The Nation Newspaper

Category: Brian Browne

  • Senseless about Syria

    Senseless about Syria

    Blind to consequence, the aggressor thrusts into war, unaware that he approaches the gates of hell.

     

    Once extinguished, life becomes utterly irretrievable in the normal course of events. Thus, lethal warfare is a most somber matter; yet, too often, it is the province of the arrogant and foolish who from haughtiness or incapacity cannot properly gauge the attendant danger. War entices cowardly and diffident leaders into convincing themselves they must war to disguise the character flaws that trouble them. Into one or more of these categories fall the leaders of the three western nations – America, England and France – so bent on bombing Syria for alleged use of chemical weapons.

    This Western trio for years has itched to sign the death warrants of the Assad regime. They no longer have to tolerate that itch. With the weapons allegation, they now rush to scratch from existence this government they long have detested.

    Zealots of neo-conservative geopolitics in Western capitals have plotted to topple the houses of Hussein (Iraq), Gaddafi (Libya) and Assad (Syria). Toss in those unruly Iranian Shi’as as the ultimate objective. Already two targets have fallen to western intervention based on claims that later proved worse than false; they were fraudulent. Hussein’s Iraq was engulfed by massive war to rid that nation of weapons that did not exist. Its people still feel the bite of war and pinch of scarcity that war produces. The nation stands one major incident away from fully-outfitted civil war.

    The West intervened in Libya, allegedly compelled by the humanitarian principle of a responsibility to protect innocent civilians from their despot. The claim rang hollow when made. In hindsight, it was purely counterfeit.

    Western assertions that Gaddafi threatened to massacre Benghazi were fabricated pretexts to kill his regime and the man himself. The man never made the murderous exclamation. The lie justifies the vigorous bombing campaign that ensued, establishing a rather curious foreign policy tenet. The West will eagerly bomb a people to protect them from the violence of their government. The outcome of this distorted logic is to heap more pain and suffering on those who already have sampled the sour chalice. Under Gaddafi, Libyans had little freedom. They did have a semblance of social order and economy activity. Today, they have not gained freedom but have forfeited social order and economic activity as well. Western intervention has been a sad bargain for them. Theirs is now a land where political violence and economic depression are the daily fare. The West has abandoned the nation to its fractious aspects. Curiously, the responsibility to protect civilians that so provoked Western nations to chase Gaddafi into is grave seems not to endure with a sufficiency to establish a peace worthy of its name. The West used this rationale to unseat the enemy. Once the enemy is vanquished, the West blinds itself to the people’s suffering. In truth, the West cares little that civilians may perish. Its interest concerns in who kills them. If the killer is a foe, the West deems the action inhumane. If committed by an ally, the killing is considered the inescapable collateral damage of governance in a dangerous neighborhood. Why this curious and strange inconsistency?

    The answer is simple. The ability to kill means the actor has eminent dominion over the subject people and place. The West seeks not to end killing but to rob its enemies of their lethal dominion in hopes of bestowing this power in a particular nation to those who would do the West’s bidding. Instead of being a new tool promoting justice and humanitarian mercy, the principle of a responsibility to protect civilians has become a caliginous device undermining the doctrine of noninterference in the domestic affairs of other nations. The powerful now use this new doctrine to encroach against nations that offend them. They speak in the tongue of angels but the motives behind their deeds are as sullen as the excesses of a bygone era.

    If Assad should drown in the swell of civil war, Western arch-conservatives will rejoice. They will be three-quarters of the way to their dream of a politically conservative, economically pliant Middle East. Oil stocks and global shipping lanes will be secure for the near future. Israel will be also rid of an enemy. With Assad gone, only Iran remains as an obstacle. Already the rationale to crumple Iran – the nuclear specter – has been established.

    This neo-conservative dream refuses to die although it is so and outdated that it disserves America’s imperial interests. Still, this vision influences Western foreign policy. Thus, part of America’s foreign policy establishment will ally with known terrorists such as al Qaeda and its cousin, al Nusra, although these groups have been more actively opposed to America than Gaddafi’s Libya or Assad’s Syria. Staunch neo-conservatives are so fixated on their old designs that they don’t truly understand how much the world has changed. In a bid to oust these established regimes, the hard-line neo-conservatives are willing give the more radical anti-western groups a chance to seize power in these strategic nations. Not only are the neo-cons blood hungry, their incarnadine lust cripples their capacity to think logically, endangering their interests as they rush headlong toward war.

    Less rabid neo-conservatives realize the danger of abetting al-Qaeda and its franchisees. President Obama, that avowed fan of the President Bush, camps with this more straight-laced conservative group. He wants Assad subdued but is wary of handing the keys to the palace Syria to extremists as he has been done in Libya.

    The melding of staunch and cautious neo-conservative thought has produced a most cynical policy. America does not seek the quick departure of Assad, fearing that radical elements will most profit from the void created. Thus, a policy has been fashioned to keep Syria in perpetual war, where neither side is strong enough to win nor so weak as to fold. Aside from the gold star of replacing Assad with a compliant American lackey, this “plan B” best protects Washington’s interests. Far from freeing the Syrian people from violence, American policy aims to make violence a way of life in Syria as it has become in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Somalia and the Congo.

    Statements of western leaders have been illuminating. Try as they can to peal the bell of humanitarian concern, their words reveal the ugliness inside hidden. British Foreign Secretary Hague proclaimed self-righteously that the world act because this was the first instance of chemical weapons use in the 21st century. Hague must do better at reading the newspaper and spend less time mesmerized by his own harangue. This is not even the first chemical attack of the year. There was an earlier attack in which dozens were killed. At that time, the West hoisted their arms in protest until the UN inspector concluded the opposition had deployed lethal sarin gas. The West quickly discounted this outrage, pressing the international media not to report it. American and its sidekicks were not truly interested in deterring the use of chemical weapons. They were more interested in finding a pretext to delve further into Syria to shift the balance of power.

    If genuinely upset about chemical weapons, Western nations already would have bombed themselves for committing this transgression. When white phosphorus and depleted uranium are used in certain ways during military operations, they are classified as weapons. Such use is prohibited under most reasonable interpretations of international conventions. Yet, America used them and napalm in Iraq. Israel, the nation that purported provided America the communication intercepts implicating the Syrian government in the latest incident, resorted to white phosphorus against Palestinians during the 2008-09 Gaza uprising. None in the West clamored to sanction, much less bomb, Tel Aviv. The thought of America delivering a military blow to Israel for using illegal weapons so transcends the imagination as to be laughable.

    Statements of American officials have been reprobate in their lack of clarity. Explaining the rush to war, President Obama maundered, “In a nation with the largest stockpile of chemical weapons, where they have been allied to known terrorist organizations in the past, where over time their control of chemical weapons may erode… these chemical weapons could be directed against us. We want to make sure this does not happen.” This statement is a potpourri of tortured reasoning. It will be recorded as one of Obama’s lesser, most naked moments when he bared the emptiness of his character. That he could make this statement only a day after his keynote address commemorating the 1963 March on Washington and Dr. King’s “Dream Speech” shows that Obama either lacks a memory or is a man with a most elastic moral composition. For him, right is not what you seek to find; it is merely what you say it to be.

    According to Obama’s logic, Assad needs to be bombed because he is losing control over chemical stockpiles. This loss of control may soon allow terrorists to acquire use the weapons against America. This generates a few questions. If Assad has lost control over the weapons, why is America so adamant Assad directed this particular strike? If terrorists can imminently acquire these weapons and use them against America, doesn’t that mean they also have the ability to use them in Syria where the weapons are based?

    On one hand, America alleges the opposition did not have the ability to launch this attack. On the other hand, America alleges segments of the opposition have the ability to use these weapons against America. Both statements cannot be true.

