The limits of humanitarian intervention
How dangerous natural disasters really are, is best evidenced by the extreme floods that recently devastated the Libyan city of Derna, decimating it, with the number of victims currently standing at a tragic number of 3.958 dead and almost 9.000 missing. Natural causes are the easiest to describe. Climate change took its toll and storm Daniel caused extreme rainfall that hit Greece, Turkey and Bulgaria, but it hit the country of Libya, which has been suffering for decades, to the most drastic extent, causing the deadliest flood in the last hundred years on the African continent. Extreme rainfall, which could not have been prevented, apart from the early warning and preventive action systems that failed, triggered the bursting of two dams in the city of Derna, releasing an enormous amount of water that destroyed an entire city.
These are dams that, after the tragic event, were found to have been unmaintained for years, unsafe and as such a direct threat to the local population. Similar tragedies almost always appear in at least two acts. The first is the factor of nature, which, as we all know, is impossible to prevent, but it is almost always accompanied by an institutional deficit, that tragic moment, in the form of services that do not do their job without preventing or at least mitigating the inevitable disaster.
How important institutional care is for the population is perhaps best demonstrated by events that are not of the usual order. They only reflect the essence of a state, its mechanisms whose functionality is extremely tested in such emergency situations. The tragedy of Libya that is now visible comes down to the inability to save its own citizens, clean up their remains, prevent the spread of infections, almost absolute dependence on humanitarian interventions, and has been following that African country for a little over a decade. Namely, if we concentrate only on the last decade of Libyan life, it is easy to recognize that it is an extremely risky framework for human life. The overthrow of the Gaddafi regime followed by (humanitarian) intervention, the various typologies of war that Libyan society then experienced, the combination of sectarianism and tribalism and the accompanying division of land and resources made that African country almost completely unable to care for its own population. Unfortunately, most of them have gotten used to the population that flees, dies and is condemned to a cruel struggle for bare life.
Structurally speaking, the international humanitarian intervention under the auspices of the struggle for human rights has created a social context in Libya in which human rights, even the basic protection of human life, exist mostly as an imaginary noun. Only declaratively, then, and the victims from Derna testify to that. Neither before nor after did they experience minimal institutional protection through various state mechanisms. Thus, a country that freed itself from a despotic regime through humanitarian intervention returned to this and other humanitarian and human disasters.
Sustainable and unsustainable goals
During that time, on the other side of the world, in New York, the 78th UN General Assembly is in session, on the topic of rebuilding trust and reviving global solidarity. Current topics are also needed, of course, we agree. The plan, UN Secretary General António Guterres will tell us, is to look for practical and other solutions to speed up action on the 2030 Agenda and its sustainable development goals towards peace, prosperity, progress and sustainability for all. We may not be right, but when we find in the vastness of the Internet countless delegations that, in pictures, with their sleeves rolled up and in combinations of ties and casual dress codes, posing for social networks, show how they are preparing agonistically for the Assembly, they do not instill in us excessive confidence that they will give a concrete and quick response to current challenges. Of course, they will deal with current topics, from climate change that leads to unpredictable consequences, the war in Ukraine, instability in Africa. Then decarbonization, electric cars, regulation of artificial intelligence, economic and social sustainability, inclusivity, these are all topics he will cover. Undeniably, it is necessary to address such topics on a global platform, namely the United Nations.
But the impression remains, when we observe extreme episodes such as the Libyan one, that the international community shows a great discrepancy between the proclaimed ideals and reality. But that is also expected.
The international community, at least from the perspective of political realism and authors like Kenneth Waltz, is characterized by a kind of anarchism. He is not referring so much to what the term anarchy evokes in most people at first, but to the fact that since there is no central authority that makes and implements decisions, international relations and goals are often conflicting and uneven. And, we will add, the goals and guidelines fail to be translated into action, and concrete action is what the most vulnerable countries need the most. On the example of Libya and many other countries with similar fates, this understanding is confirmed. The entire set of international rules and regulations, human individual and collective rights, in the context of fragile states simply collapsed. This is how humanitarian interventions faced their opposite - humanitarian impotence, which despite all the allocated funds and resources fails to do the basic thing - save human life. The current humanitarian disaster in Libya painfully confirms this.
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