LIBYA: WHAT SHOULD HAVE BEEN DONE?
In the case of Libya surprisingly few have protested compared with, say, the war on Iraq. From right to left, human rights and peace movements as well as scores of intellectuals have -admittedly some of them more or less hesitantly- endorsed NATO countries’ intervention, mainly with reference to there being so little time and that a genocide on thousands of people were immanent. It’s hard to believe that they all love war, isn’t it?, writes Jan Oberg, director and co-founder of the Transnational Foundation (TFF) in Lund Sweden.
In the case of Libya surprisingly few have protested compared with, say, the war on Iraq. From right to left, human rights and peace movements as well as scores of intellectuals have -admittedly some of them more or less hesitantly- endorsed NATO countries’ intervention, mainly with reference to there being so little time and that a genocide on thousands of people were immanent. It’s hard to believe that they all love war, isn’t it?, writes Jan Oberg, director and co-founder of the Transnational Foundation (TFF) in Lund Sweden.
It is! And therefore the assumption is that they accept it more or less reluctantly because they don’t see alternatives to war. Thus, if we all became better at thinking about alternatives to war, there would likely be less wars.The real challenge is to answer this question: If war is unacceptable, what can we do to deal with a conflict?
It is so important to have at least some basic knowledge about the parties -widely defined- and ourselves as participants in most of the conflicts. The West is not a noble mediator, it is a historical participant in virtually all conflict zones. We need to know much more about Libya’s history, social structure, political culture, modern development,
If truth is the first victim in war, complex understanding is the second. Focussing only on Khaddafi (as media do) and making one man the root cause of everything (as politicians do) is human folly, a dangerous ignorance of complexities in any conflict anywhere. Everything in Iraq is not fine because Saddam is dead. All problems will not be solved if and when Khaddafi goes. So, to believe that everything will be fine if one man goes or comes, is a recipe for wrongheaded policies Omnipotence is a bad navigator and war is an outdated way of handling humanity’s problems. Conflict professionalism and peace-making is the emerging paradigm.
(*) Jan Oberg is director and co-founder of the Transnational Foundation (TFF) in Lund Sweden, PhD, peace and conflict researcher.
© Inter Press Service (2011) — All Rights Reserved. Original source: Inter Press Service