    Bombing Assad, will secure the chemical stockpiles. Bombing will further loosen his hold, rendering the stockpiles more vulnerable to plunder by radicals. Bombing Assad enhances the possibility of al Qaeda acquiring the weapons. In other words, American action will turn these fears into a self-fulfilling prophecy. This, in turn, will allow the American military corporate condominium to further frighten the American public by claiming terrorists now hold lethal chemical weapons. This will be used as a rationale to increase security and police state tactics in America. Just wanting to be kept safe, the public will cower, dropping its inchoate concerns about internal surveillance and eavesdropping. The military/security machinery will further invade and erode American democracy, stone by stone, civil liberty by civil liberty. The American public will be as much a victim, albeit indirectly, of the bombing as the Syrian people.

    While America rushes headlong into the bog, England temporarily rescued itself with a touch of sanity. PM Cameron wanted to join President Obama in this martial recreation. In a stark rebuke to the rashness of their leader, Parliament ruined Cameron’s war designs. The rebellion in parliament against Cameron’s warmongering shows that democracy still works on occasion. The true heroes were those parliamentarians of his Tory party who placed national interests above party loyalty. English people are tired of war. After Iraq, they are wary of being dragged into a fray based on dubious, hastily drawn conclusions.

    Hoping to go into war with his junior partner Cameron, like the fictional heroes Batman and Robin, Obama is left to go it solo like the mythical cowboy hero, the Lone Ranger. Sure, the French want into the fray but that is a puny consolation prize. The French have a big appetite but hold a rather small cup and saucer. They can collar and bully weak African nations but Paris is no longer a genuine world power. The Gallic bull is but an old, flabby cow.

    One feels some sympathy for Obama. Judging by his unintelligent stammering, his heart is not in this. But the weight of the military and political apparatus pushes him toward war. He is too weak to resist although the claim against Assad smells dubious. That Assad would launch attacks likely to invite a Western response when he was clearly winning the war makes little sense. Assad was eager to attend peace talks in Geneva where negotiations would memorialize his military gains. Why would he risk all on a tactical outburst of no military consequence? That he would do this the very day weapons inspectors arrived on his invitation makes even less sense. Also, if America truly wanted to get to the truth of the matter, why did it apply high-level pressure to dissuade the UN from carrying out the inspection of the incident?

    While the international media has joined their financial sponsors in hastily concluding that Assad is the culprit, reasonable alternative theories must be investigated before a conclusion can be had on a matter freighted with such consequence. As President Obama implied, Assad may have lost control of portions of his stockpile in the miasma of war. Such weapons do not wonder the streets ownerless. Someone quickly assumes possession. Others may have gotten hold of them.

    Clearly losing the war, the opposition has much to gain by staging an attack then blaming Assad for the carnage. This would compel the West to increase their support and attack Assad, thus rescuing the opposition from impending defeat. Western clandestine agencies have been operating in the Syrian theatre for months. These agencies have the assets and guile to stage this operation while casting responsibility toward Assad. Moreover, these agencies also have motive to do this. Should their governments join the battle against Assad, the importance of these agencies will increase as will their funding.

    Assad is malign soul and he might well have commissioned this tragedy. However, his guilt is unlikely and thus far unproven. Even if he did this, American intervention will cause more harm than good. To engage in a policy that encourages perpetual war weakens America’s already dwindling legitimacy. To do so in the face of broad global opposition is to make a mockery of the international legal system America purports to champion.

    In retrospect, President Obama must rue the moment he said that use of chemical weapons in Syria would be a “red line.” Rarely has a leader placed himself, his nation and an entire region in such a predicament with the careless utterance of two words.

    I have no idea of the line’s true color but Obama certainly straddles a line separating caution from rashness and the arrogance of dumb power. It is tragic that the mighty are rarely wise. Much grief could be eliminated. By uttering this dangerous flippancy, Obama assured the world that chemical weapons would be used. Now he feels he must strike Syria or his credibility is at stake. This is silly.

    Credibility is not at stake. Vanity is. Obama has killed bin Laden, bombed Libya, Yemen and Pakistan and Afghanistan into smithereens. No one questions his love of bombing real and imaginary foes. To argue that he must act because he said he would act is to impose an adolescent form of reasoning on the world’s most elevated seat of national power. It is a request begging us to forgive the original folly (issuing the unwise threat) that we may also adopt the mad logic of fighting for the sole reason of not losing face. In any event, Obama should not worry of loss of face. His actions through all of this shows he has two faces. The man has, at least, one to spare. Better to lose face than lose the slim chance of peace.

    A minor tactical strike by America accomplished little. After the massive post-incident media and political buildup, a tactical incision would be worse than nothing. Arch conservatives would be biting at his heels and head to do more. He will comply as he always has. The logic of America’s illogical position requires that it strike repeatedly and with such force as to alter the balance of power which now heavily favors Assad. The more America invests itself in this melee, the more it must defeat Assad. The more it must defeat him, the more America must invest itself in war. This Nobel Peace Prize winning president has just purchased a pivotal seat in someone else’s war with the very words of his own mouth. Those who would rule the world should first control their tongues and the heady exuberance the muscle and might of high office often bring.

    08060340825 (sms only)

     

     

     

  • March on washington: One foot still in the air

    March on washington: One foot still in the air

    August 28 marks the fiftieth anniversary of the March on Washington where a 34 year old Black preacher stood before the Lincoln Memorial to deliver the most evocative address ever given in the capital of the world’s most powerful nation. On that day, Dr. Martin Luther King proclaimed his dream of a race-blind society. The excellent speech woke the conscience of those segments of the nation with consciences that could be awakened.

    Those five decades ago, many people dared to believe the audacious dream might come true. The truth is that it still inhabits the land of dreams. Reality is a vigilant sentinel of its dominion. Rarely does it allow the delicate or kind to enter. If Dr. King were alive today, he would encounter both the benefit and pain of hindsight. The great man might lay himself down to sleep that he might dream a bit more or he might propose to knock Reality’s door with more vigour such that the hard door would open a bit more widely to the dream he gave us.

    While King touched those who believed in freedom and dignity for all, there were also segments of the population that profited from the old, unjust way. These people defined freedom as their right to place others underfoot. For them, his speech stirred nothing but dyspepsia and revulsion.

    Prejudice does not yield easily. It neither vanishes nor retires upon encountering its solution, as we would hope. It fights back, reasserting its claim on society with a vigour renewed by the challenge to its dominant position. To fight prejudice is to arouse it anew and cause it to adapt afresh.

    The unfolding march of events since that late August day 50 years ago prove that injustice and prejudice don’t disappear. Unless buried, they simply reinvent themselves. They never tire of plotting their own continuance. In some ways, America has advanced since that day. A Black man lives in the White House. Yet, for all this development symbolises, the progressive political and economic ideas that inform the Black American experience remain foreign to mainstream discourse. The Black man in the White House attained his position by convincing enough Whites that he would safeguard the vested interests that produce the systemic inequality suffered by poor Black, Brown and even White people.

    Today, income inequality climbs to its highest level in a century as do poverty levels. The comparison of the household wealth between Black and White Americans is less favorable now than decades ago. America has the biggest prison population in world history. Most inmates are Black and Latino men booked on minor, nonviolent drug offenses. While most inmates are Black, Whites perpetrate most crimes. There is but one answer to the riddle of this discrepancy between the rates of crimes committed and those of incarceration: Racism.

    Black men get incarcerated in droves, effectively becoming a vast army of the disenfranchised. Once enveloped by the prison system, these men and boys become ineligible for government programs in education and housing. Meaningful employment is denied them. Most states prohibit them from voting. While America has a Black man in the White House, a prime objective of the political economy is literally to funnel millions of other Black men into the big house known as the penitentiary. Taking a strategic view of things is to conclude that a Black man has been selected to preside over the gross incarceration of the highest number of Black men placed in physical servitude since the age of slavery.

