Sunday, 13 July 2025

Post No. 3,180 - moral tests of our time

I recently agreed with a friend of mine that Gaza is the big moral test of our times - and so many people who have power are failing that test ... but there have been other such tests as well. 

In my lifetime, that I can recall there have been (and there have been others I did not know of at the time, although I do now): 

  • Biafra (1967-69), during the Nigerian Civil War - which the world was shamed (partly by photos I saw in the press and still remember) into responding to, with a two year airlift estimated to have saved around one million lives (although ½ to one million civilians and 45 - 100,000 combatants died, and there was immense suffering of those who survived, in this and every other atrocity mentioned); 
  • The East Timor genocide, starting in 1974 or '75 and killing 13% to 44% of East Timor’s total population - which my nation, to its eternal shame, tacitly greenlit ... but eventually, a quarter of a century later, responded to, taking advantage of the lessons from intervening crises (but with another shameful episode during negotiations over natural resources); 
  • The Cambodian genocide of 1975 - 79, with 1.2 to 2.8 million deaths (15–33% of total population) - eventually stopped by Việt Nam, which is when I first became painfully aware of the prevarications used to evade taking responsibility or action or otherwise being a decent enough human being to CARE ABOUT OTHERS (these failings of humans would be written about in Samantha Power’s book A Problem from Hell” (William Collins (2010); ISBN 9780008359386; Apple, Harper Collins, Amazon), which was a response to the author’s experience of the Bosnian genocide); 
  • the Sabra and Shatila massacre in September 1982 of 1,300 to 3,500 civilians by a Christian militia, supported by the Israel Defence Forces, in Lebanon, which highlighted to me the savagery and duplicity of hate;  
  • the Bosnian genocide of 1992-95, with 34-41,000 deaths and imagery that shocked Europe into action; 
  • the terrible Rwandan genocide of 1994, with 500-800,000 deaths of Tutsi and Twa and 250-500,000 rapes, and a massively obvious moral failing of those who had the power to act that brought to mind similar inaction against the Holocaust/Shoah in World War (part) Two. The massive failures of this genocide led to a revenge genocide of 200,000 Hutu in what is now the DRC in 1996-97; 
  • the Darfur genocide - described as the first genocide of the 21st century (between 2003 and 2005), it saw an estimated 200,000 people killed and received widespread publicity from an advocacy group with social media and mapping skills which garnered celebrity attention that led to an admission of genocide by a respected US general and thus to action being taken ... but problems have continued, and are now recurring as part of the Sudan Civil War;   
  • the Yazidi genocide of 2014-17, which saw initially ~3,000 killed and ~7,000 kidnapped (~2.5% of all Yazidis) and forced religious conversions, and, by 2015, upwards of 71% of the global Yazidi population displaced. This genocide also ultimately led to the establishment of the excellent Lemkin  Institute; 
  • the Rohingya  genocide, with the excuse for its commencement being violence by a Rohingya group, which saw over one million Rohingya forced to become refugees;  

And now we have Ukraine and Gaza ... the former showing (some of) the better aspects f the world, the latter the absolute worst ... 

On Gaza, note the following:  

and also:  

  • “Criticising Israel is not religious intolerance. Orange marches are”   https://www.thenational.scot/politics/25308770.mhairi-black-uk-following-familiar-script-gaza/   “... Even if we only consider events from living memory, there were the mass arrests, torture and murders of Mau Mau leaders in Kenya in the 1950s. Up until 1960, in Malaya (now Malaysia), British forces herded hundreds of thousands of people into fortified camps.   ...    Cocoa and oil were extracted from Nigeria through exploitation. In South Africa, black labour was responsible for British diamond profits under apartheid.   ...   The UK’s military interventions in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan just so happened to coincide with our oil and gas interests. Through the actions in both Ireland and India, we know that Britain is no stranger to creating a man-made famine.   ...   Modern-day Britain refuses to acknowledge or learn from the racist and imperialist mistakes of the past, mainly because those in power do not view them as mistakes.    Our history is soaked with elitism, and the blood and tears of foreign generations whose toil sustained that elitism. The UK still thinks of itself as an imperial world power, able to divvy up land and resources to whoever it pleases, when the reality is that the world has moved on.”     

