After Osama bin Laden’s death – or, should I say: Controversially Incontrovertible Assassination – the US is our new best friend. Suddenly, we see things their way! And, we hope, they see things ours? Wonderfully infectious, it is, when previously alienated lovers of justice and peace realize that, at bottom, they have the same (vested) interests. Or, at the very least, the same biases, prejudices, and penchant for rationalizing.
So much so that a full-page advertisement taken out this week in a daily paper which mirrors public opinion treats Obama with such kid gloves as to make us seem like a sort of long-lost little brother. The considerate communicators of the ‘Free Mass Media Association’ (whoever they may be) were at pains to reassure the ‘Leader of the Free World’ (whatever that might mean) that they wouldn’t be asking him and his cohorts a series of questions that could be potentially embarrassing.
The ad in question was unequivocal in its desire to appease the American Chief Executive. Don’t worry, Mr. President, its architects appeared to be saying. We won’t ask you whether it was necessary to terminate Osama, rather than arresting or apprehending him. We won’t ask why summary justice in the form of a bullet was preferable to even a showcase trial. We won’t ask why it is acceptable for the people of the world’s sole superpower to celebrate the death of their Public Enemy No. 1, while it was clearly unacceptable for others to do the same…
You get the picture – although part of the problem (unlike in the case of, oh shall we say, a nameless island republic fighting its own terrorist war until recently) was that there were no pictures.
What the ad said, in effect, was that ‘we’ understand ‘your’ plight – and ‘we’ sympathize with ‘you’. There was also an undertone which caustically suggested that the boot was now well and truly on the other foot. And that we were enjoying seeing our erstwhile critics having to take some flak themselves; in an area where only yesterday, it seems, we were feeling the pressure of the global public’s scrutiny.
What the ad did not say was that the US of A should learn to mind its own business and not poke its nose in other sovereign nations’ affairs – despite, or perhaps because of, its aspirations to empire. Also that should America’s burgeoning internationalist role force its hand into concerning itself with peace and justice and security issues in parts of the world where its writ does not ostensibly run, it should have the courtesy to practise what it preaches in terms of accountability, good governance, peace with justice, and all that jazz…
Point is that one nation’s unholy terrorist is another nascent power bloc’s holy warrior. One superpower’s unavoidable collateral damage is another banana republic’s brutal neglect of civilians in the theatre of war. One administration’s empty call to respect another state’s sovereignty is another government’s hollow promises to protect its own people.
Pity, then, that the Mass Association of Free Mediators (or whatever the placers of the full-page ad call themselves) did not take the high ground on the issue. Here was an opportunity to expose the most powerful country in the present world order for its hypocrisy, double standards, and blatant disregard for international law. But rather than take the US to task, ‘we’ seem to have chosen the path of least resistance. To say if the US did it and it was deemed right by them, then what we once did or were alleged to have done is not only all right by us – but should be all right by them also…
Such a course, that of speaking truth to power, is not the most popular exercise. Not with the US; nor for us, either. Simply because empires – that is, power systems which operate on loose values such as “we know best”, “might is right”, and “those who are not for us are against us” – have a rather disarming way of taking umbrage at those who critique them on matters of principle.
Such empires span the gamut from military-industrial complexes through socioeconomic powerhouses to petty dictatorships with an eye on prime time tyranny. Simple souls who speak the truth to such powers that be on a worldwide political scale are generally in for a rude shock under the present dispensation. Which can be rather disconcerting. Which is why you and I will probably not see a full-page ad being taken out anytime soon asking that the US, us, and anybody else who has not done right might be brought to account. |
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