    For those Blacks fortunate enough to evade the shadow of prison, life presents other challenges. Black unemployment doubles the rate of White America’s. Worse, those Blacks with jobs are herded into positions that pay far less and offer less employment security and benefits. Living in the Black community is costlier although the quality of what is purchased is inferior. Blacks pay more for basics such as food. Stores hike their prices knowing full well that the people in Black communities are poorer than the national average. Home mortgages, transportation costs and insurance policies are dearer to the resident of a traditionally Black community. In other words, the system is engineered to isolate then impoverished those who have become its victims. The little they have shall be taken from them.

    When the multitudes gather on Wednesday to commemorate the March on Washington, they should do so with the somber countenance of people who have too longed supped a bittersweet diet. Since the first March, the nation has changed much but the reality of its racial disparity has changed little. Racism has adapted to the new developments in the political economy and racism has adapted faster than the quest to end racism much as a bacillus mutates faster than the medicine used to kill it.

    At the most profound level, 50 years have vanished but not a day has passed. Every year of advance has been matched by one of regression. The dream of Dr. King has neither been fulfilled nor extinguished. It floats in abeyance. The 1963 event made history; but the dream itself remains both history in the making and in the unmaking.

    The March on Washington came for two purposes. The quest for Black American civil rights has been the reason the entire world came to see as the sole rationale for the gathering. However, there was another, perhaps more important impetus: the quest for economic justice. Too many people of all stripes and colors struggled in poverty in the land of plenty. Although America had achieved a globally unprecedented level of economic activity and material accumulation, many of her citizens languished in all-too-familiar squalor. Economic growth did not beget economic justice. Left to itself, economic growth promotes inequality and greater injustice.

    Dr. King was acutely aware of this principle of economic advantage compounding itself until mutating into an unfairness that stifles a nation by impairing the welfare of its most vulnerable. That is why he shifted focus to dedicate himself to the quest for economic justice once the desired civil rights legislation was had. He recognised civil rights for the poor were an empty gesture if joined by nothing more practical; it is a large plate bearing no food. To have the right to do something but always lack the means to accomplish is to be effectively deprived of said right. It is an insult cloaked in the garment of imaginary favor.

    Dr. King was dissatisfied with American political economic power as exercised at home and abroad. While he talked in the tone of reform, he was a revolutionary in pursuit of radical goals. He sought to restructure American foreign and domestic policy from its roots. This made him the most dangerous man in America. For his pursuit of economic justice, he was killed. While limiting himself to the confines of civil rights, he was safe although reviled by many. When he came to critique the entire structure of power and its disbursement was when he met the assassin’s bullet. He hoped to cleanse this great edifice of power by moral force. Those who held guard over the mean edifice met his moral force with a hot-fired piece of lead.

    Dr. King realised the peril he walked. Not only did he get threats on a quotidian basis, the death of another man he once met served as a warning. A few years before King’s death, Malcolm X had executed a decisive pivot. Having shorn himself of the idiosyncratic worldview of the Black Muslims (Nation of Islam), Malcolm transformed himself from conservative Black nationalist into progressive humanitarian. This turn quickly cost him his life because it also made him a dangerous man.

    As long as he beat the lone drum of racism, the system tolerated him, in fact, it found him entertaining. He was like a one-armed man trying to accomplish a task that could only be done with two. As soon as he started the simultaneous sounding of racial injustice/harmony and economic justice, the authorities found him less amusing. In what many suspect to have been a joint operation between a clandestine arm of the federal government and the Black Muslim leadership, Malcolm was executed in broad day.

    While Martin and Malcolm were executed for embracing an economic progressivism transcending racial politics, Black conservative firebrand Louis Farrakhan has been left to enjoy a prosperous, tidy life. Despite all of his histrionics, he is merely an entertaining beverage when taken in moderation. He is not a helpful tonic much less the cure of our woes. He preaches a brand of economic separatism that allows him to prosper on the backs of an ever impoverishing Black mass. As such, he is as much invested in the racist political economic structure as the Ku Klux Klan leader in South Carolina or the Wall Street banker who believes Black people are poor because they are naturally indolent. Farrakhan shouts at the racists but his shouts do not threaten them for they know he is one of them. He is but their exaggerated image in blackface. Sadly, he is not alone.

    A vast majority of the popular Black television preachers play the same role, in subtler cast. Only a weekly basis, they tell millions of poor Blacks that their economic prosperity is but a personal miracle away. They just have to wait for God to touch their shoulder. With this in mind and heart, there is no need to organise as a movement.

    The God they preach is a fraction of the God I know. God did not pluck the Hebrews out of captivity one by one. He freed them by the multitude. God speaks in terms of the individual but also of peoples and nations. Black America has been suppressed for a period rivaling the Hebrew captivity. Instead of the people coming together in greater unity and cohesion to raise their collective voice to God for collective deliverance, too many now merely ask Him to show them the exit of individual escape.

    When Wednesday comes, the keynote speaker at the commemorative event will be President Obama. This selection is inevitable as he is the first Black president. Superficially, his electoral ascendance symbolises fulfillment of King’s dream. Superficially! Yet, the reality of his climb is of more ambivalent consequence. The President will utter words that float on air. Yet, the bulk of his policies are leaden weights falling on the necks of already struggling Americans. Symbolically, he is the only reasonable choice to give the address. If we are to weigh the substance of his governance, he should not be invited to the event, let alone speak there. He should sit in the White House as did all those elitist presidents before him.

    The event is organised by the King Center, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) and the National Council of Negro Women (NCNW), all venerable civil rights organizations. King was the president of the SCLC. That organization is as synonymous with him as is the King Center eponymous with him. The sad part of this is that time has passed by these organisations. Once at the forefront of history, these groups failed to evolve as Dr. King wanted. They now exist on the fumes of their pasts; this makes them barely relevant to the future. Once progressive, these groups are barely reformist and are mostly conservative. They see Wednesday’s gathering as a public invitation to an open-air museum. Because there is nothing radical or moving in these groups anymore, they do not see the event as a call to radical action or to resurrect a people’s movement in order to fulfill King’s dream.

    This is why they leap at identifying President Obama as the keynote speaker yet dare not also invite a speaker who will strongly critique government for the daily wrongs it heaps on the people.

    If King were alive, he would have asked the President Obama to participate. However, he also would be possessed of sufficient courage to tell the president that most of his policies bear a disturbing resemblance to those of his predecessor.

    A strident critic of the Vietnam War, King would oppose the killer drone campaign America has launched across the Middle East and parts of Africa. 9/11 would not have turned him into a reflexive warmonger. Himself a victim of government surveillance and dirty tricks, he would abhor the vast machinery government has erected to eavesdrop on all citizens, all the time. He would recognise it for what it is: not as an effective tool against terror but as a long, terrible step toward turning America into national security state where citizens become reticent to criticise their government out of fear of official backlash. Freedom and justice, not suppression, are the best weapons against terrorism.

    On the domestic front, he would abhor the massive bailout of Wall Street particularly as it was not matched with proportionate relief to the middle and working classes. He would campaign against presidential attempts to rupture the social safety net by clipping social security and other benefits.

    Here we come to decisive fork in the road. Black America was more united prior to the victory of the Civil Rights movement than before it. This is due to the class structure of Black America. The Black elite had basically imbibed the conservative economic ethos of the American political economy. This elite formed the leadership of the Civil Rights movement. Once civil rights were granted, their narrow personal interests were basically satisfied. They had the economic wherewithal to make use of the new rights. While still alive, Dr. King pushed them to be their better selves and seek the good of the entire community.

    As the years passed after his death, his voice faded from memory and this group fell back into their lesser selves. They left the rest of the Black community to its own impoverished devices. The elite only raise a hue and cry to stir the community when they fear overt racism might revive itself to the extent that their positions are threatened. However, they basically had stopped working to help the poor and downcast. They had become junior partners of the established order.

