Libya and the Middle East

Lord Soley

 

It is a humbling experience to watch the incredible bravery of the Libyan people and the cool headed approach of so many Arabs in the current upheavals throughout the region. None of us can be sure how this will end but I am personally very encouraged and more inclined to optimism than pessimism. For years the rest of the world has struggled to know how best to deal with these governments which are at best semi despotic and at worst extreme dictatorships.

A few months ago and following discussions with the Ambassador of the Emirates and the Representative of the Palestinians in the UK I suggested that we set up an advanced school of law based at Zayed University in Abu Dhabi with outreach into Palestine. I have two aims. Firstly, to advance the rule of law via university teaching departments; secondly, to help Palestine create the structures necessary for a modern state. I am pleased to say that it is on course for completion in the near future.

I was in contact with two other countries to suggest something similar and there was real interest. Events however have overtaken me and those two countries are in the throes of revolution. There are very real opportunities here for the advancement of the rule of law which is an essential part of any open and free society. What we are watching on our TV screens is historic and we should be ready to help in every way we can.

13 comments for “Libya and the Middle East

  1. Carl.H
    27/02/2011 at 8:11 pm

    My Lord you export the law and David on his planned Middle East Business tour will help export the arms. Of 36 British Business leaders on the tour 8 are arms dealers but Dave say’s don’t worry we need to supply them arms incase Kuwait is attacked by Iraq again ! Dohhhh

    Is it any wonder that what is heard from a majority of these “freedom fighters” is we don’t want the West’s help because for too long you have helped these dicatorships !

    “For years the rest of the world has struggled to know how best to deal with these governments which are at best semi despotic and at worst extreme dictatorships.”

    Absolute untruth ! We’ve dealt with every regime good and bad, supplied arms and more. Took oil and trade deals as and when we could. If it suited our purpose to ignore the suffering in a country we have in the name of greed.

    All the political prisoners of these countries, some now freed have been suffering years. Britain knew – and did nothing.

    Who helped train the Taleban originally ? Ken Connor an SAS hero of the Iranian Embassy seige has said some were trained by the SAS in Scotland. The US is also supposed to have had a big hand in it.

    Diplomacy is the art of being able to lie well and look after number one. Britain got rich on it.

  2. MilesJSD
    milesjsd
    28/02/2011 at 1:06 am

    “at best semi-despotic” (with which one might agree)

    but

    wouldn’t that make Britain/USA regimes, what, (“)at best quarter-despotic; or tenth-despotic(“) ?

    JSDM.

    • maude elwes
      28/02/2011 at 1:27 pm

      I agree with the above posters, Carl. H and milesjsd.

      Members of both Houses bullied and moved against those who questioned tactics of the desperate moves being taken to stay beside and within the perceived largess of dealers in torture and massacre, to keep up the supply of oil and gas. As a result they colluded in the spread of death and cruelty that is unconscionable now and we want to wash our hands of that part of our culpability. Which is not possible.

      Why could our clever people in Parliament not see that Libya was as in need of our trade as we were of theirs. It should have been a matter of expediency to demand a level of humanity and social democracy toward the people of Libya, by all Western countries, before trade deals were struck. Had we stuck to a policy of western ‘morality’ across the board, a better life for their people would have been on the cards. But, no, greed and the pay offs received were too precious to think outside the home box. Now the chicken are coming home to roost.

      T Blair is a definite creep, but, he was backed by those who kept/keep their heads down. It’s time they stood up and were accountable. All of them, including our ‘Royal’ dealers. Short term thinking always ends in disaster.

      Britain, France and Italy have been trading and deeply intimate in the Middle East for centuries. Taking in the the spice trade and before. Is it possible we could have been so without insight in all that time and seemingly had no idea of the consequences of such an involvement? As well as the ‘duties’ of such a connection?

  3. Gareth Howell
    28/02/2011 at 10:44 am

    Lord Soley really has got his fingers on the pulse on this score and is entirely capable of having an excellent effect on the proceedings.

    Arabic schools of Law in Toledo and Córdoba in the days of Muslim Spain were renowned for their skills.10thC Spain. The early days of written Law books.

    If I am not mistaken the University of Alexandria has a new Law school, which was opened by Juan Carlos of Spain seven or eight years ago. That is garbled information but
    was one of those other two possibly that University?

    I agree with those, such as John Simpson, that all this is the delayed effect of global unification 1990, but so much water has passed beneath the bridge that it has been easy to forget that the Arab world managed to avoid the dominoes!(I am sure a bridge can fall like a domino too. I can even understand Qaddaffi imagining that it has something to do with Al Qaeda, so many trillionbillions of litres have passed beneath!

    The dictator days are numbered in Africa!

    The huge, young, educated class is leading the way in to the global world, which Bin Laden was determined to resist.

