Critique and comment on Julian Batchelor's booklet, Stop Co-Governance

 

Julian Batchelor, Stop Co-Governance.

Clearing out Anna’s letterbox, while she’s away, I came across a little booklet. It is basically a lot of propaganda in an effort to discredit the concept of co-governance. Along the way it also attempts to trash the Waitangi Tribunal.

It’s also an extremely misleading document. That is being generous. It’s a combination of twisted history and conspiracy theory.

It begins like this, in outlining “The Problem”. “When asked about co-governance, many Kiwis think it’s harmless. They say things like “Oh, co-governance is not big deal. It’s just Maori and government governing the country together. I am OK with it. It’s simply power sharing…Nothing could be farther from the truth…Rather, it’s about private tribal companies and tribal representatives taking control of the country.” (4)

If indeed “many Kiwis” think that co-governance is about “Maori and government governing the country together” then they are seriously misinformed about what co-governance is. I suspect that this is just the first instance of the “spin” that Batchelor puts on the issue. He frequently refers, throughout his booklet, to “private tribal companies and tribal representatives” who are working to take over the country: to carry out a “coup”. Never once, does Batchelor say who he means by “private tribal companies”, or “tribal representatives”.

Batchelor states that co-governance arises out of a twisting of the Treaty of Waitangi. Though Batchelor acknowledges “Te Tiriti” as the document that Māori signed in 1840, he claims that it was based on an English draft called the “Littlewood draft”, which was the “final English draft” and represents in English what the te reo Māori version says.

There is no clear evidence that this is the English draft, from which the Māori version was made. As I understand it, the Māori version was translated by the missionary Henry Williams and his son Edward, from some notes made by William Hobson and a secretary, and a draft drawn up by James Busby. Claudia Orange, in The Story of A Treaty (2013), states that “Busby had added an important promise: that Britian would guarantee Māori possession of their lands, their forests, their fisheries and other prized possessions. Without that promise he was sure no one would sign.” (21).

This is important, because Batchelor wants to promote the “Littlewood draft” as the English original from which the Māori was drafted because the important second article which guaranteed these things does not specifically mention forests, fisheries etc. It reads: “The Queen of England confirms and guarantees to the chiefs and the tribes and to all the people of New Zealand, the possession of their lands, dwellings and all their property.” (Stop Co-Governance, 7).

I had not heard of the “Littlewood Draft”.  Batchelor says this about it: “It has this name because this draft was given to a lawyer by the  name of Henry Littlewood soon after the Treaty was signed at Waitangi. It went missing and was found in Auckland in 1989. Forensic analysis confirmed it was the final English draft. However, under pressure from activists, aided by politicians afraid of losing Maori votes, it was quickly taken out of sight by government officials and hidden away, to this day. [New paragraph]. When one compares the Treaty in Maori with the Littlewood draft, we could say that they are identical. This is how historians can tell that it was the Littlewood final draft which was used to draw up the Treaty in Maori in 1840.” (Stop Co-Governance, 6–7).

This is a very tendentious argument. It is unlikely that the Littlewood Draft existed before the drawing up of the Treaty. It is likely a document drawn up later (perhaps an attempt at getting at the gist of the Māori version?). If you want a “forensic analysis” of the Littlewood Draft, a good place to start would be to read a piece by Donald Loveridge, “The ‘Littlewood Treaty’: An Appraisal of Texts and Interpretation” (Google it). Appendix 1 will give you the text of the Littlewood draft; and Appendix 2 is the “English text of the Treaty of Waitangi sent to Sydney by Captain Hobson...etc” (which, given its source and dating, should be taken as the official English version, and is the one printed in most books about the Treaty). It should perhaps be noted in passing that is it probably impossible to get an exact (or truly equivalent) English translation of the Māori version, and exegeting the Māori (which is the version that should take precedence) is probably difficult and is what leads to the debates.

Batchelor also evokes the mythical (my word) “Tax Payer”. This generally means, it seems to me, the crowd that the writer wants to identify as the “Tax Payer”, and refers to the writer and his (or her) ilk. For instance, one suspects from the way that Batchelor writes, that Māori are not to be considered tax payers with a legitimate claim on how their taxes are used.  For example, he writes: “...New Zealand tax payers are funding private tribal companies/tribal representatives to take over their country.” (22) Later he claims that “Tribal Rule means that private tribal companies/tribal representatives will be completely running/controlling the country by 2040...99.5% of Kiwis will be disenfranchised.” (24). One might point out that somewhere between 12 to 15 percent of Kiwis identify as Māori.

Batchelor considers that “things started to really go wrong” with passing of the 1975 Treaty of Waitangi Act and the setting up of the Waitangi Tribunal. This exists to hear Māori claims to injustices, breaches to the Treaty and confiscations of Māori land carried out since the signing of the Treaty. “The Tribunal became a scam, a place where any Maori anywhere could bring a grievance, and then a claim, and the claim (i.e. cash and assets) would highly likely be honoured by the Tribunal.”  (11) This misrepresents the work of the Tribunal, where most cases are brought by tribes, or tribal entities and there is often a long process before any settlement is made. And while it is true that any Māori may make a claim, it is certainly not true, as Batchelor goes on to claim, that “only Maori could attend hearings” (11).