    I write this article not so much to inform readers about the intricacies of American racism but to expose you to the universality of racism’s reach. The very political and economic forces shaping American society and leading to Black America’s predicament are global in nature. What afflicts Black America also attacks Black Africa in similar fashion. Poverty, ignorance, unemployment abound. Disregard for the lives and quality of life of the Black African is as low as it is for the Black American. Too much of the African elite has made the same fateful, narrow-minded decision as their Black American counterparts. Instead of caring about the rest of the people, elites have jettisoned the masses. Being granted inferior status in the club of the global elite is sufficient for them. In exchange for this lesser membership in the elite, they have become the servitors of the conservative order. They seek not to change the order to benefit their people. They now seek to change their people to benefit the order.

    Dr. King wanted to see Black people in positions of leadership. He believed our unique experience with injustice could be used to make the world more just. He did not want to see Black leaders simply mimic the Whites who might have preceded them. Yet, this is what has happened. Sadly, the bulk of Black Americans and Black Africans have been left behind. Sadder still, each depressed community believes the negative myths the white world spreads about the other. You are related by blood and common experiences of repression. Yet you are ignorant of each other and estranged. You are alike yet are suspicious of each other. You despise the very person with whom you have mutual interests in helping each other.

    Until Black people begin to realise the immense depth, height and width of the barriers erected against them, we shall forever march in place. This is not Dr. King’s dream nor should it be our reality.

     

    08060340825 (sms only)

     

  • Egypt: From flame to fire

    Egypt: From flame to fire

    •Revolts are rarely won by those who start them

    THE land of the Nile has become a pool of blood. As things stand, only a miracle will prevent Egypt from descending to the very portal of civil insurrection and war.

    The tragedy now gripping Egypt is of immense portion. Two years ago, Egyptians of all stripes protested to rid themselves of a haughty, arrogant dictator who sought to turn his evil fortune into a perpetual family dynasty.

    Yet, a terrible omission was committed. Now, the county pays the dear costs of this error. In ridding themselves of the dictator, the people thought they were also ridding themselves of the dictatorship and the political culture upon which it was founded. They mistakenly thought the man was the institution. He might have personified the system but he was not the system. They tossed him and began to celebrate. The work was but half done. The dictator had been removed but the system upon which his arbitrary tenure was built remained intact.

    For all of their novel, internet-savvy political activism and old-fashioned street protests, the agents of civil society were either naïve about the intricacy of their political system or were exhausted from the exertion already made. They relaxed after merely achieving the removal of one man from office. To their current lament, they left unharmed his political structure and the aura of power that structure had acquired.

    In beginning this revolt, the secular political activists gave Egypt hope. In not being disciplined, visionary and sufficiently organized to bring the revolt to conclusion, they unwittingly placed the people in a harsh vise that now taxes and tolls them. Payment is being demand and is being demanded in lives and blood.

    It is a terrible disgrace not to combat injustice. Yet, it is almost as hapless to fight it incompletely. As such, Egypt serves as a fine lesson how to start a modern protest as well as a terse manual on how not to finish one. What began as a political awakening has quickly transformed into a national wake, a mournful dirge heard in all corners of the ancient nation.

    The architects of the Egyptian dawn are mostly invisible now. The manner in which they constructed a diffuse, loosely organized protest movement made it difficult for the authorities to contain the protests. But it also made it impossible for the organizers to transform this amorphous group into a political movement with positive, soundly-defined objectives. Because of this fault, the political ground was ceded to people and groups who had something other than democracy at heart.

    Put another way, there were three main groups in Egypt on the day of Mubarak’s exit from power. There was this inventive but disorganized assemblage of civil society and secular organizations. Then there was the military, the most organized and powerful governmental institution. The people erred, thinking Mubarak had made the military when it was the military that had made the strongman. Without the military, Mubarak was an infirmed old man. The military without Mubarak remained its powerful self. Third, there was the Muslim Brotherhood and its large universe of supporters.

    By virtue of its lack of political organization and funding, secular civil society disqualified itself from seriously competing for national leadership. Civil society proved adept at causing disruption such that Mubarak was troubled out of office. United about whom it did not want, civil society was incapable of forming a solid coalition around what and whom it wanted to fill the political vacuum civil society had authored.

    Battle for control of the nation boiled down to a contest between the military and the Muslim Brotherhood. The present crisis is a turf war between these two politically unimaginative, power-oriented rival groups that care little for the condition of the general population. Both groups seek for national power. Neither cares for democracy.

    From the beginning of the crisis, the military saw itself as the only truly national institution. Its generals also had too many significant political and economic interests to cede national leadership to any group uninitiated in their ways and inimical to their interests. Given its very nature, the military, in its most charitable disposition, was inherently hostile to democracy. However, after Mubarak’s ouster, the group decided to play coy, like a venomous snake pretending to slumber. Yet, at the right moment, it would strike.

    The dominant wing of the Muslim Brotherhood, symbolized by ousted President Morse, also cared too little for democracy. A conservative, pragmatic lot, they played the game of ballot and vote, understanding their established organizational spread and power gave them a distinct advantage in the early elections that had been scheduled. They exploited the advantage and won. Although rising to power through democracy, they were too willing to clip the very democracy that had just taken them to the place of power.

    Last November, President Morsi decreed a usurpation of legislative and judicial power. If taken literally, the decree made him a 21st century pharaoh. What further undid him was his conservative economics. If a leader is to quickly curtail the people’s newly-acquired freedom, at least give them cheap bread. To remove both is to call forth disaster. Morsi did this by imposing a dire economic austerity on the pained nation. Morsi ran into trouble not because of Islam or of brotherhood. His trouble was that his mindset led him to classical economic policies when progressive, at least Keynesian, policies were the only logical escape from calamity. As such, he became more the brother of conservative western economists than of the average Egyptian. Again, there was no innate problem with the Brotherhood as a political force. Islam, as a religion, does not detest democracy or progressive economics. The tragedy is that the particular leaders of the Egyptian franchise of the Brotherhood proved too undemocratic and economically conservative for the exigencies they faced. Had the Muslim Brotherhood selected more progressive economic and political policies, their man might still be in power and the streets moving more toward tranquility than anomie.

    Ironically, the conservatism of the Muslim Brotherhood is a by-product of the very state it has been fighting the past eight decades. Although it has been the main organized opponent of the military government, the Brotherhood also has been allowed to exist, even if sometimes on the fringes of legality, because its leadership is not so unlike the military’s. This has made it part of the nation’s institutional establishment, meaning it has been inculcated into the governing system more than it would admit. As such, the Brotherhood leadership, in many ways, is the un-uniformed mirror image of the military’s general class. Save for one thing.

     

    The military’s leadership is politically more adroit. In comparison to the Brotherhood’s leaders, one group looks like a gang of experienced, cynical men while the other appears to be a cackle of adolescents. After Mubarak’s departure, the military’s objective was to regain power. Their strategy would be that of driving a wedge between the Brotherhood and secular society. The Brotherhood won the election. Begrudgingly, civil society accepted the results and decided to give Morsi a chance. However, this was not the making of an alliance or even a gentlemen’s agreement. In effect, civil society had placed Morsi on probation.

    Not wanting to push civil society and Morsi together, the military kept its powder dry at the time. As Morsi gained power, the military entered agreements with him protecting their base but also tacitly encouraging him to nip the frail democracy by arrogating power to himself. Exploiting Morsi’s clumsiness, the wedge was driven between him and secular society.

    Encouraged by the military, civil society took to the streets. What was done to Mubarak, the groups now did to Morsi. The military deceived the civilians that their coup would be a temporary corrective, saving democracy from the paddle-handed Morsi. The civilians swallowed the bait because they never liked Morsi and because they entertained the fantasy of gaining the upper hand in new elections if the Brotherhood were duly disgraced if not completely shackled.

    The civilians gave the military their blessing. Nobel Prize winner Mohammed el-Baradei allowed ambition to get the better of him by agreeing to join the caretaker government the military established. This lent civilian color and legitimacy to what was a military coup against an immensely unpopular Morsi.

    Had the civilians been wiser, they would not have accepted the military’s gift. They should have realized the military is not in the business of giving more than it takes. Had they not accepted this easy route, enough people might have been amassed to force Morsi’s exit or his change of ways.