    They shall soon have much greater freedom and democracy in those countries. Nothing will change. It will not be a new and amazing world. But they will have pluralism, freedom and democracy, with which to live their lives. Pluralism is a requirement of the UNCHR, which is law in most countries, but not fully accepted yet in most Arabic ones.

    The days must come.These may be some of them!

    A much greater commitment to international/Supranational government is my own “take” or opinion of their modern democratic need.

    An Arab League with a pluralist democratic base, is surely something that an outsider can comment on, without intruding in to the
    political business of other states?

    A Silk road states Association or similar should be another. They are impoverished and can scarcely afford international government headquarters, but could the Iron and Steel community have done without the help of the US govt in the early 50s?

    International/suprantionalstate govt has to help in the creation of other international states into a modern global world.

  4. 28/02/2011 at 11:24 am

    Not to mention the toll it is taking on american economics, i have been in virginia the past week, we arrived monday: gas was 3.09 and remained so until it suddenly jumped on thursday to 3.19 when I left on sunday gas was 3.29

  5. Carl.H
    28/02/2011 at 3:55 pm

    Off topic my Lord so advance apologies.

    During the DEB debate I warned very strongly about fake anti-virus and the fact the UK seemed to be doing little about online scamming. At that time it was hitting home users mostly in the pocket, now we find the London Stock Exchange has been hit.

    The cost of not doing anything could be atronomical, something needs to be done.

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-12597819

    Investors depend on the technology working. Cuts to our Police force and relying on volunteers (big society) to do something about this will not do.

  6. Lord Soley
    Clive Soley
    01/03/2011 at 10:45 am

    Carl,Miles and Maude You are in danger of making democracies sound useless and hypocritical while providing a defensive retreat for dictatorships and authoritarian government. Of course we need oil – you wouldn’t enjoy your current life style if we refused to deal with such regimes. The problem has been how to draw them into improved governmental roles and how to deal with the most difficult and dangerous dictators. Unless you address that you will continue to sound as though free and open societies are no better or worse then dictatorships. I have a worrying feeling that you do hold such a view.

    Gareth, thank you for spotting the potential for the project I am engaged in. Democrats do need to raise their voice or we shall lose our hard won freedoms.

    • Carl.H
      01/03/2011 at 10:57 am

      My noble Lord, unlike some I am quite capable and willing to cut off my nose to spite my face on moral issues.

      I however am not a diplomat, nor a politician and can afford my moral ground to be somewhat higher.

      Dare I mention General Pinochet?

    • maude elwes
      01/03/2011 at 1:05 pm

      @Clive Soley:

      You cannot deal with murderous dictators, in any part of the globe, as if you have no responsibility toward the ethics of those with whom you deal. Yes, it is indeed difficult. And yes, we do need oil and gas, and I am not without the grace to know my comfort, to a large degree, depends on these commodities. However, if the West, en masse, does not impose on dictators a basic minimum standard of humanity toward the citizens of such countries, prior to making deals to trade for their products, then you set up a principle of collusion. And that is found, by the voter, to be offensive as well as unacceptable.

      You have to keep in mind these countries benefit vastly from our collective ‘custom.’ They wouldn’t have bank and property assets, in their personal billions, if we were not supplying them with an outlet. The latest deals with Libya have been on the cards since Gaddafi took control forty two years ago. In all that time he has been known to be a murderous and dastardly individual. Is it beyond our government and our corporations to devise a system where we can, in conjunction with all other Western states, demand a certain practice of humane progress in those years?

      Surely you must see if we are desperate, so are they. Without us, they are without buyers. And that is the simple fact of the matter. How you manoeuvre around that position is for diplomats, who are more in the internal workings of government than I. However, the only way we can stay ahead as a country, is to remain in the seat of ‘moral values.’

      I agree that without the collusion of the West as a whole this would not be easy. But, as Europe, the US and much of the rest of the planet agree in the fundamental principle of Human Rights, this has to be more than possible.

      The pragmatic side of it means looking closely at results. What have we gained since 1973? If we want to do business, then it must be done, in the main, on ‘our’ expectations. What seems to have happened is the reverse. From what I gather, the West has collectively become more embroiled in the greed and corruption we continue to lay at the feet of those we deal with. And to what end?

      Leading is at the heart of these discussions. Where have we led Gaddafi and his band of followers? What results have we had? What could we have done to improve the situation? Taking up arms and threatening warfare to those who thrive on war is absurd. We cannot win such a predicament because we will not be able to go as far as they in the massacre stakes.

      An ‘event socialogique’ has taken place in the Middle East. The people have decided, with paramount bravery, that they want a better way of life. They have risen in utter faith they will be answered.

      So what is the West going to do? Remembering that war is not the answer.

