Winds of change in global politics
THE world is watching with great interest, and a degree of amazement, the presidential primaries now being fought by the contenders for party nomination of the Republicans and Democrats. The procedure being followed is complex, and the money (in millions of dollars) and energy spent would certainly satisfy many political scientists, for example German Jorgen Habermas, who says "the state's raison d'être does not lie primarily in the protection of equal individual rights but in the guarantee of an inclusive process of opinion-and-will formation in which free and equal citizens reach an understanding on which goals and norms lie in equal interest of all."
Barack Obama harping on his theme for change continues to win the African-American votes, and Hillary Clinton, stressing on her White House experience, the votes of the Latinos and mostly of whites. The Clinton magic with the poor has now been transferred from Bill Clinton to his wife Hillary.
This love for the "first black President of the US" Bill Clinton, as he was dubbed by some, has divided the African-American votes between Hillary and Obama. Yet, Barack Obama's steamroller victories in Louisiana, Nebraska, Washington, and Virgin Islands (two thirds in Washington State and Nebraska and almost 90% in Virgin Islands), and in Maine, is credited to a wave of African-American support for his candidacy.
On the Republican side, Mike Huckabee's win in the Southern states like Arkansas, Alabama etc. is because of the support received from deeply religious people (Huckabee is credited with favouring amendment of the First Amendment to the US Constitution regarding "respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free expression thereof" to accommodate the teachings of the Bible) and from the many who are not convinced of John McCain's credentials as a "true conservative."
Religion plays a great role in the US elections, as the world saw in 2004, where Evangelical and Pentecostal votes along with rural Christian support awarded Bush the White House for the second time.
Just imagine John McCain, to prove his conservative credentials, chooses Huckabee, who was governor of Arkansas for a decade, as his running mate. The governors of US states do not formulate foreign policy, but the vice-president has a formidable role unless he is sidetracked by the president, as had happened several times in US history. Presidents like George W Bush, tend to keep company of the likes of Dick Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz, and Donald Rumsfeld, and draw inspiration from the likes of Irving Kristol.
The Doctrine of Preemption is regarded as a matter of divine right, and the International Criminal Court and the Kyoto Protocol should be subservient to US domestic laws regardless of the size of the hole in the ozone layer through emission of carbon dioxide gas into the atmosphere.
The Democrats, on the other hand, throw up Jack Kennedy and Bill Clinton and FDR, who did more good to the world than most others. Fortunately for the world, when racism was running riot in the US and Dr. Martin Luther king Jr. was fighting for the rights of the black population in the US, the Universal Races Congress held in London in 1911 promoted "mono-genism" -- the idea that there was only one species of man living in the world today -- and the 1951 Unesco Statement of the Nature of Race and Racial Differences pointed out that race, even from a strict biological standpoint, could at most refer to groups with certain distinctive gene concentrations and mental characteristics, and should never be included in racial classifications. Development of intellect was more due to upbringing and environmental factors than inherited genes.
Except for the bigots, people throughout the world rejected segregation, a concept that had gone with the wind in South Africa, Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) and some states in the US deep south because, with only 13% African-American population, Barack Obama could not have achieved what he already has.
Being only 46 years old (McCain is 71 and Hillary is 60), perhaps Obama can connect with the American youth more readily than the other contenders can. Both Clinton and Obama have a long way to go before one has the support of 2025 delegates to clinch the nomination, as opposed to McCain who is more or less certain to get the Republican Party's nomination.
This US presidential election is momentous because the Americans, for the first time, will have to decide whether they would like a woman or an African-American to be the commander-in-chief of the armed forces and the president of the country. Samuel Huntington, in his famous essay Clash of Civilisations, dwelling upon the identity of civilizations, mentioned Western, Japanese, Confucian, Chinese, Islamic, Hindu, Slavic-Orthodox, Latin American and African civilizations. Should Barack Obama be elected president, his political identity will be that of an American, but will his cultural identity be American? If that be so, then why do the blacks prefer to call themselves African-American and trace their roots from Africa? Why cannot they call themselves Americans, and why does the census identify people as being of Asian, Latin, Chinese or Japanese origin?
In the ultimate analysis, the two most divisive factors in human interactions are politics and religion. Politicians, to get elected, appeal to tribal, regional, or religious affinity with the electorate for short-term expediency at the cost of igniting latent pride and prejudice among people, sometimes stoking irredentist tendency. In the case of religion, the conclusion reached was that the Thirty Years War and the Treaty of Westphalia "was not the last of the great wars of religion" as thought by historian Webster, as the world is now being reminded on a daily basis as civilians are being killed and maimed in the name of religion.
One wonders whether the present global turbulence could have been avoided had there not been a tectonic shift, described by Madeline Albright, in the US foreign and defense policy when administration changed hands from Bill Clinton to George W Bush, and had Bush's response to 9/11 been in accordance with the principle of proportionality as suggested by Professor Michael Walzer in Just and Unjust War.
While no US president can compromise on the question of security of the Americans, and John McCain has been quite explicit in his support for the "surge" of US soldiers in Iraq (he could hardly be expected to be critical of a sitting Republican president who by the way has endorsed McCain as a true conservative), many people including Americans and Europeans have started asking questions as to whether President Bush's strident policy of going it alone has made the world safer for them and their children.
Bangladesh and other developing nations tied to Western prosperity for their survival and future development have to keep close watch on the way global politics is evolving.
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