Batchelor cites a number of “historians”, and quotes some of their views. My impression is (from a Google search) that these persons would best be described as “amateur historians”, as their main training has been in some other field, e.g. engineering, or mathematics, and so forth. Somewhat surprisingly, he cites Sir Apirana Ngata in support of land confiscations. While he quotes Ngata correctly, he does so selectively. The quotation highlighted: “The confiscations cannot therefore be objected to in the light of the Treaty.” (Stop Co-Governance, 10), is followed immediately in the next paragraph by this statement: “The objections should be made in the light of the suffering of some of the tribes by reason of the confiscation of their lands.”

https://nzetc.victoria.ac.nz/tm/scholarly/tei-NgaTrea-t1-g1-t1.html  (p. 16)

The booklet Stop Co-Governance has been deemed an election advertisement by the Electoral Commission (and carries a statement to that effect in the back, although the author disputes the designation). The issue of co-governance is a large and contentious one in New Zealand at present. I will not go into it now, except to say that it takes various forms, and in some instances refers to a partnership at a local level (say over a given waterway) between Māori and non-Māori. It often entails the establishment of a board or committee of oversight that has representation of Māori on it, alongside local non-Māori members. A quick way in to it is to visit these links:

https://www.newsroom.co.nz/co-governance-its-nothing-like-you-think

https://oag.parliament.nz/2016/co-governance/part1.htm

And on the Waitangi Tribunal

https://www.waitangitribunal.govt.nz/about/

And from the above page, see link to Te Manutukutuku, Issue 69, January 2016, celebrating the 40th anniversary of the Tribunal’s establishment.

A Prophet Without Honor: A Novel of Alternative History, by Joseph Wurtenbaugh

 

Imagine that, when Hitler moved to occupy and remilitarize the Rhineland in 1936, Britain and France had known that a secret order had been issued that the Wehrmacht was to immediately and peacefully withdraw to the frontier of the demilitarized zone, should there be any opposition from these two “Western” powers. This order was at the insistence of the Wehrmacht high command, who were opposed to this act of military aggression, because the rearmament of Germany had only just begun, and the German military would have easily been routed by quite a small force sent against it by either Britain or France.

            The premise of this novel is that what, in fact, happened was that the knowledge of this secret order was leaked to the British Government, who shared it with the leadership of France, so that, knowing that Hitler was bluffing, they stood up to his action, and forced the retreat of the German army. The consequence of this was that the Nazi regime fell, and the Third Reich ended then.

            This novel tells the story of how this came about. It details the life of a major actor in the betrayal of the order to the Western powers. This was a German Leutnant, Karl von Haydenreich, who was in the Abwehr, the German Army’s Intelligence Service, who gave the coded messages to Major Dwight D. Eisenhower, serving as a military attaché to the US Embassy in Berlin (and was Karl’s “god-father”) who then passed them on to an intelligence officer at the British Embassy. Von Haydenreich was receiving the information he passed on from General Kurt von Hammerstein Equord, Chief of the General Staff of the Wehrmacht (formerly the Reichswehr).

            The book is very interestingly plotted and the narration proceeds by means of a series of extracts from various sources: Autobiographies, and books, written by leading military men, a journal kept by Karl von Heydenreich, a book by Eisenhower, and various histories and accounts written by historians and others, as well as letter-extracts, and file notes. The extracts purportedly from historical characters are all fictional pieces.

The period covered is from before the birth of Karl, his upbringing and education in both Germany and, for a period, in a private school in England, his desire to study music and become a composer, and his eventual entry into the Reichswehr as an officer, and commission in the Abwehr. Through these devices, the reader learns about the motivations behind Karl von Heydenreich’s actions, and the influences upon him that led him to do what he did.

            The book also outlines the rise of Hitler and the Nazi Party, and gives a sense of what it was like to live in Nazi Germany. It also details such things as the casual racism, and anti-Semitic attitudes that existed in Germany even prior to the rise of Hitler. It profiles both Karl’s father, and his step-mother who had a major influence on him during his childhood and upbringing.

            In a note at the end of the book, Wurtenbaugh (the pen-name of Frank Dudley Berry) states that “the antics of Adolf Hitler described in the story, no matter how apparently excessive or bizarre, are all drawn from actual behaviors that he exhibited at various moments during his career.” (482). Whether the extreme and childish behaviour that is described at the climax of the story actually happened (in real life) is difficult to imagine. Hitler was certainly given to ranting and raving, and could work himself up into a frenzy. But he was also an actor, who could put on a show for effect: whether he would do something likely to demean himself in the eyes of others is questionable, although he did feel himself to be a “man of destiny” and considered himself so much in command of situations and other people that he probably felt immune from criticism or scorn.

            This book is also interesting from the point-of-view of the way in which it provides an insight into this period of history from various standpoints, and perspectives. It shows not only opposition to Nazi Germany but also support for it. It details the perils and difficulties of taking political decisions that are not popular because the reasons for them are not understood or known by the general populace.

            This is a work of historical fiction, and as the author says, also of “alternative historical fiction”. Where there are actual, historical figures appearing, their careers have been “significantly re-imagined” (ix). It is a book that captures something of the essence of what it must have been like to have lived through the early years of Nazi Germany (and, in some senses, what it was like throughout the period of the Third Reich).

