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Editorial

Playing on our Sympathies

At last week's SRC a motion was passed condemning the violation of human rights by the Soviet Union and the United States, and deploring the way in which the issue of human rights is being used as a pawn in the rivalry between the two superpowers.

Several people raised the question of whether the United States should be included in the motion, as in that country human rights are clearly not suppressed to the same degree as they are in the Soviet Union. There were calls that specific instances should be named and that other countries also deserved to be included.

It is true that the Soviet Union is a worse offender than its superpower rival; it is also true that human rights violations are by no means confined to the two superpowers. However to concentrate on these two points misses a significant point in the motion.

To place the issue of human rights in its context in the world it is necessary to look at the relationship between the United States and the Soviet Union. Up until very recently, both countries have striven hard to convince the world that their intentions are honourable by propagating the theory of detente. Detente is supposed to mean that, rather than face each other uneasily in stony silence in a cold war, the superpowers will cooperate to minimise the threat each poses to the other.

The theory sounds attractive. Not many people in the world are unaware of the danger of a third world war resulting in part by the build-up of arms, both nuclear and conventional. Not many people believe that war is desirable to peace.

Thus, any talk of peace by the countries most likely to be in the forefront of a new war sounds like good news indeed. Even among those who do not believe everything the superpowers say about maintaining a peaceful equilibrium there are many who want to believe, who consider that talk of peace is at least better than talk of war.

One doesn't need to go back very far in history to find a striking example of this philosophy being applied with disastrous results. Neville Chamberlain, Prime Minister of Great Britain, proclaimed it right up to the start of the second world war. His strategy was to keep Hitler talking about Germany's "peaceful" and "[unclear: legitamate]" demands, to accept Hitler's assurances and turn a blind eye to Germany's developing war economy and European expansionism.

The lesson of the Second World War should not be forgotten. A country proclaiming peaceful intentions which are believed, finds it all the more easy to arm itself and prepare for war.

But why should a country want to go to war? Let's look at the current situation. After the end of the last war the United States emerged as the major power in the world. Its direct access to raw materials, cheap labour, and its control of world markets gave it unrivalled influence on the political and economic growth of nearly every area of the globe.

Since Vietnam, however, it has lost prestige. Perhaps more importantly, since the development of independence movements throughout the third world, it has lost much of its influence on the very countries on which it relies.

For its own economic stability therefore, the United States must struggle all harder to maintain its control of those countries it has left, and work to improve its image in those countries, like New Zealand, which it does not directly control but over which it nevertheless exerts a significant influence.

With the former it is fighting a losing battle, and in many places is opting for a strategic withdrawal. This means that although the States will remove the overt appearances of military or political involvement, it tries to establish a political and social system with guaranteed allegiance to its own interests.

In other words, the United States is trying to develop an image for itself of decency and respect for the integrity of other nations while not losing ground on all important economic matters. In Southern Africa, for example, it is the United States which appears as the interested party trying to avoid bloodshed, even though it has bever been hesitant to go to war should its own interests be directly threatened. In New Zealand, top representatives of IBM have regular and direct access to government, and they are not alone.

This image of decency, of being the good guy in a world full of baddies, serves to unite sections of popular opinion behind the States so that if it does adopt harsher measures these will be easier to justify. The emphasis on human rights is a part of this.

President Carter's National Security Adviser, Zbigniew Brzezinski is on record saying that Carter's foreign policy recognises that the States was "faced with a world that was losing faith in America, by the widespread global phenomenon of anti-Americanism. The new administration put high on its list of priorities the need to revive both-American confidence and the spiritual relevance of the West to emerging global dilemmas ... The emphasis we have put on human rights derives from this perspective."

The Soviet Union is busy expanding where the United States is retreating. Like the States, it promotes an image of itself calculated to win popular support. To the west, it preaches detente, proclaiming its willingness to come to the SALT table even as it engages in the most rapid buildup of arms along the European front ever seen. To the third world, it holds out the lure of "socialism", even though its economic exploitation of the third world countries it has "liberated" is an easy match for anything the States ever engaged in.

The Soviet economy is still not healthy. Inflation is rampant and there is a recurring shortage of food. The States economy is steadily worsening. Both are based on control of foreign markets. As their control comes more and more into conflict, so the likelihood of war increases.

Detente is no longer able to disguise this trend. The violation of human rights is easy to spot in the Soviet Union, and while this does not in any way make it justifiable, we should not be unaware of similar violations practised by the United States around the world. Nor should we fail to recognise the political capital the States aims to make by appearing to stand up for the rights of the people in the countries of its adversaries. This cynicism is no move to safeguard peace, and must not be accepted as such.

Simon Wilson