      And as a footnote, how could I be proposing Democracy is useless and hypocritical, when my main aim here, is to push for even greater democracy. However, that does not mean democratic governments don’t trespass into the idea and practice of oppressiveness.

  7. Twm O't Nant
    02/03/2011 at 8:33 am

    we are desperate, so are they. Without us, they are without buyers.
    Maude:

    Key word! Buyers! We live ineluctably in a Globalist world; therefore Universal rules apply. The Arab world has been trading on
    surreptitious Anti-globalism for precisely 20 years, and longer too!

    Globalism also entails global learning, global democracy….. and dare I say, global
    migration? The huge young population in Egypt, and north Africa are declaring the rights they have learned from global communication, global journeys, global living.

    We hope they will make the most of it.

    I may still be an anti-globalist, anti-capitalist, anti-consumerist,homesteader!
    If you don’t see through it, you can’t make an effective criticism or appraisal of it!

  8. MilesJSD
    milesjsd
    02/03/2011 at 10:31 pm

    “We should be ready to help in every way we can.”

    We first need to be enabled, with effective ranges of such helping-skills;

    and then before we can apply ‘what we can do’ we shall need appropriate empowerment(s)there-to-do;

    shan’t we ?

    2231Th030311.JSDM.

  9. ZAROVE
    03/03/2011 at 3:43 am

    Lord Soley-

    Carl,Miles and Maude You are in danger of making democracies sound useless and hypocritical while providing a defensive retreat for dictatorships and authoritarian government.

    Democracies are useless and Hypocritical, though I don’t see how they make any excuses for dictatorship’s when they clearly want Ghaddaffi gone. But that’s the thing, we’ve had 4 decades to remove him and haven’t. Ghaddaffi’s “Islamic Socialism” was just a Milder form of Communism, that removed Marx’s Anti-God rhetoric. He is a Military Dictator for all intents and purposes.

    We did nothing. We did not restore His Majesty King Iblis, we did not try to remove Ghaddaffi, and we did not put pressure on his Illegal Government at all. We recognised it as if it were Legitimate and then turned a Blind Eye whilst he oppressed his own people and bought Oil off him as if nothing else mattered. When we did this we fuelled our Cars and other utensils with Blood.

    We should have refused dealings with him and helped Restore the King as Sterling had wanted, but the Americans thought Ghaddaffi was sufficiently Anti-Marxist to be useful in the Cold War.

    Had we taken the Moral High Ground, he’d have been gone years ago.

    That said, we could have bought oil from Venezuela or Ecuador.


    Of course we need oil – you wouldn’t enjoy your current life style if we refused to deal with such regimes.

    So, not only can we not get oil form elsewhere, we also can’t possibly develop alternatives? You know, Vegetable Oil Burns.\

    Also, our Standard of Living would suffer only till the Regime fell, which would have been inside a year or two. it’s a small sacrifice in the face of the Human loss if we didn’t act.

    Heroes aren’t made of those securing only Creature Comforts by making pragmatic, Cynical deals.


    The problem has been how to draw them into improved governmental roles and how to deal with the most difficult and dangerous dictators. Unless you address that you will continue to sound as though free and open societies are no better or worse then dictatorships. I have a worrying feeling that you do hold such a view.

    No need to on me. I’m an old Style Imperialist and a Monarchist who couldn’t give a Farthing for Democracy. I say we ought have let Sterling free the Political Prisoners of the Regime and restore King Iblis to the Throne back when Ghaddaffi first took over.

    That’d have solved a lot of problems.


    Gareth, thank you for spotting the potential for the project I am engaged in. Democrats do need to raise their voice or we shall lose our hard won freedoms

    The real Irony here is the assumptions. Not only do you think those of us who don’t want to support Dictators must somehow hate Democracy, which is daft given that Maude, JDMiles, and Carl all speak rather fondly of Democracy, but the conflation with any Governmental System with Freedom is a false one.

    Democracy is not Freedom, and does not naturally produce it. Democracy is a form of Government, and its just as easy to have a gang of elected officials who rob us of our Liberty as a Dictator or Absolute Monarch. There is nothing inherent in Democracy that yields Freedom, and if one is honest one realises that we have lost more individual Freedoms in the last 100 years or so the more we become Democratic than we have ever gained. Her Majesty Queen Victoria’s Government was far more Free to live under in many ways than is Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth The Second’s. For that matter, Governmental Life was far more oppressive under Cromwell than under His Majesty the King Charles the First, who also cared more for his people than did the Parliament of the Republic of England.

    Democracy is not Freedom, people being able to decide how thy lead their own lives is Freedom.

    To that end, I agree with King Charles the First.

  10. 27/05/2012 at 2:17 am

    Democracy and freedom are not the same

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