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Trafficking
and Transiting: New Perspectives on Labor Migration
Middle
East Report 211 -- Summer 1999
EDITORIAL
Although a
decade has passed since George Bush proclaimed the dawn of a New
World Order characterized by global US military and economic supremacy,
it is increasingly obvious that the leaders of the New World Order
understand less about its dangers and contradictions than do those
at its mercy. NATO's poorly executed attempt to prevent further
carnage in Kosovo indicates that those running the world have yet
to think through the sobering legal, moral and military implications
of emerging global political realities.(1)
A character
in Ingmar Bergman's film, "The Seventh Seal," sardonically described
medieval attempts to better the world through coercion by noting
that "only an idealist could have thought up the crusades!" So,
too, only idealists could have thought that an air war would decisively
halt ethnic cleansing. The US-orchestrated NATO operation in the
former Yugoslavia, though unique in many respects, had a precursor:
the US-UK air war in Iraq. Indeed, unauthorized military operations
never ceased in Iraq while cruise missiles pounded Serbian military
and civilian targets in an effort to degrade Slobodan Milosevic's
ability to commit further grave human rights abuses in the province
of Kosovo. This strategy may yet prove successful in the Balkans
(though it has failed miserably in Iraq), but not without seriously
degrading international law while also raising disturbing questions
about the use of aerial bombardments, depleted uranium weaponry
and cluster bombs to achieve humanitarian ends.
While some
critics wryly wonder when the US and NATO will turn their wrath
on Turkey for its treatment of the Kurds, or punish Israel for its
long-standing abuses of Palestinians' human rights, others are sobered
by the implications of a global political and economic order devoid
of a globally accepted legal code or moral compass. The New World
Order at times seems more medieval than modern, having dispensed
with consensual international mechanisms to regulate states' actions
in favor of encouraging vassal states to rally around a powerful
liege lord, whether in pursuit of new domains of influence or in
a modern crusade against evil.
In one of the
last commentaries he wrote, the late Eqbal Ahmad, long a contributing
editor of this magazine (see obituary on p. 9), noted that "for
ten years, the US discouraged a UN role in resolving the simmering
conflict in Kosovo. It had not wanted to water down NATO's monopoly
in Europe. For eight years it coddled a fascist hate-monger in Belgrade.
And now NATO engages in a clinical intervention that has done little
to relieve a nation under cruel assault. This is not worthy of applause…We
must oppose genocide and bemoan this half-hearted intervention to
stop it" (The Dawn, April 10, 1999).
In this issue
of Middle East Report we examine the trials and tribulations
of those who understand the deficiencies and pitfalls of the New
World Order much better than do its architects and advance men.
Labor migrants have a keen comprehension of the limitations of international
laws meant to protect workers' rights, the degradations of poverty
and the erosion of social safety nets at home and abroad. They are
seasoned experts at gauging the global socioeconomic and political
realities of the New World Order, but don't expect to see them pontificating
alongside five-star generals on CNN.
While assessing
the challenges and hardships labor migrants confront as they transit
into and out of the Middle East, this issue also draws attention
to the loose-knit network of human rights organizations in North
America, Europe, the Middle East and Asia working to improve the
lives of labor migrants in the short term through assistance and
in the long term through legislation. The emerging international
network of such principled organizations represents a clear moral
vision in a murky world.
(1)
For an early and incisive assessment of this conundrum, see Middle
East Report, No. 187/188 (1994), "Humanitarian Intervention
and North-South Politics in the 1990s."
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