Hard choices in Kosovo · 1999-04-01
When will liberals learn to stand up for their values? We saw it throughout the Cold War, in Iraq, and now over the Balkans. Western liberals and left-wingers, particularly Europeans, fail to appreciate that the values they hold as their own are not indestructible. Occasionally, just occasionally, they need defending.
The sanctity of the individual, human rights, democracy and the rule of law – these are the basis of civilization and human progress. If these values came under serious threat within the bounds of our own country I would like to think that concerned citizens would come to their rescue – not war hawks, but liberals, like you and me. A central plank of liberalism is internationalism: people are of equal worth wherever they live in the world. So why do these values not apply to the people of Kosovo, too?
It is their greatest strength but also their greatest weakness: liberals sometimes question themselves too much. There are occasions when we should be in no doubt. Just as the Second World War liberated the world – at enormous cost – from fascism, and the Falklands and Gulf Wars enforced basic principles of international law – the same law, remember, that is deciding Pinochet’s fate – military action against Serbia is an expression of the international community’s resolve that ethnic cleansing and genocide cannot be tolerated, wherever it occurs. Difficult to believe, perhaps – and particularly difficult for conspiracy theorists and implacable critics of American ‘imperialism’ – but NATO’s campaign in the Balkans could turn out to be the first true war for human rights and international law.
‘The arms industry is benefiting’, peace doves are quick to point out. Equally, stock markets will not be: modern capitalism, heavily reliant on international trade, dislikes the instability caused by warfare. The US military complex is still powerful, but could it really have alone generated the political will to act in Kosovo? And would the US president really be willing to risk his reputation on a difficult war – as he now seems about to do – if the public weren’t behind the action?
The people of NATO countries are overwhelmingly in favour of taking decisive action to end human rights abuses in Kosovo. What a shame that the objections have to come from liberals. These are our values; we should be the first to stand up and defend them.
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