with issues that affect the west (e.g. condemn Ukraine, etc), but not the other way around.
The war in Ukraine severely affects Sudan, as well. Ukraine provides a huge amount of grain to Sudan. It has driven up food prices all across the world.
I mean, of course the West wants other countries to care more about issues that affect the West. I'm sure China wants other countries to care more about issues that affect China. I'm sure Ethiopia wants other countries to care more about issues that affect Ethiopia. Etc. etc. etc.
One doesn't automatically owe more attention to the goals of other nations just because one's advocating more attention be paid to your own. That's all part of what the diplomats are negotiating about behind the scenes.
I haven't read much on these topics, but I would suppose that there is a difference between a civil war, and a violation of established states borders. The recognition of states and their borders is an important issue in global diplomacy. Russia violating recognized borders of a sovereign nation, and violating their own prior treaty around disarmament feels different than an internal power struggle in Sudan.
Intervention in Ukraine feels more like standing for the global order and punishing land grabs that breed regional wars. If we intervene in Sudan, it would feel more like a humanitarian gesture.
But I'll go read up some more of the Sudan conflict.
Not to mention that Sudan has had some form of civil war going on for all but about ten years since 1955. This is the country's standard state. Sudan is also about as poor as can be so the only impacts it can really have outside of the country are basically just minor skirmishes between partisan/ethnically-alignes groups moving across borders into neighboring countries, which seems to be happening constantly in Eastern Africa, so it's more of the same, as far as the state of global affairs is concerned.
Yes, there are many displaced people and we should have more empathy for the Sudanese. But with almost no direct impact beyond their own borders, it's never going to generate the same amount of discussion as a war where one side is threatening to nuke anyone who isn't nice to them.
Yeah. I suppose one thing that I notice in these sorts of discussions is the conflating of self interested or pragmatic interventions, vs humanitarian. I don't believe the US or EU are intervening in Ukraine based on humanitarian grounds. I don't think they are above selling the moral high ground as a means of getting public support. But comments from congressional leaders have been fairly consistent that this is an issue of foreign policy and strategic interest.
Detangling these justifications seems to take a little wind out of the argument about double standards. If the West is intervening in Ukraine because it is practical and self interested to do so, then there isn't much of a double standard when the West stays out of conflicts that don't impact their interests.
I suspect most folks don't want to dwell on the harsh realities of foreign policy, and that rarely does any state intervene in another affairs for purely humanitarian reasons. Even in extreme cases like the Rwanda genocides, the UN intervened largely after the fact.
I want to be clear though, that I'm not saying double standards don't exist. I'm sure they do. I just think care needs to be taken when comparing events so you don't confuse the motivations.
Plus, the UN's peacekeeping force currently has 7 missions in Africa, including one in South Sudan and one on the South/Sudanese border. Those missions mostly pull troops from developing countries (because they can earn money that way), but the leadership and staff is mostly Western.
It doesn’t have to either or.
Geopolitical incentives + humanitarian justification > only geopolitical incentives > only humanitarian justification.
That's true, of course. If you can get a humanitarian win while advancing strategic interests all the better. I'm just a little jaded I suppose and don't often think that the humanitarian aspect alone is usually enough to overcome the complicated web of conflicting foreign interests that go along with it.
Have a great day!
I think calling both "regional conflicts" is vastly oversimplifying. The scale of both are not the same. Sudan's entire GDP is 36b, Russia alone is spending 36b per year on JUST military expenditure. The scales of the conflict are much larger, and in Europe's backyards.
Additionally, it always becomes easier to push for something, when there's something to push for. What would you even be condemning in Sudan? You'd be condemning both sides I guess? What would this accomplish? When Europe pushes for other countries to condemn Russia, they're testing the waters for geopolitical alliances and appetites.
So, in the end, Ukraine gets the most attention because 1) it's the most actionable 2) it's a much larger conflict that could be the precipice to further conflict in Europe 3) it has the most geopolitical relevance for the "West" in terms of impact
I agree there's a huge Western bias to the things that the US and media care about and get involved in, but I also think that civil wars are often very different from wars involving multiple countries, especially a country as large and with the status of Russia. But I fundamentally agree that we can have empathy and be concerned about multiple issues at a time - though it is hard to maintain that across everything wrong with the world and many people aren't going to be actively thinking about Gaza, Sudan, Ukraine, climate change, etc. all the time. I really have disconnected about Ukraine for example because it's emotionally draining and sad and truly, I can't do anything about it other than say how bad it is. See also Gaza. See also everything.
I am happy to educate myself more though if you can point me to some more information on the Sudan conflict specifically (I'll check Wikipedia otherwise as a launching point)