    In a series of adroit if immoral maneuvers, the military exploited the differences between civic society and the Brotherhood to grab power.

    Recognizing the importance of strong institutions, the military is not satisfied with clipping Morsi. They seek to decimate the Brotherhood. In this way, the military believes it will not face another organized rival for decades. Within the space of two years, the military has serially duped the civil society and the Brotherhood, getting what it wanted as a result: It controls the levers of national government. However, this comes at high price that continues to increase. Hundreds die by the day and night.

    The military’s strategy has proven successful. They have civil society in their hip pocket and now dragoon the Muslim Brotherhood. Their goal is to drive the Brotherhood toward violence. The more violent the Brotherhood’s reply to the government’s muscle, the more the military shall crackdown, claiming the Brotherhood is terror inspired. This dynamic will lessen the already slim chance of a rapprochement between the Brotherhood and civil society. The Brotherhood would deem civil society responsible for the suppression in the first instance. Moreover, secular groups now fear the Brotherhood might become more radicalized due to the violence. Secular groups will fear a more vengeful Brotherhood’s inclusion and participation in politics and governance.

    The military has succeeded in reshaping the political landscape to fit its narrow interests. Politically, the nation is fragmented and the military is the only coherent institution to be found. Secular society is reeling, not yet fully understanding how massively it has been hoodwinked by the men in uniform whom they thought were bumbling fools. The Brotherhood is fragmented between those who want to fight and those who futilely believe an armistice with the military is possible. The pacifists hope against reality. The fighting is not because something has gone awry. This is all part of the grand design of the military’s return to power.

    By violently polarizing the situation, the military seeks to limit the options of the international community, especially the Western powers, to two. Either stand with the known entity, the military, or walk the unfamiliar path with the unknown entity, the Brotherhood. America had already tacitly endorsed Morsi’s ouster when its top diplomat proclaimed the military was trying to “restore democracy.” President Obama issued a recent statement deploring the military crackdown. But all the American did was cancel a nonessential joint military exercise. He did not and likely will not suspend military assistance in any significant degree.

    Clearly, America frets more about the Brotherhood and its ilk than about the military. American love for democracy in the Middle East ends when a purported “Islamicist” wins a national election. At that point, the hidden caveats and conditions for American support for democracy surface. Do not be taken by public statements by Obama Administration officials and Republican Party leaders such as Senators McCain and Graham. In public, they condemn the military’s street war. In private, they likely signal their acquiescence to the dirty campaign.

    America has not fought dreaded Islamicists in far away, isolated Afghanistan to watch them gain a foothold in the most strategic nation in the Arab world. The Suez Canal, that vital international military and commercial shipping route and dual gateway into the Mediterranean and toward the Persian Gulf, is an Egyptian artery. This is one of the most important channels of water in the world. America would rather it held by those to whom it gives billions of dollars of military aid than by a more radical version of Morsi. Without a cooperative Egypt, Israel’s geopolitical exposure increases exponentially. This cautious American president will do nothing that will be construed by conservative critics as impairing Israel.

    Moreover, America has seen what a mess they made of Libya by executing an established strongman. Thus, although the Egyptian military is killing people at a much faster clip than Gaddafi did, the cries that the military is “killing their own people’ are predictably absent. If the choice is between a possible more radicalized, vengeful Brotherhood and the military, the West will dance and wed the military. General el-Sisi knows this. He shepherds the situation toward this result that suits his personal and organizational interests. In other words, Egypt might have gone through these last two years of protests, crashed hopes, rising frustrations and now crimson tragedy just so an old dictator can be replaced by a more acrobatic and strategically clever one.

    In this, sober lessons abound.

    Incomplete reform quickly leads to complete regression. There will always be a backlash against reform. Ironically, the less vigorous the reform in altering the power equation between rival national institutions, the more potent shall be the conservative backlash.

    While anger may stir the people to protest, they must be careful. Quick resort to violence never serves the people. It serves those who wield the instruments of destruction. Last, a political or social movement must have a positive final goal. In Egypt, the movement only had a negative initial goal: the removal of Mubarak. After that, the people’s movement dissipated. Establishment operatives were allowed to seize the reins; they guided things back to the way they were. In the next weeks and months, violence will likely be the way of Egypt. The nation moves from the possible dawn of a new day into the darkness of nights already long passed. The violence and death are sad. Sadder still is the likelihood that these losses come only to install a dictator perhaps more agile and dangerous than the one first deposed. Getting rid of the strongman is but a half remedy. A viable democratic alternative must be the final, purposeful objective. In the absence of such a destination, the people run into the danger that the strongman they bind may be replaced by one they cannot bind.

     

    08060340825 (sms only)

     

  • Revisiting the economic battle (ahead)

    Revisiting the economic battle (ahead)

    Economic Policy is made by the rich and done to the poor

    I write this from the United States. My brief visit here has been instructive. Despite those who say American power now swoons, Washington remains the world’s most influential capital. The mindset controlling Washington eventually colours other nations. The world has become a discordant rush partly because an increasingly plutocratic America remains the closest thing the dismal orchestra has to a conductor. Yet, a conductor who insists all things must be done to place him in maximum fettle, is one incapable of directing us toward music of greater harmony and equity.

    American society moves with a foul mood. Claims that the economy is improving seem to be merely that: Claims. People stew in uncertainty. This alleged land of plenty is the abode of plenty of new poverty. Income inequality has reached a peak last witnessed before the Great Depression nine decades ago. High numbers of people remain unemployed. Most new jobs are described by low wages and abbreviated hours.

    Black people are doubly compressed by the hard times. A young Black man has as much of a chance to be on the streets jobless or incarcerated for petty crime as he has to be employed or enrolled in higher education. Detroit, the once proud capital of the American car industry and of soul music, no longer hums with the sound of machinery of car manufacturing. This once fine city had been a symbol of Black progress; it now does nothing but sing the blues. The city is bankrupt and at the prey of creditors seeking public assets on the cheap. The Black population in Detroit is shell-shocked like an ill-equipped platoon finding itself suddenly on a battlefield. Once robust neighbourhoods are blighted by vacant and ramshackle houses. The scene evokes the feeling that a plague has swept the place, consuming people as well as savaging brick, mortar, building and even the spirit of those who remain behind in the desolate town.

    Against this backdrop, President Obama toured several cities touting his plans to revive the American economy by protecting the endangered middle class. Although not a great admirer of the President, I hoped this signaled he would hew a different course.

    His tour produced high-sounding speeches before enthusiastic, often cheering crowds. The purportedly liberal corporate media lauded his every word. For my part, I dropped my head, wept dry tears and cried a silent cry.

    First, the President pulled from the mothballs his threadbare plan for 50 billion dollars on infrastructural improvements. To the average person, the amount seems so vast as to impress. To those more knowledgeable, the amount is so paltry as to insult. America’s ruling crowd has become so selfish that it channels the bulk of the national wealth down its collective gullet. Because of lack of investment, the world’s greatest national infrastructural grid 40 years ago is now the worst among developed nations.

    Obama’s 50 billion dollar scheme is a complete feign. It is akin to adorning a Chihuahua with a horse’s saddle then insisting the ill-fitted combination is primed to compete in a thoroughbred race. It is all farce but one the public’s ignorance and media’s connivance have given a hero’s welcome. The leading organisation of America’s civil engineers estimated the nation must spend over one trillion dollars to place its vital infrastructure in respectable order.

    The White House knows this. Its policy statement was empty theatre, the slick tossing of saccharine but hollow words at a populace too ignorant to realise the speaker ridicules rather than respects them. The fund President Obama seeks will minimally improve the overall state of the nation’s infrastructure. It will be like giving a pedicure to a tuberculin patient. However, it presents a golden opportunity for a few large construction firms to make a real fortune based on expenditures giving the public false hope. Welcome to the feast where only the fat can eat their fill. It gets worse.

