Lost in the emotion-charged debate over the war on Iraq are discussions on many other subjects going on in different circles. They are not of earth-shattering importance, but interesting nevertheless. One of the issues is the suitability of individuals or countries to take charge of causes to which they have not proved any commitment. What brought up the subject is the nomination of Libya to chair the United Nations Commission on Human Rights. This has caused uproar among liberals around the world, who question its record in human rights and demand that the African Union withdraw the nomination. Their question is: Can someone who has failed at something really be made a judge of others who are perhaps failing at the same thing?
The ramifications could be disturbing. Would we happily appoint a man who had failed his pilot exams, to decide when other pilots were sufficiently qualified to be trusted with the lives of several hundred passengers? Would we be prepared to trust a man who frankly confessed that he was not particularly good at surgery to operate on person? In some negative way, does failure to achieve a particular standard in any endeavor, somehow enable the man who failed, to pass accurate judgments on others, who may or may not be succeeding with the same challenge? It used to be an adage of the British police force that “It takes a thief to catch a thief”. Unfortunately, one day some 30 years ago the British public woke up to the fact that a significant proportion of their trusted Bobbies was in fact on the take. Parts of the London Metropolitan Police, including the fabled Flying Squad were working hand in glove with robbers, drugs pushers and pornographers, in return for kickbacks. In London’s Soho district, the police were even operating a racket in which the criminal were having to pay protection.
On another level, should a country hand over the management and coaching of its national football team to a man who has never scored a goal in his life, or whose previous teams have never won a match? Should we choose our investment managers from among the ranks of those who have in the past lost fortunes for their clients? Will the experience of failure have somehow made these individuals better judges of what to do next time?
The question has to be, if a man has proven himself unreliable, in whatever way, is it sensible to think that his lack of character or skill is going to somehow improve his performance if he is placed in a position of authority, governing the area where he himself has not succeeded ? Applying the logic, in the light of the huge disappointments that followed the Johannesburg environment summit, should the United States of America, the world’s most profligate consumer of energy and greatest polluter of the skies, be appointed to lead the drive toward a more ecologically balanced and cleaner world?
Or perhaps more importantly, should the Bush White House, the most belligerent, stiff-necked and narrowly-focused administration to emerge in America in recent history, be now thought to have qualified itself by its mammoth failures, as a master of wisdom and compromise, able to bring about real negotiations and real peace where there has only before been injustice and aggression?