(Novel self-published by Frank Dudley Berry, Jr. in 2017)

America the Superhero

I have suspected for some time that some Americans believe too literally in their action movies. In particular, they think that the superhero approach to solving the world’s problems, which they see in these types of films, is the answer. Now I have some support for this suspicion, in a book by Robert Jewett and John Shelton Lawrence called Captain America and the Crusade against Evil: The Dilemma of Zealous Nationalism (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2003).

            The authors describe what they call the crusading zealous nationalism that characterises much of the approach that the United States takes to the rest of the world. This mirrors the myth of “Captain America”, a cartoon character dedicated to saving the world and securing it for freedom and democracy, by the use of violence if necessary (it generally is). America’s sense of being “Captain America” in the world has a long history and is deeply embedded in the national consciousness. It had its foundations in the Puritan impulse to religious violence: to “convert” the world to its view of how things should be by force. When the first missionaries were sent to Hawaii, the Rev. Heman (ironic name) Humphrey preached a sermon in 1819 comparing their missionary endeavours to ancient Israel’s conquest of Canaan (p. 251).

            Another motivation for America’s crusading zeal is its sense of Manifest Destiny. Many Americans see their nation as fulfilling the role of a “city on a hill”, taking the benefits of their way of life to other nations. They see their nation as “innocent”, and unready to resort first to violence, but needing to do so in the face of evil forces ranged against it (or threatening to take over other nations). Feeding this sense of mission is the tendency towards conspiracy theories: perhaps the most obvious one in the twentieth century was the “domino theory” of the fall of South-East Asian nations to communism, if nothing were done to stop its spread from North Vietnam.

            The book traces the story of American “Captain America” syndrome and “redemptive violence” from its early days, through the Mexican-American war (1846–48), the Spanish-American war (1898), two world wars, the wars in Korea and Vietnam, through to the war against the Taliban in Afghanistan following the attacks on 9/11. Alongside the “Captain America” syndrome, the belief in conspiracy, sits a tendency to think, speak, and act against stereotypes: “the Hun”, “Japs” “Gooks,” or “Arabs”. To be fair, this is a general human tendency, not confined to Americans.

            One of the most common, and in a sense dangerous, stereotypes is found in the “good guy/bad guy” rhetoric. This stereotype, and its association with movies, is captured nicely in a story they tell of Reagan’s annoyance when his space based defense initiative was given the moniker “Star Wars”. Reagan saw it as a defensive stratagem and a move to ensure peace. In fact, a defence analyst Fred Reed stated that “Star Wars, if it works, will be an offensive weapon of absolute power” (p. 118, italics original). A film scholar Michael Rogin “reviewed Reagan’s movies and discovered that, in Murder in the Air (1940), [Reagan] played an agent maintaining the secrecy and security of ‘the Inertial Projector’, which ‘stops and destroys anything that moves.’ It had just the qualities sought for in Captain America’s religion of defense.” (119) Richard Perle, Reagan’s “brilliant young assistant secretary of defense, told colleagues that he thought the name [Star Wars] wasn’t so bad. ‘Why not,’ he said, ‘It’s a good movie. Besides, the good guys won’.” (p.107, quoting Frances FitzGerald, Way Out There in the Blue: Reagan, Star Wars, and the End of the Cold War, New York: Simon and Schuster, 2000, p. 39).

            In my opinion, the “good guy/bad guy” stereotype is particularly dangerous as it is applied as a defence of gun ownership. “Good guys” have to own guns, and, no doubt, carry them, so as to be ready to stop the “bad guys” with guns. The problem is that most people with guns are considered “good guys” until they go bad. The idea that a “good guy” carrying a gun will be able to pre-emptively stop a “bad guy” killing with a gun is most of the time pure fantasy.

            On the subject of guns, Jewett and Lawrence have a fascinating passage that is worth quoting in full. They write about the mystique of violence that has “imparted a distinctive character to American wars” (p. 254), rising first from Mexican war, and helping to “prepare the way for the Civil War in the 1860s”. They write:

As Michael Bellesiles has shown, the Civil War also ‘altered the national character’ and showed ‘the need for one American to be able to kill another’ with a firearm. For the first time in American history, guns had been made widely available by mass production, and they were in popular use. While guns had rarely played a significant role in American life for its first two hundred years, the Colt Company had begun in the 1840s to merchandize its pistols with mythic engravings of men defending their families against Indians with a Colt pistol. It was after the Civil War that the company perfected revolvers that would fire self-contained metal cartridges, which Colt called ‘the Peacemaker.’ According to Bellesiles, ‘The Wichita Eagle reported in May 1874 that ‘Pistols are as thick as blackberries.’ By that time a gun seemed to most men a requisite for their very identity…The Civil War transformed the gun from a tool into a perceived necessity. The war preserved the Union, unifying the nation around a single icon: the gun.’” (p. 255, quoting Bellesiles, Arming America: The Origins of a National Gun Culture, New York: Vintage Books, 2000, pp. 429, 379, 430).

I suspect that the fondness of many Americans for the gun (leaving aside arguments derived from the Second Amendment) stems from the depiction of much gun violence in action and superhero movies. Apart from the fact that the hero has nine lives (if not more), the amount of shooting and blowing things up that goes on, makes it difficult to know who’s a “good guy” and who’s a “bad guy”.