    President Obama also unveiled a mortgage reform policy. Again, he declared the reform had the middle class in mind. If that were the case, he then has the mind of a prowler. His plan abolishes the two government-sponsored agencies responsible for broadening the mortgage market so middle and working-class people could own homes over the past several decades. With a broad smile, shut the door to future home ownership for many average people. He claimed this was required to allow the private sector and free market to work their magic. Someone forgot to tell the man the agencies were established because the unfettered, unregulated mortgage market had ill-served the nation’s needs even when working class wages were rising and the overall economy was robust. If such agencies were needed when the economy brimmed with vitality, they are of vital utility during the current period of economic flaccidity.

    The two corporations are to be replaced by a curious scheme. Private firms engaged in melding individual mortgages together to form bundles of financial instruments secured by the real estate underlying the mortgages can now buy a government guarantee of repayment of these financial instruments. What he has taken from the common man, the president gives to the financial speculator in multiple portion. Valuation of these financial instruments is so subjective as to be more conjecture than precision. Enacting this policy will grant investors the open door to pay a nominal fee guaranteeing these instruments then claim outrageous values for the assets. If the market works, the investor gets paid via the market. If the market falters, he collects on the guarantee. Either way, he gets paid, meaning his reward comes not for taking a risk but simply because he had money in the first instance. The common man must fight life’s vicissitudes to earn his quotidian bread and keep. Meanwhile, the rich are protected on all sides; their bounty is promised and secured by the sweat of the poor.

    In all of this, President Obama either is devoid of an economic bone in his body or he is as cynical as a man can be. I cannot believe he is so naïve as not to apprehend the ramifications of what he advocates. Thus, I am left to conclude he remains the loyal steward of deeply-pocketed interests who have little interest in the average person.

    We approach the crux of this tale. We must be careful about the leaven we eat. The yeast of understanding is in a sparse plate on a small table. On the other side is the feast of fools. It is served in large, open halls upon wide, ample tables. The latest Obama escapades are instructive in that they reveal what is to come to much of the rest of the world. Just as there seems to be a dictator’s manual that authoritarians religiously apply to thwart democracy, there is a financialist handbook the economic elite applies to keep people poor.

    Given the imperfection of our social arrangements, some poverty is unavoidable. However, due again to the flaws of the human character, the larger portion of human misery is the unnecessary byproduct of man’s greed. We live in an age of rank elite conservatism as virulent as any time in the past four centuries. Today’s elite believe they are entitled to life in the fullest; this entails owning and possessing as much as possible, including people. For this to occur, they need people to grow poorer so they can purchase more of them, more cheaply.

    Knowing we know little economics, they hire honey-throated mouthpieces like Obama to tell us all is being done for our welfare. In fact, what they have in mind will harm us. However, we believe them and thus keeping playing the roles set for us, little realising the hard work we do will gain us little more than a victim’s status. We become dumb accomplices in setting our lifetime trap of penury, struggle and debt.

    They tell us to look at economics as a collaborative venture where all parties cooperate to maximise output and production. They demand we believe what they know to be a lie. He who believes that this is the nature of economics is a charter citizen in a fool’s paradise balances on the edge of calamity. They need us to think this way so that we blind ourselves from seeing who they truly are and how they actually think.

    They see economics as competition. If too many average people have all they need, the rich are afraid that the people will no longer work extra hard and will drive up wages. If masses don’t place their nose to the grindstone, there will be insufficient surplus and too much wealth among the common people to give the elite the lavish wealth upon which they have come to rely. They must keep you poor, grasping and so afraid that you willingly work your fingers to the bare bone in order for them to luxuriate at their desired level. In the current system, the average person works to indebt himself to an elite whom his work has already profanely enriched.

    This is how capitalism was born. In 18th century England, architects of economic thought and policy lamented how the rural farmer and peasant were too happy for their own good. Because these people had small plots of land and recourse to common land to graze small herds, they were mostly self-sufficient in their bucolic simplicity. The aggressive captains of industry bristled at this waste of human fodder. They needed people to work their factories. To fuel their new way of life, they instituted legislation that would bar the theretofore self sufficient, life of the peasant. They willfully killed an entire social structure and imposed misery on the unwitting farmer and bumpkin just so their capitalist elite could reap the benefits of the forced labor.

    Laws were enacted dispossessing small farmers of their meager holdings. Common pasture land was abolished. Effectively chased from the land and their means of livelihood, the peasant drifted to the city. They formed a pool of surplus labor competing against each other for the meager wages of nonstop work amidst a dreary, wretched urban poverty as has ever existed.

    This is how capitalism was born. Clearly, the global economy has expanded and evolved. It is more sophisticated and nuanced but its basic nature remains unchanged. The cardinal principle upon which this edifice is built remains that the vast majority of the people must run the ceaseless treadmill so they have little time to question things or fight to change them.

    In initial years of capitalism, people were dispossessed of their lands. Today, the people can now own land their ancestors once freely walked. However, they must now pay a high price. Given their low wages, paying such a price consigns them to a lifetime of debt. By nature of the obligation hovering over him, a debtor is willing to work for a wage below what he is due. In this perverted system, to strive to own a home is to acquire a debt that forces you to accept unjust wages which makes it more difficult to redeem the debt.

    In the formative stage of capitalism, only landed wealthy men held the political franchise. Now, everyone can vote but voting matters little. Today, big money decides the candidates of the major parties. The average person votes but his franchise is of no avail. Money Power presents its choice of candidates from which he must select. Usually, all this does is present to the people a choice between bad and worse.

    Africa, you have suffered greatly because of this. Led by America, Western nations suppress the bulk of their populations in order to meet elite demands. If Western nations willingly turn their own people into modern indentured servants, they have no compulsion about keeping African states and their peoples in a place of economic weakness. A vital instrument abetting this unfairness is the nature of many of the continent’s governmental structures. Too many nations have kept the warped values and ways that characterised the colonial political economy. In a profound way, Africa suffers under the weight of excessive capitalist practice shorn even of the false regard the Western elite must feign for its citizens. As such, colonialism bequeathed to Africa a political economy described as rawest form of exploitative capitalism accentuated by racism.

    More than the populations of Western nations, the people of Africa have their work cut out for them. Most of today’s African leaders belong to the same elitist club as President Obama. They talk sweetly but act sourly toward the people’s interests. Instead of being genuine leaders of the people, many leaders are emissaries of the global elite to the people. Thus, instead of demanding from the global elite what Africa needs, these leaders are more apt to instruct the people about what the world says they should sacrifice or forfeit to maintain a good credit rating.

    Breaking this age-old bondage falls on the people themselves. First, we must earnestly begin to learn more about economics and finance. The more you know is the less you can be fooled. The most important point to remember is that economic policy is rarely a completely collaborative venture. Few policies are class neutral. Policy is a subjective determination of who benefits and who losses in relative and absolute measure. Policy is the balancing of competing interests. You must know enough about your interests and those of other economic classes within your nation and of other nations so that you protect and promote what is vital to you.

    Most importantly, we must envision a world free from the exploitation inherent to classical and now modern capitalism. There is a better road available. Adhering to this new path first starts with asking ourselves do we strive for a more just, equitable society for all or do we labor to win the individual lottery – that slim, desperate chance to escape the terse, bare confines of average existence so that we may join the lush elite. If we strive for the former, there is a chance. If all we do is individually labour for the latter, then our children and their children shall be the hand servants of a global system that seeks their harm.

     

    08060340825 (sms only)

  • Revisiting the economic battle (ahead)

    Revisiting the economic battle (ahead)

    Economic Policy is made by the rich and done to the poor

    I write this from the United States. My brief visit here has been instructive. Despite those who say American power now swoons, Washington remains the world’s most influential capital. The mindset controlling Washington eventually colours other nations. The world has become a discordant rush partly because an increasingly plutocratic America remains the closest thing the dismal orchestra has to a conductor. Yet, a conductor who insists all things must be done to place him in maximum fettle, is one incapable of directing us toward music of greater harmony and equity.

