Nèdeem Elmahjoub's blog

“[ I]nvocations of human rights and humanitarian intervention are selective.” It s like the West’s selective reading of history . “It can be difficult to understand why there was ever so much faith in such an order” – the international liberal order preached in and after Nato’s ‘humanitarian intervention’ in Kosovo. “[N]o Western government has invoked R2P [the Right to Protect] in response to ethnic cleansing campaigns in Sudan, Nagorno-Karabakh or Gaza.” “[A]s the British political scientist Richard Sakwa has stressed, Russia’s aversion to R2P was not because Vladimir Putin is ‘the crude defender of sovereignty as so often presented’, but rather the West’s selective deployment of it .” (My italics N.M.) “[W]ill the death of the liberal order clear the way for a more democratic, accountable and egalitarian world?” I am not optimistic. One of the reasons is that articles like Lynch’s are so critical and an antidote to amnesia, a help for students, etc. but does not delve into structu...

“The question is: if humanity is to be defended, who must do the defending, how, and with which consequences? Beyond humanity, if life on earth is to thrive or survive, who or what must take responsibility for what appears to be an impending catastrophe?” The logic of humanitarian intervention

“ [W]hat is needed is political discussion, revolutionary ideological rearmament, accountability and workers’ democracy.” I don’t think that would be enough. How to feed the people and providing them with a decent standard of leaving is tied up with how developed and productive the economy is and what class re-alignment is possible. In the current circumstances as in the previous decades Cuba as an isolated island with limited resources, lack of technological means and embargo is unable to provide for the majority of its people.