            Against “zealous nationalism” Jewett and Lawrence place “the tradition of prophetic realism.” This, they state, “avoids taking the stances of complete innocence and selflessness. It seeks to redeem the world for coexistence by impartial justice that claims no favored status for individual nations.” (8) They use the description “prophetic realism” a little loosely at times, I feel, as it sometimes stands simply for anything opposed to zealous nationalism, even if the motivating factor is more likely to be pragmatic politics.

            Their book is itself an exercise in prophetic realism, and is well worth reading and pondering. While it is one thing to look at the United States from the outside (as a non-American) and consider its faults, it is both heartening and welcome to see that prophets within provide cogent and clear critique. They are the best prophets: hopefully not without honour. 

A Christian reads William Golding, Pincher Martin (London: Faber and Faber, 1956)

 

William Golding’s style of writing is perhaps something of an acquired taste. In his novels, much of the content is taken up with descriptive writing. This is “atmospheric”: in other words, he is extremely good at conjuring up sensations, and mood. Sometimes, the atmosphere is almost claustrophobic, and foetid. This was the case, for me, with the books in his “Sea” trilogy, the first being Rites of Passage.  Perhaps appropriately so, as it is set on an eighteenth century sailing ship, with its “close quarters”. Golding is also allusive, cryptic (might one even say “elusive”) in his writing, which is often “metaphorical” and symbolic. All of this makes his novels (those I’ve read anyway) somewhat difficult, and one has to persevere, especially as the absence of much dialogue makes the writing somewhat “dense”. His most famous novel, and his first, Lord of the Flies, is somewhat different in this respect. It is also, perhaps, his best.

I first read Pincher Martin at Canterbury University in 1971. It was on the reading list for one of my MA in English papers, “The Modern Novel” (I think that Pincher Martin was probably about as modern as the reading list got). Anyway it made a very strong impression on me: and provided me with an insight into what hell might be like, not to mention eternity and judgment.

Pincher Martin is about a man, a naval officer in the Royal Navy, during the war, whose ship gets torpedoed.  The book opens with Christopher Hadley Martin, to give him his full name, drowning. Then he finds himself cast up on a rock in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. Most of the rest of the book deals with his experience of being on the rock, his struggle to survive, to find food and water, and to attempt to ensure that he is spotted by any passing ship, or aircraft flying overhead.

The physicality of his experience is captured by Golding’s descriptive style. One can almost feel Martin’s discomfort as he attempts to sleep in a crevice he has found which gives his some shelter. He talks to himself, as he attempts to keep focused on what he must do to survive, and to prevent himself from going mad.

Christopher (Pincher) Martin had been an actor before the war, and a somewhat unpleasant, self-centred man. The narrative of his time on the rock is interspersed with flashbacks to events in his life: the director of one of the plays (and whom Martin has cuckolded–this is not explicitly revealed, an instance of Golding’s allusiveness) wants Martin to play one of the seven deadly sins. The director, called Pete, says Martin can choose which one to play. The following exchange takes place as they examine the masks for the various characters.

            “I don’t mind playing Sloth, Pete.”

            “Not Sloth. Shall we ask Helen, Chris? I value my wife’s advice.”

            “Steady, Pete.”

            “What about a spot of Lechery?”

            “Pete! Stop it.”

            “Don’t mind me Chris, old man. I’m just a bit wrought-up that’s all. Now here’s a fine piece of work, ladies and gentlemen, guaranteed unworn. Any offers? Going to the smooth-looking gentleman with the wavy hair and profile. Going! Going–”

            “What’s is supposed to be, old man?”

            “Darling, it simply you! Don’t you think, George?”

            “Definitely, old man, definitely.”

            “Chris–Greed. Greed–Chris. Know each other.”

            “Anything to please you, Pete.”

            “Let me make you two better acquainted. This painted bastard here takes anything he can lay his hands on. Not food, Chris, that’s far too simple. He takes the best part, the best seat, the most money, the best notice, the best woman. He was born with his mouth and his flies open and both hands out to grab. He’s a cosmic case of the bugger who gets his penny and someone else’s bun. Isn’t that right, George?”

            “Come on, Pete. Come and lie down for a bit.”

            “Think you can play Martin, Greed?”

This relatively short exchange gives an insight into Martin’s character. It is part of the genius of the book that the struggle to survive includes a review by Martin of his past life in the snippets of flashback.

Chris’s ship goes down partly because of an order Chris gives, intending that a friend, of whom he is jealous should be flung overboard.

I am reluctant to give away the ending: and I won’t. But it throws a new perspective on the whole narrative. And it opened up for me a theological reflection, on the nature of eternity (eternity “contracted to a span”, to borrow from Charles Wesley). In his The Great Divorce, C. S. Lewis reduces hell to a crack in the ground; to a “span of space” if you will. Golding does something similar, only he reduces hell to a “span of time”, the time that Pincher Martin spends on his mid-Atlantic rock. Meanwhile, judgment resides in the flashbacks. Martin reviews (is forced to review?) his life, and to understand himself as he truly is.

[Postscript: I’ve entitled this “A Christian reads…” and not “A Christian reading of…” because that may be construed as the Christian reading, and I don’t wish to suggest that mine is such. There are as many readings, no doubt, as there are readers. But this is one Christian’s take on this book. If you would like a couple of literary critics’ take on the book, you might like to look at Mark Kinkead-Weekes and Ian Gregor, William Golding: A Critical Study. Revised Edition; London: Faber and Faber, 1984]

Here’s The Plan: Why the Sustainable Development Goals are important and how to ensure they are met.

