Contemporary Dynamics of Global Insecurity: The Case of National Self-deceit
Professional students of international relations have generally pointed to why there has not been any World War since the end of the last one in 1945. One main reason often given is that the nature of conflict has changed from being inter-state to intra-state. The rationale for this change has been traced particularly to the end of the Cold War in which the then two major superpowers (United States and the Soviet Union) and their allies were involved which led to the dismantlement of the Soviet Union and which prompted a post- Cold War era of civil wars
By so doing, the big powers managed to put their differences at bay. Besides, the end of the Cold War was presented as putting an end to the proxy wars and the use of foreign countries, especially in Africa, as battle grounds. The immediate deductive implication of this, however, is that the big powers were actually responsible for the then global insecurity, from 1945 to1989, even though various reasons, ranging from bad governance, corruption, political dictatorship to economic poverty, ethnic chauvinism and marginalisation were also adduced.
In contemporary times, one major dynamics of global insecurity is national self-deceit which is hardly talked about but which, indeed, is a major rationale for political unrest, self-determination struggle and loss of interest in patriotism. National governance, like global governance is largely predicated on self-deceit. For instance, on the evening of Thursday, 9th February, 2017 (Nigerian time) there was a report on the sale of Venezuelan passports to people allegedly linked to terrorists. The Venezuelan whistleblower, Misael López, who is a Venezuelan by nationality and working in the Embassy of Venezuela in Bagdad, Iraq before he was relieved of his position, has consistently been complaining about the sale of valid Venezuela passports. His complaints have not been listened to and have therefore been to no avail.
On listening to the details of the report, what came to my mind was how the General Ike Omar Nwachukwu-led Governing Council of the Nigerian Institute of International Affairs (NIIA) managed the affairs of the NIIA, how it completely destroyed the goodness with which the Institute had been known and associated over the years, how it particularly covered up acts of serious indiscipline by staff brought to its attention by the Director General of the institution, and how it bastardised professorship in Nigeria, and more disturbingly, how it can distort facts without fear of God.
The CNN report also reminded of the role of the Supervisory Authority, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which not only set aside the report of a panel of inquiry in which a representative of the same Ministry, the Public Service Commission, Head of Service, etc, participated. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs never shown interest in the report. The interest of the Supervisor was to promote untruth by taking reports of the Ike Nwachukwu-led Council as truth without finding out about the other side of the story.
Put differently, governance in Nigeria is largely that of untruth. Nigeria is a country where truth and peace does not inform national development simply because the political system is against honesty, it is against patriotism, it is against hard work. It is against merit. If the Muhammadu Buhari administration can have the luxury of receiving petitions and take decisions on the basis of the petitions without bothering to ask any questions from the person against whom the petitions are written, why should anyone expect to have peace? Can there be any enduring foundation for national development, good neighbourliness, commitment to national unity? In fact, how do you establish the truth with one version of ‘truth’??
There is no truth in the governance of Nigeria and that is why Nigeria’s problem is complex and that is also why all those world leaders purporting to be seeking global peace must be dreaming. They want to fight international terror but they also consciously aid and abet it. They want global peace but they also intensify the manufacture of more sophisticated weapons. The sophistication of their weapons has even become a new threat to their own survival. And true enough, President Donald Trump has become a political saga, a phenomenon that raises critical challenges to global peace and security, especially in the area of cyber warfare, nuclear war and international terrorism.
The sale of Venezuela passports with valid visa is not only a good pointer to impending and deepened challenges in the containment efforts of global terror in the near future. The sale also illustrates why and how global peace cannot but be far-fetched. Like the Government does not appear to be interested in fairness and justice at the ordinary level of the honest people of Nigeria, the Venezuelan government has also not shown much interest in the allegations against it that its embassy in Bagdad is no longer a normal diplomatic mission but one that has actually become a centre for activities incompatible with the diplomatic status of the mission.
Put differently, if the Embassy of Venezuela is accused of selling its national passports, with the public insinuation that they are consciously being sold to terrorists directly or indirectly, why is the Government of Venezuela unable to disabuse the mind of the international community? Why is it silent over it since the past two years? If it is true that Venezuelan passports are put on sale, probably to raise funds for the mission, is Venezuela not a terrorist state because many countries do sponsor terrorism in international relations?
When governments engage in the use of terror, it is hardly talked about and it is hardly taken as a criminal offence. It is only when such governments are perceived to be weak or when individuals are involved that the use of terror is seriously taken as an offence or crime. The sale of passports directly or indirectly to terrorists is very criminally. It is a direct threat to the maintenance of global peace and security. It ought to be internationally investigated because of its implications for global security.
The Sale of Venezuela Passports
The whistleblower, Israel López, is a lawyer and citizen of Venezuela. He worked as a legal adviser to the Embassy of Venezuela in Iraq from July 2013 to July 2015, but for acting as a whistleblower, he was dismissed in September 2015 for revealing ‘reserved, confidential or secret matters’ to which he had lawful access.
As reported, in November 2015, Israel López posted a video to YouTube and showed how other Embassy officials wanted him to participate in the commercialisation of the Venezuelan identification documents, and particularly in the sale of authentic Venezuelan passports with valid visas to the highest bidders in the Middle East.
