The End of an Era

There are still many unanswered questions concerning the fate of Moammar al-Gadhafi. The only certainty is that his era has come to a permanent end. Meanwhile, Libya’s fate is uncertain. Will democratic forces there be successful, or will those with their own agendas take over? Stay tuned.

There’s much to be said for the view that NATO, the cause of this power shift, doesn’t think that question is of any great importance. As long as they found it beneficial to support Gadhafi as they supported and armed Saddam Hussein before him, they did so. As soon as these dictators ceased to be useful, the outside world decided to depend on the public’s poor memory and start pointing the finger at their — indisputably — catastrophic human rights records. They could safely do so because today’s public will go along with any course change because, if for no other reason, they couldn’t care less about what happens in foreign countries.

At the moment, those who consider China’s human rights violations as problematic in our economic relations with them are dismissed as incorrigible do-gooders. One may assume that that perception will change as soon as it’s more useful to start noticing China’s human rights record than it is to care about economic power. How convenient for those who run governments.

Libya was liberated because the West insisted on global respect for human rights? That’s provably complete and utter nonsense.

The West only became interested in the obstacles along the path to Egypt’s democratization when they adversely affected mainly the Christian minority. Up until then, it was of absolutely no interest to many Western politicians that martial law was still in force, that civilians were tried in military court and that the military generally still ruled everything. Prior to the so-called Arab Spring, many of them were saying the Arabs weren’t ready for democracy because of their traditions and their mindset.

It won’t take long for Western politicians to put on their thoughtful, sober faces and come to the same conclusion about Libya — as soon as it suits their purposes. The Democrats in Libya would be well-advised to avoid basing everything on Western solidarity. And that applies to the rest of the world as well.