A worldwide pandemic, increasing evidence of the effects of climate change, and, now an unnecessary and immoral war in Ukraine, are all raising the question of our global future. Periodically, one hears the sentiment expressed that we need to have a global “reset”; sometimes it is said that the pandemic affords the opportunity for such a reset. In the political sphere, this might be expressed as the need for a new world order.

            In fact, in the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) we already have provided a global framework for addressing many of the problems that face the world. A number are directed at addressing aspects of climate change, and environmental issues; but others deal with many of our societal and humanitarian challenges, such as poverty, gender inequality, the need for good educational and health outcomes. I believe that attention to achieving the SDGs would also yield positive advances in the political sphere as well, and make a tremendous contribution towards achieving a better and more peaceful world.

            Briefly, the SDGs are seventeen global goals that are targeted and time-bound. They were agreed to in 2015 by all 193 countries of the United Nations. They built upon and replaced the eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGS) agreed to by 189 countries in the UN in 2000. They gather up a raft of important goals to do with eradicating extreme poverty, providing food security, and promoting good health and wellbeing; they seek to achieve quality education for all, and gender equality. They aim to address issues of water quality, clean seas, affordable and clean energy, sustainable land use, and climate change. The final two goals address the development of strong institutions to promote peace and justice; and, perhaps most important of all, call for a global partnership to achieve sustainable development.

            Why are the SDGs significant and important? A major factor in their importance is that they are already in place. The global community does not need to dream up an agenda or a programme. It is there: and it has been agreed to by 193 countries. A remarkable achievement. But what the global community needs to do is ensure that they are implemented.

            Furthermore, they provide civil society, and the citizens of these nations with, as Steve Bradbury puts it, “an exceptional set of ‘advocacy levers’”. Writing about the Millennium Development Goals (the precursors to the SDGs), he said: “The development community, and all who are committed to working for a more just and compassionate world, can and must use these levers to hold our leaders to accountable and insist that they fulfil their promises.” What makes the SDGs so important and valuable as “advocacy levers” is that they are both time-specific and targeted.[1]

            One of the advantages of the SDGs over the MDGs is that they strengthen the sense that, as a world community, “we’re all in this together”, but from a point of humility. The tendency with the MDGs was for the developed world (or the “global North”) to think that the MDGs were applicable only to the developing world (or the “global South”).[2] The SDGs specifically apply to every country. We need to recognise that every country faces its own problems and issues. Adopting the SDGs acknowledges this and shows that every nation has work to do. There are not “developed nations” and “developing nations”; we are all developing and needing to progress towards greater equity, greater benefits and wellbeing for all members of our respective societies. New Zealand, for instance, has it fair share of challenges from child poverty, homelessness, wage and income inequities, domestic violence, and various health issues (to name only a few).

            An important aspect of the SDGs is that it is recognised that each country has its own specific challenges to achieve sustainable development, and carries primary responsibility for its own social and economic development. To that end the targets contained within the SDGs are “aspirational global targets, with each Government setting its own national targets guided by the global level of ambition, but taking into account national circumstances”.[3]

            Nevertheless, while every nation is “developing”, historical circumstances and economic factors mean that some countries have greater resources, and a “headstart” in the development stakes. Thus a global partnership is required: and wealthier nations have a responsibility to help poorer nations achieve their goals and targets.

            But achieving the SDGs will require that participation of civil society and private institutions and businesses, not to mention ordinary citizens. For one thing, we must “hold our political leaders’ feet to the fire” on their promises. They have signed up to these targeted and measurable goals. And consider this, when the MDGs were first agreed to in 2000, the Taliban were in control in Afghanistan, which means that the Taliban-led government agreed to those goals. Imagine the difference to that nation if the Taliban-led government now was persuaded and encouraged to achieve the SDGs, even if it were only those that were most applicable to their situation (for one thing, MDG #2 sought to achieve universal primary education, and #3 to promote gender equality and empower women).

            Attention to the SDGs by national governments at the behest of their citizen will keep governments focused upon what is important for human flourishing. Hopefully, this will also mean that they will not engage in nonsensical and wasteful enterprises such as trade wars, great power regional political gamesmanship, or posturing, and “cold” and even “hot” wars: if only for lack to time to engage in such things. Imagine, for instance, if the Putin regime in Russia was so focused on addressing the, no doubt, myriad domestic issues and problems that President Putin did not have the time or the freedom (because civil society kept his nose to the grindstone, as it were) to indulge in his fantasies of returning Russia to its former Soviet “glory”.

            As the SDGs are targeting, and (theoretically[4]) time-bound goals, they represent what Mariana Mazzucato, an economist with ideas for “the radical transformation of the state and the market", would call a “mission” rather than a set of aspirational statements.[5] But the SDGs are unfortunately most probably seen as “aspirational” (and therefore, ignorable) by many politicians, and others. This is why, as I said above, we need to build commitment and attention to the SDGs by civil society, and by national citizens in sufficient numbers to persuade politicians to remain focused on the task of achieving them. This will require education of the populace, to build enthusiastic support of the SDGs, and motivation to see action on them. We need to build the kind on national and international concern and attention that is currently being directed more and more at climate change, for example; or the kind of international consensus that has built around opposition to the war in Ukraine.