As Israel López put it, he has ‘made public how, under the complacent eye of diplomats in the mission (in Baghdad) local employees delivered visas, passports, birth certificates, and other types of Venezuelan documentation to citizens of Syria, Iraq, Palestine, and in some cases, Pakistan.’ More important, Israel López said, ‘in many cases, they were tied to terrorist groups, most of the Shiites variety,’ and that the average price of any of such documents is US $15,000=.
In between 2008 and 2013, 173 Middle Eastern nationals acquired the controversial passports. What is important to note about the Venezuelan passport is that it can be used to travel to more than 130 countries without visa. this, undoubtedly, cannot but be a resultant of bilateral agreements that might have been done with several countries.
What is again noteworthy is that the Government of Venezuela has denied the allegations, thus raising the question as to who really is telling the truth. Let us imagine a scenario in which a Government sets up a panel of inquiry to look at allegations or petitions, and the panel makes enquiries at the level of the petitioners but failed to make any inquiry at the level of the accused, and yet the Government is presenting itself as an apostle of fair hearing and justice. In this regard, who will believe the apostle? What do you expect would be the reaction of the accused and the general public?
Israel López claimed that he drew the attention of the then Ambassador of Venezuela to Iraq, His Excellency, Mr. Jonathan Velasco, to the issue but nothing was done. Israel López has therefore been consistently drawing international public attention to his allegations but the Venezuelan authority is not seriously and much concerned about them. This attitude is an expression of self-deceit as international opinion can only be increasingly strengthened in its belief that Venezuela has been aiding and abetting the use of terror in international life with its attitude. This is why academic objectivity of purpose, patriotism, and peace cannot but be difficult to come by as clearly revealed in the case of the Nigerian Institute of International Affairs and particularly as regards Venezuela.
The case of the sale of the Venezuelan passports is more about an intra-diplomatic saga in which a citizen disagrees with its government on the issuance of their national passports and other identification documents to terrorists. Israel López alleges but his government denies, so there are elements of doubts. If a government wants to engage in an activity against which citizens take a stand, what should be done? Government has sacked the whistleblower but the whistleblower has not stopped his whistle blowing.
As noted by the CNN editor, ‘a joint investigation by CNN and CNN en Espagñol uncovered serious irregularities in the issuing of Venezuela passports and visas. The investigation involved reviewing thousands of documents, conducting interviews in the United States, Spain, Venezuela and the United Kingdom, as well as tracking down various officials from Venezuela.’
From the perspective of the CNN, the thesis of Israel López appears to be valid. If this is so, why is the Government of Venezuela denying? What does the denial really mean for the maintenance of international peace and security? What is the place of untruth in the general conduct and management of international relations? And perhaps more disturbingly, is the engagement in untruth not an expression of self-deceit and indignity? How far can self-deceit go to promote trust on the part of another stakeholder with who one may be seeking to relate?
In other words, what can be the main rationale for selling passports beyond hypothesising the intention to aid and abet terrorism? There is no disputing the fact that a passport is not simply an instrument of identification, its possession also confers some privileges and rights, such as preferential treatments at the airports. Apassport is used to control immigration, and particularly to prevent personae non grata from entering a country or to facilitate the entry of visiting friends of the country.
For instance, President Donald Trump placed a ban on holders of passports issued by some countries (Iran, Iraq, Sudan, Somalia, Yemen, etc) in an attempt to prevent them from entering the United States. If any citizen of the foregoing countries presents himself or herself at any of the ports of entry into the United States, but with a valid Venezuelan passport and with a valid visa, how will the American immigration authorities know that the visitor is not a Venezuelan, especially that he is not only holding a Venezuelan passport but especially that Venezuela is not among the countries banned by Donald Trump? If the holder of the passport has a terrorist inclination and is allowed into the United States on the consideration of his possession of a Venezuelan passport, how will the objective of the anti-terrorist war or struggle or policy be achieved and meaningful in this case?
National Self-deceit and Global Insecurity
As shown above, there can be no disputing the fact that selfdeceit is a major dynamic of insecurity. The Americans are yet to accept that they made a fundamental error in electing Mr. Donald Trump as the 45th US president. With his election, rather than tow the path of making America great again, the great people of America are gradually treading the path of decline. Global hostility vis-a-vis the United States has sharply increased following the election of Donald Trump. Thousands of people in the United Kingdom have been protesting against Donald Trump’s state visit to the UK later in the year. His Executive Orders aimed at Making America Great Again have been challenged in the law court and have been suspended. Without doubt, the foregoing are manifestations of self-deceit that do not allow world leaders to see clearly the myopic character of their thinking in a world of globalisation.
(See concluding part on www.thisdaylive.com)
For as long as untruth is allowed to be the foundation of political governance in Nigeria, for as long as people who are not leaders are allowed to frolic around and purport to be leaders, for as long as carpenters are called wood engineers, or call people professors but without having actually professed, or asking carpenters to determine the fate of surgeons or simply appointing someone a Field Marshall when he or she has never fought in any war, this cannot but be an expression of self-deceit in all ramifications