One of the strangest – and maddest – things that I have learnt since I re-engaged with the arguments of the British left – via the blogosphere – is that people think that there is actually a political ‘line’ on the issue of humanitarian intervention – in which you are either ‘for’ it or ‘against’ it on principle.

I remember a couple of years ago debating with a New Labourite from the Foreign Policy Centre at a conference who said that he was ‘for’ intervention in Darfur, but did not seem to have any clue about what the current situation there was (peace talks were due to begin the next day). I have had the same experience trying to discuss with people who call for a ‘reform of international law’, but don’t seem to have any notion whatsoever about what the legal norms governing interventions actually are.

I suppose if you abstract a discussion entirely from the real world and say that irrespective of whether an intervention is going to make things better or worse for the people concerned; irrespective of whether such an intervention would be lawful or unlawful; and irrespective of whether it is a practical possibility or not – the fundamental issue of political principle is whether you are for it or against it, then it is not surprising that you are going to get confused when the subject is discussed. Welcome to the wonderful world of Nick Cohen.

There’s no need to register, or even feel shame about not knowing the detail of Sri Lanka – at least you have read and engaged. I know llittle about Sri Lanka, but even less about the Muslim/Han kilings in China (previous LibCon post), but I try just ti accept that I can’t know what’s going on everywhere.

I think the important issue is about how, as a ‘blogospheric community’, we try to engage productively, beyond either ignoring or avoiding, posts like Conor’s, who does not assume prior knowledge or make judgments about us for not knowing what he knows.

I don’t know the answer, but i think some of it entails trusting, for example, Sunny as editor to bring forward reliable but innovative accounts not covered by the mainstream, and react on that basis in the way that is now common to the domestically-oriented blogosphere – promulgation/ethical plagiarism and, when critcal bloginteraction is reached, relevant internet-based action (on the odd occasion this brings foeward non-internet action).

This is in fact what Harry’s Place seems to be quite well already. I’d argue that some of its causes are wrong, and that it is a little too commentariat/not investigatory/new info enough (as with Conor’s post), but the process in one that can be adapted and built upon.

@7 – it’s difficullt to know what to say.  Most people, including me, know far more about Potter than Sri Lanka I’m ashamed to say.
Though I am a bit confused. I thought Conor approved of “non-interference”?

I’m not sure attributing blame to the LTTE (as a couple of the comments above have done), and nor do I think it worthwhile here going over the legitimacy of the grievances of the Tamil community of Sri Lanka which brought about the formation of the LTTE, because a) it doesn’t excuse the LTTE b) things have changed so much now that the war is won.

Looking around for comparisons about how things might pan out now (or at least will if there is no effective intervention), I think the best one may be the Bihari community in Bangladesh. This is the Urdu-spealing minority which was ‘found’ to have sided with Pakistan in the struggle for independece in 1971 (when East Pakistan became Bangladesh).

As in Sri Lanka, there was a clear and decisive victory (actually by the Indian army, which withdrew rapidly), and the Bihar community was effectively at the mercy of the victors. Nearly 40 years later, almost all of them live in isolation from the rest of the population in the shanty towns into which they were first forced (though at first sight, the areas don’t look too different from your average Bangladesh shanty town) and institutional discrimination against them in terms of employment, education etc has become so deeply embedded that hardly anyone outside really notices.

It seems to me, from afar, that exactly the same kind of thing could happen now in the north of Sri Lanka (though of course discrimination was a cause of the war in the first place), and that early intervention to persuade the Sri Lankan government (and resource it) that this is not the best way forward is needed.

I don’t know what the diplomatic answers are, though I do believe things like sporting sanctions can work (in Sri Lanka’s case it would be cricket, but it may be that some kind of south Asian regional plan is needed to move things forward, so that Sri Lanka is not singled out for its record towards its subjugated minority, when pretty well all the rest of the countries in the region have similar issues (India with its ‘tribal’ communities around both Orissa and the far North East states, Bangladesh with its Bihari (and Chittagong Hill tribes) and of course perhapsm more intractably Burma with its murderous intentions and actions towards the Rohingya.

But thanks, conor, for keeping this stuff highlighted. This is the sixth comment, I think. The literary criticism of Harry Potter on the same day got 60 odd – perhaps that’s worth a post from Sunny in itself).

If this brutal repression continues, then there will be a new resistance movement springing up. Either that or these people will be murdered slowly, wiped from the face of the planet because we bought the lie that the Sri Lankan government was justified in what it did because it was fighting terrorists. Where have we heard that one before?

I wonder if people will be changing their Twitter statuses or icons, or tweeting about this. Or about the Uighurs being butchered on the streets in Xinjiang. Again, I’m not saying that they should not care about what happens to Iran because they’re ignoring much worse things going on elsewhere, but surely we’ve got our priorities wrong?

I am ashamed that friends of mine are devoting so much internet space on their Facebook profiles to f****ing Michael Jackson. He made some great music but he was a paedo and a plastic freak who clearly hated himself for being black so much, that he died a white woman and bought three white kids.