The pitiful victims of Nigeria’s civil war are the latest in a long line, preceded by such as Palestine, Algeria, Korea, Vietnam . . .
One estimate is that about one million children alone will die each month in Biafra unless they are evacuated or given proper food and medical attention.
The civil war has roused compassion all over the world and to many people, concerned at the death and suffering, the situation is full of perplexing questions.
Why won’t the Nigerian Federal government, as an act of simple humanity, allow food and medical supplies into the surrounded and shrinking Ibo land?
Why does the Labour government, which assured us that moral grounds caused them to prevent the sale of arms to South Africa, not take a similar stand over Nigeria, and stop sending weapons to the Federal forces?
Why can’t both sides simply call off the war?
These questions, and many others, are valid enough, except that they all assume capitalist states are guided by concern for human welfare.
When we realise that this is not so— that capitalist governments act as the property interests of their ruling class demand—the questions are not so perplexing.
The civil war in Nigeria, for example, is partly a struggle to flatten the tribal structure which was a part of the old society and to replace it with a national unity which is so essential for a modern developing capitalist state.
This is a ruthless struggle. Everyone is in the firing line; the Nigerian government are deliberately starving children because such tactics are an accepted and necessary part of modern war. The British government, for example, did it in both world wars.
It is futile, then, to wring our hands over Biafra. War is an inescapable part of capitalism and it cannot be removed by charity, no matter how sincere. The killing will not stop and Biafra will not be the last great tragedy.
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