abstraction from the mechanisms of political will or of solidarity, a set of criteria
that reflects ideals derived from assertions. In the “The Politics of Rescue”, Walzer
sets this out in a way that usefully complements the account given in Thick and
Thin.
Despite all that I have said so far, I don’t mean to abandon the principle of
non-intervention – only to honor its exceptions. One reads the newspaper
these days shaking. The vast numbers of murdered people; the men,
women, and children dying of disease and famine wilfully caused or easily
preventable; the masses of desperate refugees – none of these are served
by reciting high-minded principles. Yes, the norm is not to intervene in other
people’s countries; the norm is self-determination. But not for these people,
the victims of tyranny, ideological zeal, ethnic hatred, who are nor
determining anything for themselves, who urgently need help from outside.
And it isn’t enough to wait until the tyrants, the zealots, and the bigots have
done their filthy work and then rush food and medicine to the ragged
survivors. Whenever the filthy work can be stopped, it should be stopped.
And if not by us, the supposedly decent people of this world, then by
whom?^83So far we have established that Walzer’s internationalism and his account of moral
minimalism are amenable to the dynamics of the humanitarian impulse. But we
have also only given an account of a very particular and controversial aspect of
humanitarianism, namely humanitarian intervention. Indeed, this thesis has
critiqued the manner in which international political theorists like Walzer only deal
with humanitarianism explicitly when discussing that issue. So can we find, building
out from the account of Walzer’s internationalist moral minimalism, the basis for a
much broader reading of humanitarianism, and as a consequence, humanitarian
internationalism?
The excerpts from Thick and Thin gloss over what is clearly a very important
and fertile area of Walzer’s internationalism, the space revealed by allusion to the
“moral support of outsiders” in defence of “Truth”, “Justice,” and, presumably,
“Life” and “Liberty” as well. Walzer cautions that we should avoid “missionizing
83
Walzer, "The Politics of Rescue": 65-66.