 

The human failings that can lead to genocides being allowed to proceed were well discussed in Samantha Power’s book (details above), with lack of imagination - i.e., not being able to conceive of such terrible events occurring - being one that has stuck with me, although the other motivations (such as imperialism and simple greed) must not be forgotten. 

I made an attempt to expand Power’s approach to the Rwandan genocide in   “Inconvenience (and the genocide of the Rohingya)”   https://politicalmusingsofkayleen.blogspot.com/2020/09/inconvenience.html      

Misplaced focus, the veto power of the “Big Five” in the UN Security Council, and the glibness of responses were problems, but the delivery of aid and the courageous action of one small, brave, and more-moral-than-the-rest-of-the-world nation were key aspects. 

I should also note that the world’s earlier failings had led to elucidation of the concept of “Responsibility to Protect”   ...   and the failings of that (including misapplying it) led to “Will  to  Intervene” ... 

And that high level approach, I am coming to realise, is the problem. 

Ultimately, it is individuals who make decisions - leaders of nations certainly, but also advisors further down the food chain, and those who run the media. 

This is why, to a large extent, public advocacy and action can be so effective - it gets individuals to be and do better. 

At this point, I’d like to direct your attention, Dear Reader, to a few other posts of mine: 

and 

My opinion is that the better activism movements around the world understand all this, as well as the vital importance of nonviolent protest/dissent, and also (something I haven’t written about) the great importance of pressure on the greed of corporations for net profit. 

That has been shown with the protests against M_ sk’s electrical vehicle company in recent months (although some of it was dangerously violent and therefore counter productive - but the majority was NOT). 

It is also showing in some of the protests against companies aiding what is being done in Gaza - and I consider we’re heading towards a people’s sanctions movement similar to that successfully used against South Africa’s apartheid era - with social media being the enabler of that (which helps to offset the harm done through social media, including organising atrocities). 

Good, moral people are not waiting for the weak, immoral people who do currently have power ... but what they are doing is giving the fewer/less influential good, or at least better, people in the halls of political & corporate power who do want to take action the resources they need to get action underway   - e.g.,   the ability to argue with a profit-obsessed greed IPOCs by pointing out the increase in costs/loss of profits/loss of future profits (which is how such IPOCs likely view loss of reputation),   or giving an elected representative data and other tools to argue against their financial backer’s expectations/conditions-prior-to-donating around re-election. 

One day we will have a world where the larger arguments, such as R2P, W2I, human rights, and decency will count in the halls of power, but for now, we have to continue undermining resistance to decency from the ground level up. 



I have also written on this topic in: 

 

 

Possible flaws 

Where I can, I will try to highlight possible flaws / issues you should consider: 

  • there may be flawed logical arguments in the above: to find out more about such flaws and thinking generally, I recommend Brendan  Myers’ free online course “Clear and Present Thinking”;  
  • I could be wrong - so keep your thinking caps on, and make up your own minds for yourself.

 

If you appreciated this post, please consider promoting it - there are some links below, and there’s also other options. 

Note that I am cutting back on aspects of my posts - see here. 

(Gnwmythr is pronounced new-MYTH-ear)  

Remember: we generally need to be more human being rather than human doing, to mind our Mӕgan, and to acknowledge that all misgendering is an act of active transphobia/transmisia that puts trans+ lives at risk & accept that all insistence on the use of “trans” as a descriptor comes with commensurate use of “cis” as a descriptor to prevent “othering” (just as binary gendered [men’s and women’s] sporting teams are either both given the gender descriptor, or neither).

#PsychicABetterWorld   and   may all that I do be of value and actively BPM used for and by the nonphysical  BPM  because   #KindnessIsThePoint   

Copyright © Kayleen White 2007-2025     NO AI   I do not consent to any machine learning aka Artificial Intelligence (AI), generative AI, large language model, machine learning, chatbot, or other automated analysis, generative process, or replication program to reproduce, mimic, remix, summarise, or otherwise  replicate any part of this post or other posts on this blog via any means. Typo’s may be inserrted deliberately to demonstrate this is not an AI product.     Otherwise, fair and reasonable use is accepted under Creative Commons 4.0 on an Attribution-ShareAlike basis https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/  




 

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