    American society moves with a foul mood. Claims that the economy is improving seem to be merely that: Claims. People stew in uncertainty. This alleged land of plenty is the abode of plenty of new poverty. Income inequality has reached a peak last witnessed before the Great Depression nine decades ago. High numbers of people remain unemployed. Most new jobs are described by low wages and abbreviated hours.

    Black people are doubly compressed by the hard times. A young Black man has as much of a chance to be on the streets jobless or incarcerated for petty crime as he has to be employed or enrolled in higher education. Detroit, the once proud capital of the American car industry and of soul music, no longer hums with the sound of machinery of car manufacturing. This once fine city had been a symbol of Black progress; it now does nothing but sing the blues. The city is bankrupt and at the prey of creditors seeking public assets on the cheap. The Black population in Detroit is shell-shocked like an ill-equipped platoon finding itself suddenly on a battlefield. Once robust neighbourhoods are blighted by vacant and ramshackle houses. The scene evokes the feeling that a plague has swept the place, consuming people as well as savaging brick, mortar, building and even the spirit of those who remain behind in the desolate town.

    Against this backdrop, President Obama toured several cities touting his plans to revive the American economy by protecting the endangered middle class. Although not a great admirer of the President, I hoped this signaled he would hew a different course.

    His tour produced high-sounding speeches before enthusiastic, often cheering crowds. The purportedly liberal corporate media lauded his every word. For my part, I dropped my head, wept dry tears and cried a silent cry.

    First, the President pulled from the mothballs his threadbare plan for 50 billion dollars on infrastructural improvements. To the average person, the amount seems so vast as to impress. To those more knowledgeable, the amount is so paltry as to insult. America’s ruling crowd has become so selfish that it channels the bulk of the national wealth down its collective gullet. Because of lack of investment, the world’s greatest national infrastructural grid 40 years ago is now the worst among developed nations.

    Obama’s 50 billion dollar scheme is a complete feign. It is akin to adorning a Chihuahua with a horse’s saddle then insisting the ill-fitted combination is primed to compete in a thoroughbred race. It is all farce but one the public’s ignorance and media’s connivance have given a hero’s welcome. The leading organisation of America’s civil engineers estimated the nation must spend over one trillion dollars to place its vital infrastructure in respectable order.

    The White House knows this. Its policy statement was empty theatre, the slick tossing of saccharine but hollow words at a populace too ignorant to realise the speaker ridicules rather than respects them. The fund President Obama seeks will minimally improve the overall state of the nation’s infrastructure. It will be like giving a pedicure to a tuberculin patient. However, it presents a golden opportunity for a few large construction firms to make a real fortune based on expenditures giving the public false hope. Welcome to the feast where only the fat can eat their fill. It gets worse.

    President Obama also unveiled a mortgage reform policy. Again, he declared the reform had the middle class in mind. If that were the case, he then has the mind of a prowler. His plan abolishes the two government-sponsored agencies responsible for broadening the mortgage market so middle and working-class people could own homes over the past several decades. With a broad smile, shut the door to future home ownership for many average people. He claimed this was required to allow the private sector and free market to work their magic. Someone forgot to tell the man the agencies were established because the unfettered, unregulated mortgage market had ill-served the nation’s needs even when working class wages were rising and the overall economy was robust. If such agencies were needed when the economy brimmed with vitality, they are of vital utility during the current period of economic flaccidity.

    The two corporations are to be replaced by a curious scheme. Private firms engaged in melding individual mortgages together to form bundles of financial instruments secured by the real estate underlying the mortgages can now buy a government guarantee of repayment of these financial instruments. What he has taken from the common man, the president gives to the financial speculator in multiple portion. Valuation of these financial instruments is so subjective as to be more conjecture than precision. Enacting this policy will grant investors the open door to pay a nominal fee guaranteeing these instruments then claim outrageous values for the assets. If the market works, the investor gets paid via the market. If the market falters, he collects on the guarantee. Either way, he gets paid, meaning his reward comes not for taking a risk but simply because he had money in the first instance. The common man must fight life’s vicissitudes to earn his quotidian bread and keep. Meanwhile, the rich are protected on all sides; their bounty is promised and secured by the sweat of the poor.

    In all of this, President Obama either is devoid of an economic bone in his body or he is as cynical as a man can be. I cannot believe he is so naïve as not to apprehend the ramifications of what he advocates. Thus, I am left to conclude he remains the loyal steward of deeply-pocketed interests who have little interest in the average person.

    We approach the crux of this tale. We must be careful about the leaven we eat. The yeast of understanding is in a sparse plate on a small table. On the other side is the feast of fools. It is served in large, open halls upon wide, ample tables. The latest Obama escapades are instructive in that they reveal what is to come to much of the rest of the world. Just as there seems to be a dictator’s manual that authoritarians religiously apply to thwart democracy, there is a financialist handbook the economic elite applies to keep people poor.

    Given the imperfection of our social arrangements, some poverty is unavoidable. However, due again to the flaws of the human character, the larger portion of human misery is the unnecessary byproduct of man’s greed. We live in an age of rank elite conservatism as virulent as any time in the past four centuries. Today’s elite believe they are entitled to life in the fullest; this entails owning and possessing as much as possible, including people. For this to occur, they need people to grow poorer so they can purchase more of them, more cheaply.

    Knowing we know little economics, they hire honey-throated mouthpieces like Obama to tell us all is being done for our welfare. In fact, what they have in mind will harm us. However, we believe them and thus keeping playing the roles set for us, little realising the hard work we do will gain us little more than a victim’s status. We become dumb accomplices in setting our lifetime trap of penury, struggle and debt.

    They tell us to look at economics as a collaborative venture where all parties cooperate to maximise output and production. They demand we believe what they know to be a lie. He who believes that this is the nature of economics is a charter citizen in a fool’s paradise balances on the edge of calamity. They need us to think this way so that we blind ourselves from seeing who they truly are and how they actually think.

    They see economics as competition. If too many average people have all they need, the rich are afraid that the people will no longer work extra hard and will drive up wages. If masses don’t place their nose to the grindstone, there will be insufficient surplus and too much wealth among the common people to give the elite the lavish wealth upon which they have come to rely. They must keep you poor, grasping and so afraid that you willingly work your fingers to the bare bone in order for them to luxuriate at their desired level. In the current system, the average person works to indebt himself to an elite whom his work has already profanely enriched.

    This is how capitalism was born. In 18th century England, architects of economic thought and policy lamented how the rural farmer and peasant were too happy for their own good. Because these people had small plots of land and recourse to common land to graze small herds, they were mostly self-sufficient in their bucolic simplicity. The aggressive captains of industry bristled at this waste of human fodder. They needed people to work their factories. To fuel their new way of life, they instituted legislation that would bar the theretofore self sufficient, life of the peasant. They willfully killed an entire social structure and imposed misery on the unwitting farmer and bumpkin just so their capitalist elite could reap the benefits of the forced labor.

    Laws were enacted dispossessing small farmers of their meager holdings. Common pasture land was abolished. Effectively chased from the land and their means of livelihood, the peasant drifted to the city. They formed a pool of surplus labor competing against each other for the meager wages of nonstop work amidst a dreary, wretched urban poverty as has ever existed.

    This is how capitalism was born. Clearly, the global economy has expanded and evolved. It is more sophisticated and nuanced but its basic nature remains unchanged. The cardinal principle upon which this edifice is built remains that the vast majority of the people must run the ceaseless treadmill so they have little time to question things or fight to change them.

    In initial years of capitalism, people were dispossessed of their lands. Today, the people can now own land their ancestors once freely walked. However, they must now pay a high price. Given their low wages, paying such a price consigns them to a lifetime of debt. By nature of the obligation hovering over him, a debtor is willing to work for a wage below what he is due. In this perverted system, to strive to own a home is to acquire a debt that forces you to accept unjust wages which makes it more difficult to redeem the debt.

