Atle Hetland
In the end, we are all responsible for our own actions, and it is only to a degree that we can blame things on the Zeitgeist, the spirit of the time, that everybody did the same, as we would say, that we were encouraged to do what we did because superiors in the office, leaders of political parties, or even religious leaders gave their recommendations. In the end, it is up to the conscience of each of us, built on our own moral and ethical values, with broad principles taken from one’s religion or philosophical foundation – and much of that we receive from our parents, grandparents, teachers and other adults we are influenced by and look up to in our upbringing and socialisation, including schools and organisations.
So, we are influenced by many, yet, in the end, we are responsible for our own values, opinions and actions. We can’t give credit to, or blame things on influencers on social and regular media either. They, too, have great responsibilities, but ultimately, we stand alone, and each of us must be our own man or own woman, responsible for our own actions.
A few weeks ago, I wrote in an article about the importance of having positive relations with others, even in politics where opinions may differ widely. We should have an open mind towards people we don’t agree with, such as the right-wing political parties and groups that are popular nowadays, as even they may have some lessons to teach others. Also, those parties may have come about because of mistakes by old parties. Although we should be polite and open towards different opinions and ways, we still must stand up for what we believe ourselves.
In my article last week, I wrote a bit about the importance of having moral foundations for what we do, in politics and life. I said that I don’t think that the worldwide Western education policies, and also social services, are fully based on true moral foundations, yet, there are also good intentions. But the Western education model emphasises too much theory with competition and tests, and places less emphasis on moral education and that every child and youth should enjoy learning and being at school. I am not saying everything is wrong, but I am drawing attention to some fundamental aspects, not the least important in our time when the cost of education is getting out of hand all over the world, at the same time as many students feel miserable at school and are many times also mobbed by other students (and sometimes even teachers).
Today, I shall focus on some other fields where policies and practices have gone astray and have shallow moral foundations. These fields are development and aid and North-South relations; and secondly, the refugee and migration policies. When the development aid started in the post-WWII era, when former colonies gained independence, there were positive intentions about creating a more equal world, at least that was what people were told. Yet, maybe it was as much about a new world on the West’s premises, which we still have, evident, too, in the form and shape of the United Nations.
But now we learn more and more about how poor the development aid results are, in spite of different spin about its performance. President Trump does have good reasons for reducing American development aid and also criticising UN agencies for poor performance. I believe that the transfers from the North to the South should have been manifold of what it has been in the recent 60–80 decades, and it should have been done in entirely different ways. There weren’t really true moral foundations for the politics and practices. Alas, we knew it or suspected it, but we didn’t say it or rock the boat because development aid was such a nice activity, a continuation of missionary work of sharing one’s religion with others and doing social work. In hindsight, after I spent the bulk of my own professional career in development aid and research, I don’t quite understand why we didn’t speak up because we had doubts for long. That is unforgivable.
The refugee and migration policies are certainly on clay ground, too, and it has been so for a good while, at least, from the conservative Swedish PM Fredrik Reinfeldt in the 2014 general election campaign in his country, said that people should open their hearts and accept a high number of refugees and immigrants at a critical time for many desperate and needy asylum seekers. There was high pressure on the rich countries, including Sweden, to allow more people in. I believe that Reinfeldt was right to say that his country and people had a moral responsibility to be generous. Yet, it is also true that the integration policies and practices were not in place to handle the situation and include the immigrants into a new land with new customs, language, and often also a new religion, and many different values in numerous fields.
In Germany, Chancellor Angela Merkel had similar positive opinions to those of Reinfeldt. In 2015, Germany took close to two million new immigrants, while some also left; the newcomers were especially from Syria, Afghanistan and other countries in crisis. This was the highest number of newcomers that Germany had ever received at one time, and many thought it was more than Germany could handle. Merkel said: “Wir schaffen das”, or in English, “We can manage this”. Her statement spelt out what became termed a ‘Willkommenskultur’, or in English, a “Welcome Culture”.
I agree with the decisions by Reinfeldt and Merkel, and indeed the moral values behind them. Values and attitudes are at the bottom and under what we do, but the practical policies and practices are in many ways something else, in these cases integration policies and the need for broad, integrated policies, and indeed public political debate, with moral foundations. First, we must learn the right attitudes and that may need debate and thought. I believe it is evident that we never had the required debate about development aid, the whole North-South relations, and the refugee and migration issues.
After WWII, when also the UN refugee policies were established, the refugee crisis was in Europe, and the general attitude was to feel empathy for the refugees when they came to other European countries, and most people welcomed and helped the refugees. Today, the most common opinions about refugees and other immigrants are that they are too many and also that integration policies are not working well enough. It is also a fact that the immigration policies and thinking of the EU, the different European countries, the UN, and so on, are not sustainable and don’t work well, neither for the refugees nor for the host countries. We must find policies and practices that have positive and true moral foundations.
In some future articles, I shall discuss some other essential fields where our moral foundations are not good enough, indeed so when wars and violent conflicts take place, today especially the Israel–Palestine war, the Russia–Ukraine war, and many other conflicts. As for today, I stress that we should also consider further the broad issues I have taken up in my article, about education, development aid, overall North–South relations, including refugee and immigration policies.
The writer is a senior Norwegian social scientist with experience from university, diplomacy and development aid. He can be reached at atlehetland@yahoo.com
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