            If the SDGs seem too much and too unattainable, consider this: On 25^th May, 1961 President John F. Kennedy announced to Congress that the United States should achieve a successful landing of humans on the moon (and a safe return to earth) by the end of the decade. On the 20^th July, 1969 Neil Armstrong and “Buzz” Aldrin walked on the surface of the moon. There was, of course, a huge incentive in trying to win “the space race” against the Soviet Union. No doubt, lots of time, effort, and money was thrown at the project. It was a “mission”, and it was accomplished. The will to achieve made it possible.

            There’s no doubt that many difficulties and challenges lie in the way of achieving the SDGs. Corruption and conflict are but two of the challenges, and they seem intractable, and, especially corruption, almost endemic. There is also inertia. Most of us, including myself, have our own interests, goals, hobbies, not to mention everyday lives that we just want to get on with. That is why it’s important to build a widespread and collective approach to achieving the SDGs: governments must be the primary drivers of the efforts to achieve the goals. But not alone: civil society, businesses, private institutions, individuals must play their part.

            And they are, and they will. Many of us, perhaps, will not do much towards achieving the SDGs. But we may rest assured that there are plenty of people with the passion and creativity to come up with solutions, schemes and ideas that will contribute one way or another to meeting the goals. This is already happening: many organisations and businesses in civil society are doing things to further the SDGs. Some are consciously addressing the goals and targets; others may be providing solutions but not consciously attempting to address the SDGs.[6] No matter. But to bring these efforts as much as possible under the umbrella of the SDGs will give us a sense of a global partnership and a collective will to build “a better world”.

            The pandemic, climate change and attendant natural disasters, and the war in Ukraine all raise the question: how can we move towards a more sustainable, peaceful, just and liveable world? The SDGs provide a ready-made framework and plan. Achieving them will set us well on the road. Let’s do it.

---

[1] See Steve Bradbury, “The Micah Challenge”, in TEAR TALK, Winter 2004, p 8. (See  www.tearfund.org.nz) Micah Challenge was a rallying cry by a global alliance of “more than 275 evangelical Christian relief, development and advocacy organisations” (of which TEAR Fund was one) to call Christians and churches to lobby governments to ensure that the MDGs were met. 

[2] For the “North-South” terminology, see North-South: A programme for survival. Report of the Independent Commission on International Development Issues (under the Chairmanship of Willy Brandt). (London: Pan Books, 1980), 31.

[3] See “Report of the Open Working Group of the General Assembly on Sustainable Development Goals”, United Nations A/68/970 (12 August, 2014), 8, 9 (quote on p. 9).

[4] I say “theoretically” because the MDGs missed their timetabled date of 2015 for achieving the goals. This, I imagine, is partly why the SDGs were introduced, with a target date of 2030 (and obviously many, if not most, will probably not be met by then).

[5] Danyl McLauchlan, “Woman on a Mission”, New Zealand Listener, February 26, 2022, 22-27. She describes a “mission” as a specific problem that one solves. “So, you might say, ‘There’s too much plastic in the ocean. We’re going to get it down to this level by this date.’ That’s a mission.” (p.27).

[6] For some New Zealand initiatives, see https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/content/documents/23333New_Zealand_Voluntary_National_Review_2019_Final.pdf.

Whatever happened to "Speak softly, and carry a big stick"?

Twenty years after the dreadful event of 9/11, the US has pulled out of Afghanistan. They went in, with a coalition of allies, on October 7^th, 2001. They were after Osama Bin Laden, and al-Qaeda, who were enjoying the protection of the Taliban, then governing Afghanistan, and who refused US requests to extradite him.[1]

            President George Bush had declared “a war on terror” and had admonished the world’s nations that “you are either for us or against us”. When it came to Pakistan, strong words were allegedly spoken, with a threat to bomb Pakistan “back to the stone age”.[2] He had also spoken of the way in which the US would hunt down the terrorists, and pursue them relentlessly and unforgivingly. So when the US troops were recently subjected to a terrorist attack by a suicide bomber, when thirteen American service personnel along with dozens of Afghans, desperately besieging the airport in the hopes of escaping the country, history was repeating itself. President Joe Biden appeared on TV and spoke directly to the perpetrators: “We will not forget, we will not forgive. We will hunt you down, and make you pay.”

            I understand that this rhetoric is for domestic consumption as much as anything else. Americans’ sense of outrage must be addressed and assuaged. But it also signals a sense of déjà vu, and whether the US is going to learn anything from history. So what happened to “Speak softly, and carry a big stick”? Wikipedia describes this quotation of President Theodore Roosevelt’s[3], as describing his style of foreign policy (which Wikipedia describes as “big stick ideology, or diplomacy, or policy) that Roosevelt described as “the exercise of intelligent forethought and of decisive action sufficiently in advance of any likely crisis”.

            The US, especially since the Second World War, and particularly in the last decades of the twentieth, and the two decades of this century, has most certainly carried a big stick. Whether is still is given to “speaking softly” may be open to debate. I have to say that Biden’s words, quoted above, while directed at a domestic audience, nevertheless inevitably resound around the world, and may fall on others’ ears differently from the way US citizens hear them. As for Roosevelt’s desire for “the exercise of intelligent forethought”, I shall have more to say on that below.

