The New York Times recently published a terrific article about Paul Kagame, current President of Rwanda. The author, Jeffrey Gettleman, outlined a serious moral dilemma for international aid donors. Kagame's regime is highly efficient, making the most of aid, cracking down on corruption, almost eliminating malaria, decreasing child mortality by 70%, instituting the first universal healthcare system in an impoverished country, ensuring political stability, ending ethnic divisions, bringing women into higher political office, and creating sustained 8% growth.
Despite these economic and societal advances, however, he has been ruthless in cracking down on dissidents, with opposition journalists and politicians finding themselves in jail or dead from a 9mm "car accident." Should Western nations and NGOs support the government, knowing that they are both helping feed poor children and also kill dissidents? One perspective among aid workers was, as the New York Times put it, that "Kagame was burnishing the image of the entire billion-dollar aid industry." His demonstrated results look impressive to USAID administrators sitting in their Pennsylvania Avenue headquarters, though they look far less so to the imprisoned dissidents.
However, the part of the article that resonated most strongly with me was a comment by Mr. Gettleman that "who can enjoy freedom of speech or freedom of the press when everyone is killing one another?" This does seem to be the right approach. In any contest between life and liberty, life always prevails. Starvation, war, disease -- these are terrible crimes that here supersede abstract rights principles. Death is the end. One cannot enjoy rights without life, and one certainly may not enjoy them from the grave. Life, no matter how bad, holds the potential to get better, to improve upon one's fundamental rights.
In a perfect world, of course, it would be great to be able to offer aid or assistance with strings attached or with funding for Rwanda's civil society and NGOs. The reality is that there is a dictatorial government that will use aid money effectively but will not likely enact any non-cosmetic reforms. The ball is squarely in the West's court: it can either give aid or not. The best choice seems to be to aid Kagame while pinching our collective noses that we are, indeed, aiding Kagame.
Thus far, this post may seem remarkably absolutist for a blog about pragmatism. What I mean to illustrate is that often even seemingly hardline positions are in reality about compromises. To send Kagame international assistance is a choice to prioritize among competing moral absolutes. The utilitarian would prioritize saving the lives of the people; the deontologist would reject any association with a brutal regime. Neither theory of ethics can be applied to international relations without considerable difficulty. Instead, each case must be taken individually. In this instance, Rwanda has come so far, and from so little, that it hardly makes sense to jeopardize that progress in the name of an elusive goal of individual rights that has little resonated thus far in Africa's political quagmire.
While I do agree that this is a dilemma, I would argue against your last statement that it is not worth jeopardizing progress in the name of "an elusive goal of individual rights." Historically, the countries that do best and protect their citizens the best are the ones that protect the rights of the individual. Personally, I agree that we should continue to send Kagame's regime international assistance, but I feel that the reason you gave for doing so wasn't a great one.
ReplyDeleteYou have a good point, but I think there are many counter examples to the claim that "the countries that do best and protect their citizens the best are the ones that protect the rights of the individual." Indeed, the countries that have recently modernized and industrialized the fastest are those that have ignored the rights of the individual in the name of the state. Look at China, Korea, Japan, and Singapore. While I'm not advocating for ignoring human rights, I don't necessarily think there is a correlation between economic success and personal freedom, at least for the initial process of industrialization. Human rights tends to come later.
DeleteI'm going to put on my Howard Zinn cap here for a second. While throwing dissidents in jail and forcing people to live on reservations aren't the same thing, I might add to your list the United States. Given the way this country treated blacks, Native Americans and other minorities during the 19th century, one could certainly argue that America was not a beacon of exemplary human rights during its industrial era. (Yes, the rest of the world was bad, too, at the time. But try to imagine how America would have developed if it had not "ignored the rights of the individual in the name of the state" -- particularly with Western expansion.)
DeleteI agree with a lot of what you say in this post, especially the point you make about how basic human needs supersede principles. However, when making decisions like this one, each scenario cannot be completely isolated. Like you said, a deontologist might reject associating with Kagame because it violates a basic principle, which therefor makes it a bad choice. However, a utilitarian could also make the argument that giving aid to the Kagame regime is bad because it violates a basic principle, which then empowers other less "benevolent" leaders worldwide to oppress their people, thus ultimately potentially causing more suffering than it prevents. While in this case I think the aid is still merited, it is also important to consider that enforcing rules and principles can have pragmatic benefits.
ReplyDeleteYesterday, I got to hear Mukesh Kapila speak. Mukesh was the United Nations Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator for the Sudan in 2003, when acts of genocide in Darfur were coming to light. When he went to the UN and said that something needed to be done, the answer he received from New York was very utilitarian in nature: that we couldn't let Darfur (in the western part of Sudan) jeopardize a North-South peace agreement which was being negotiated at the time. Kapila made the Kantian/deontological argument that we should have done something in the face of horrendous evil -- a genocide. Of course, he was right. I think even a utilitarian might scoff at the idea of a North-South peace deal saving more lives than intervening in Darfur. But the disagreement between Kofi Annan and Kapila raised a question of utilitarianism for me: at what point do human rights abuses become so bad that utilitarianism becomes unjustifiable? One dissident dying in a "car accident"? A dozen? Open firing on thousands of peaceful protesters and running over others in tanks? Murdering 300,000 people? How about 11 million? Utilitarians would disagree with the idea that utilitarianism allows for genocide to happen, but in this all-too-real example, it did.
ReplyDeleteTo play devil's advocate for a moment, I think a true utilitarian would say that we should do whatever maximizes happiness and minimizes suffering. Certainly genocide contains much suffering and little happiness, so we should try very hard to stop it. Where (at least in my opinion) 100% utilitarianism breaks down is when actions are more complex than simple cause-and-effect. In the famous trolley example, we can say almost for sure that turning the wheel will condemn the people at the end of the track to death. With IR, it is much harder to determine. Pure utilitarianism requires some determination of the results to make action, for there is no other way to maximizes the lives saved. Given how chaotic and unpredictable international politics and economics can be, I agree with you that there must be a deontological perspective as well.
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