            Wikipedia outlines “big stick diplomacy” as having five components. They are: (1) having serious military capability that would force an adversary to pay close attention; (2) to act justly towards other nations, or as Roosevelt put it in his speech: “in other words, that it is necessary to be respectful toward all people and scrupulously to refrain from wronging them, while at the same time keeping ourselves in condition to prevent wrong being done to us.”[4] (3) Never to bluff; (4) to strike only when prepared to strike hard; and (5) willingness to allow the adversary to save face in defeat. “The idea is negotiating peacefully but also having strength in case things go wrong.”[5]

            Let’s consider the lessons that the US has, or hasn’t learned, using Roosevelt’s description of “big stick diplomacy” and its components as a template. First of all, what about “the exercise of intelligent forethought”? Roger Cohen, in a piece entitled “Delusion in a faraway land”, writes this:

“But America-in-Afghanistan amount to a chronicle of errors and misjudgements that pose fundamental questions for US policymakers. From the moment the United States decided to go to war in Iraq in 2003 on the basis of flawed intelligence–opening a second front and diverting attention and resources from Afghanistan–a sense that the Afghan conflict was a directionless secondary undertaking grew. Defeating terrorism morphed perilously into nation building…

The reckoning of this American failure seems certain to be painful. The inclination to build in the American image–rather than adapt to simpler, less ambitions (sic) Afghan needs and capacities–seems to carry a wider lesson for the United States in the world in the 21^st century.

Munter, the former ambassador to Pakistan, led the first Provincial Reconstruction Team in Mosul, Iraq, in 2006. He recalled arriving there and finding “there was no plan whatsoever”… “The Mosul experience”, he added, “seemed like a miniature version of what happened on a much grander scale in Afghanistan”.[6]

And on the recent US withdrawal from Afghanistan, Cohen acknowledges that President Trump had bequeathed a “difficult legacy” to President Biden. Nevertheless, Biden’s “administration had options short of its accelerated withdrawal.”

“The thing that is appalling is that the administration had no plan,” said Stephen Heintz, the head of a foundation that has been working on Afghanistan since 2011. “There was scarcely any consultation with Nato and little with the Afghan Government. It’s a failure of intelligence, of planning, of logistics, and in the end a political failure, because whatever it is, it’s Biden’s.”[7]

Lack of forethought, intelligent or not, seems to be a common theme in much commentary on US engagement in foreign countries’ affairs; not to speak of the inclination to invade and to imagine that “American values” and “democracy” can be easily transported into these places. Shuja Nawaz, in an unpublished opinion piece entitled “Pakistan’s existential threat”, writes, for instance, “As for Afghanistan, it is now quite clear that the United States went in without a comprehensive plan for winning the war beyond the military ouster of the Taliban.”[8]

Allied with this lack of foresight, is a kind of hubris and an ignorance of mores and customs in other parts of the world, and the expectation that “American values” and “freedom and democracy” à la US style is what is good and wanted by the rest of the world. This, admittedly, is a generalisation; and is often a product of political rhetoric by American political leaders. There are plenty of analysts in the US, diplomats, bureaucrats, “think-tank” members and commentators who understand the complexities of the world, and the realities of cultural and national specificities. Nonetheless, the rhetoric is often what seems to fuel initial decisions and actions.

In addressing another issue, I should like to adapt Roosevelt’s third component to “big stick diplomacy”: Never bluff. In its place, I think a better strategy is: do not be hypocritical over the adherence to espoused values and “democratic” ideals. Let’s leave aside discussion of the many times the US has supported, and upheld, dictatorial, totalitarian, or corrupt regimes around the world.[9] Nor shall we consider the US’s own lapses in maintaining or upholding values it espouses: the torture of “waterboarding”, excesses at Abu Ghraib, or holding persons (some innocent) for years at Guantanamo Bay without charge or trial.

When the US Government negotiated the Doha agreement with the Taliban last year, “[t]he clauses of the accord acquiesced to every major Taliban demand and gave the Afghan Government nothing”.  The Times of London article in which this statement appears goes on:

Civil liberties, human and women’s rights? These are passionate aspirations for the millions of educated Afghans who have a vision of modernity beyond the limitations of conflict and fundamentalism. Yet no word of rights, liberty or even democracy is mentioned in the Doha accord, let alone stipulated as a prerequisite of any ultimate peace settlement.[10]

This makes a mockery of Western, especially US, calls for the Taliban to adhere to respect for human rights and women’s rights now that the coalition forces have departed Afghanistan, and have allowed the Taliban to reassert their authority. As Cohen quotes an Afghan entrepreneur, Saad Mohseni as saying: “The Afghans have been pushed under the bus in the most unfair and irresponsible way.”[11] Speaking of the fact that the Taliban pose the most immediate threat to Afghans, “particularly Afghan women, rather than to the United States”, Cohen quotes Stephen Heintz again: “This is a devastating blow to American credibility that calls into question how sincere we are when we say we believe in human rights and women.”[12]

            A further issue is the fact that often the governments that the US was supporting were riddled with corruption, and the abuse of power. A retired major in the NZ Army, who served in Afghanistan, “blames poor governance for the relative lack of opposition to Taliban” advances. “When [locals] aren’t receiving the benefits of any sort of good governance, when a new crowd comes in, there’s no will from the people to fight them.”[13] The Economist makes a similar point, if with a different context in mind: “In Somalia, where British and Turkish troops have been training the security forces, getting them to fight in not only a question of their technical abilities. It is a matter of building up local institutions worth fighting for.”[14] And Shuja Nawaz quotes General David Petraeus as saying, “You cannot shoot your way out of an insurgency. You have to recognize that the military-civil equation is 20 per cent military and 80 per cent civil and political.”[15]

            Unfortunately, a comment made in defence of President Biden’s withdrawal, only serves to underline the importance of attending not only to military, but also civil and political issues. “‘Twenty years was a long time to give Afghan leaders to plant the seed of civil society, and instead they planted only the seeds of corruption and incompetence,’ Representative for Massachusetts Jake Auchincloss, a former Marine who served in Afghanistan, told The New York Times.”[16] I have read elsewhere that many Afghans preferred the relative efficiency, and lack of corruption of the Taliban to that of the legitimate Afghan authorities, despite not liking their ideology. A correspondent for The Times of London interviewing Ahmad Shah Massoud, the “Lion of Panjshir”, before his death in 2000, quotes him as saying, in a reflective mood, “I regret that when I had Kabul I could not do better for the people…And I regret that the system they lived under was so corrupt.”[17] It is, perhaps, worth remembering that the success of the Taliban in surviving, and eventually gaining power again, is built upon the corrupt regimes of a number of Afghan war lords in various provinces. If there is any consolation in the rise of the Taliban, it is that once in power they will need to retain the support of the people. And Islamist militants around the world have not had a good track record of managing power, nor of avoiding popular dissatisfaction with their rule.[18]

            There is no doubt that Afghanistan presents a complex, and intractable problem for Western engagement with it (as are many other, if not all, situations of conflict and power-struggle). There are so many competing agendas and interests; and not simply within the country, but around it (the role of Pakistan in the last twenty year history of Afghanistan could be the topic of another piece). As far as US engagement with Afghanistan is concerned, the world is now a different place from what it was in 2001. The role of China, and its interests in the region, not to speak of its growing economic and political influence, is a factor. As an aside, if any nation has learned the value of “speaking softly” it is China: but it has its own “big stick” in the economic hegemony it has built, and is building up. What lies ahead for US diplomacy in the world is yet to be determined. The one thing that seems certain is that the appetite for wielding a “big stick” is currently on the wane. There is not much desire for it amongst the domestic population. When I was growing up in Pakistan, it seems to me, the “soft speaking” approach of building up the infrastructure of that country, of providing economic and technical assistance was much more to the fore. While analysis of the effectiveness of that approach is yet to determine its gains (I heard once that many times the amount of aid had gone into Pakistan as had been poured into Europe under the Marshall Plan, and to what end?), it may be time again to pivot towards a fresh approach to foreign policy and practice.

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[1] “Briefing, Gobal Jihadism”, The Economist, August 28^th, 2021, 13. New Zealand followed shortly thereafter, with troops later committed to the Bamiyan Province for reconstruction work (see Clare De Lore, “A war for good?”, New Zealand Listener, August 7, 2021, 36).

[2] President Musharraf alleged this was said by Richard Armitage, Assistant Secretary of State in Bush’s administration, but it was denied by Armitage; see https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna14943975

[3] The quotation is of a West African proverb, which in full is: “Speak softly and carry a big stick: you will go far.” See https://www.britannica.com/event/Big-Stick-policy.

[4] See again https://www.britannica.com/event/Big-Stick-policy; Roosevelt was here referring to speaking softly as an adjunct to strong military action, or “the big stick” approach.

[5] See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Stick_ideology.

[6] Roger Cohen, “Delusion in a faraway land”, Weekend Herald, Saturday, August 21, 2021, A16,17 (emphasis mine).

[7] Cohen, “Delusion in a faraway land”, A16 (again emphasis mine).

[8] Shuja Nawaz, “Pakistan’s existential threat”, unpublished piece received by email; quotation on second page. Though this piece was written in 2010, and largely about the effects of the insurgency on, and in, Pakistan, it retains its relevance.

[9] I refer anyone interested in following up this aspect to two books with surprisingly similar titles, both by American authors: William Blum, Rogue State: A Guide to the World’s Only Superpower. London: Zed Books, 2^nd, updated edition, 2002; and Clyde Prestowitz, Rogue Nation: American Unilateralism and the Failure of Good Intentions. New York: Basic Books, 2003.

[10] Review article, “The Enduring Fight for Freedom”, Weekend Herald, Saturday, May 9, 2020, A19 (an article originally appearing in The Times of London).

[11] Cohen, “Delusion in a faraway land”, A16.

[12] Cohen, “Delusion in a faraway land”, A17.

[13] Kurt Bayer, “The Ones We Left Behind”, Weekend Herald, Saturday, July 31, 2021, A13.

[14] “Briefing: Global Jihadism”, The Economist, August 28^th, 2021, 16.

[15] Shuja Nawaz, “Pakistan’s existential threat”, unpublished paper, 2-3.

[16] Rogen Cohen, “Delusion in a faraway land”, A16.

[17] Review article, “The Enduring Fight for Freedom”, A20.

[18] See here the article, “Briefing: Global Jihadism”, The Economist, August 28^th, 2021, 16.