    In the formative stage of capitalism, only landed wealthy men held the political franchise. Now, everyone can vote but voting matters little. Today, big money decides the candidates of the major parties. The average person votes but his franchise is of no avail. Money Power presents its choice of candidates from which he must select. Usually, all this does is present to the people a choice between bad and worse.

    Africa, you have suffered greatly because of this. Led by America, Western nations suppress the bulk of their populations in order to meet elite demands. If Western nations willingly turn their own people into modern indentured servants, they have no compulsion about keeping African states and their peoples in a place of economic weakness. A vital instrument abetting this unfairness is the nature of many of the continent’s governmental structures. Too many nations have kept the warped values and ways that characterised the colonial political economy. In a profound way, Africa suffers under the weight of excessive capitalist practice shorn even of the false regard the Western elite must feign for its citizens. As such, colonialism bequeathed to Africa a political economy described as rawest form of exploitative capitalism accentuated by racism.

    More than the populations of Western nations, the people of Africa have their work cut out for them. Most of today’s African leaders belong to the same elitist club as President Obama. They talk sweetly but act sourly toward the people’s interests. Instead of being genuine leaders of the people, many leaders are emissaries of the global elite to the people. Thus, instead of demanding from the global elite what Africa needs, these leaders are more apt to instruct the people about what the world says they should sacrifice or forfeit to maintain a good credit rating.

    Breaking this age-old bondage falls on the people themselves. First, we must earnestly begin to learn more about economics and finance. The more you know is the less you can be fooled. The most important point to remember is that economic policy is rarely a completely collaborative venture. Few policies are class neutral. Policy is a subjective determination of who benefits and who losses in relative and absolute measure. Policy is the balancing of competing interests. You must know enough about your interests and those of other economic classes within your nation and of other nations so that you protect and promote what is vital to you.

    Most importantly, we must envision a world free from the exploitation inherent to classical and now modern capitalism. There is a better road available. Adhering to this new path first starts with asking ourselves do we strive for a more just, equitable society for all or do we labor to win the individual lottery – that slim, desperate chance to escape the terse, bare confines of average existence so that we may join the lush elite. If we strive for the former, there is a chance. If all we do is individually labour for the latter, then our children and their children shall be the hand servants of a global system that seeks their harm.

     

    08060340825 (sms only)

     

  • People versus power

    People versus power

    That which hatred does, compassion can undo

    The past two weeks I have written on the Trayvon Martin case. I did so for two reasons. One, the matter exposed the racist underbelly of American society. By extension, this episode warns that racism permeates all aspects of social and political-economic interaction Black people have, even among themselves. Global history has been unduly colored by racism; that morose legacy remains alive. The international political economy is more a product of racial competition than one of racial harmony. Much like Trayvon suffered on the isolated sidewalk in a small Florida town, to be Black is to be a potential victim in danger of being deemed the perpetrator of his own demise. Our color makes us an eyesore to others and thus harmful to ourselves because of the reaction of others to us. As it is with individuals so it is with us as a people and with our nations.

    The second reason was that Martin’s tragedy lifted the veil covering a human dilemma even more fundamental than racism. In almost every population, from the smallest, humblest village to large, prosperous nations, there are people who would rather lord over others than allow each to live as they should. As there are those of us who desire the dignity of freedom and independence of thought and action, there is a countervailing element. This element would rather enchain your mind, body or both. People of this ilk seek to bend your will to fit their designs. If your will refuses to bend, they resort to breaking your body. These people will neither stop nor ever question their need for dominion. They only will question why you resist them. This struggle is age-old and endless. It shall exist as long as mankind exists. It exists between races as well as within the races. Oppression is unfortunately versatile to a fault. It often takes the form of racism. But it can be colorblind. It can found itself on religion, ethnicity or on the amount of money in one’s pocket.

    Sadly, those who seek dominion over others spend inordinate time acquiring power then maintaining it so that they may perfect their schemes over others. We pray that we are governed by angels but history warns us to be prepared for the opposite. The man who lusts to have a gun, control an army, rule a land, or own the economy is more apt to use these instruments against your best wishes than to help you realize those wishes. Oppression of others is as much a human characteristic as breathing and eating. As long as this world exists, we are one bad turn from a loss of freedom if not of life. To be a person in this world is to be ever vigilant or a victim.

    This sounds gloomy. Here I confess a recent comment from a reader struck me. The commenter remarked my columns made him feel sad, as if hope had fled. The comment touched me to the extent that it became the impetus to what you now read. My writing tends to focus on tough issues and do so starkly. I do this not because I am forlorn or to deprive anyone of hope. My goal lies to the contrary. If I were devoid of hope and of the belief that people could have a better life, I would not expend my time in the futile exercise of writing. I would direct my energy toward other things that bring a more selfish profit. But I direct my efforts as I do because I hold the dearest hope for our people and for all of humanity. I believe the common person can face the swelling tide of power, arrogance and hatred yet withstand the awful might of these worldly, awful things. The odds say the poor and average should fold and break at encountering the great onslaught of wealth and power. Yet, I believe there is something that allows us to survive the odds and the powers arrayed against us. There is some thing that stops evil and wrong from claiming total victory. We survive the dark assault that we may join together in common, humane cause to claim a brighter day and just future.

    The great thing in which I invest my belief, I know as God. My Muslim and Arabic brothers call him Allah. He is known by other names in other languages and religions. I believe he wants as many of us to escape from perdition and destruction as is possible. Thus, we battle against those things that would drag us in the wrong direction or crush us between the pestle and mortal of hard experience.

    To believe in something higher and truer than our mortal selves is to believe we can reclaim our frail mortal beings from the grasp of the powers that would trammel us from reaching better ground.

    I write not to break your spirit or resign you to the graveyard. That is as far from my intention as east is from west. I write to warn and awaken you. In times of war and battle, a slumbering man is a corpse in prospect. Ignorance is bliss only for the dead or already defeated. If you have hope and fight left in you, ignorance is as grave an adversary as the armed enemy itself. I write to warn and bestir your mind and passions so that you are sufficiently roused to fight and claim that which by virtue of being human is inherently yours. If perchance anything I have ever written has led you to take a step toward the pit of despair, forgive me for it means my pen has failed in its mission.

    To any one whom any of my writings have lead to despondency, I ask that you discard the shrunken-feelings and revive your spirit. Our race, our people have great tasks ahead. There is no room for sadness or space for despair in the curative, collective endeavor we must undertake. We must go forward in the spirit that we live to live more fully despite the powers aligned against us.

    In all that I have written, I have tried to sound this warning not to douse your spirit but to arouse it. Sometimes, a topic may anger you. This is good because rightful anger in correct proportion can be a tonic for a people caught so long in stupor’s web. Sometimes a piece may bring some sadness, but that is not to induce a defeated spirit but to make you aware how far things have fallen from their proper place.

    A great storm has passed but it is not for you to relax. A greater storm approaches. Those who are not ready shall be swept aside. Each generation and each epoch has its own special characteristics and struggles. Some are times of peace. Some are times of learning and enlightenment. Some are times where little takes place as if history has reached a standstill. Yet, some are times where so much occurs that it seems fate and history never sleep. Some are times not of peace but of war and strife. We live in such a time.

    The harshest wars are not always sword against sword, army against idea. At times, the most trenchant wars are those of idea against idea, vision against contrary vision. These are not battles pitting corporeal army against army but are struggles pitting the mind and spirit of enlightenment against those invested in inequity and wrong. Today, we exist in an age where affluent privilege seeks to drive all others toward penury and the socio-political subjugation penury ascribes.

    We live in an age where technology and science allows man to do his best for his fellow man. Poverty, disease, hunger and many scourges that have plagued us can be decimated due to the advances in human knowledge. Unfortunately, our moral advance has not kept apace. Worst, not only has it lagged behind, the morality of the political economy has strayed far. Morally, we have entered an age as selfish and uncaring as any prior to it.

    Poverty is rife though there is enough food to feed the planet. Water is being hoarded to profit some while the livelihoods and lands of many are being desiccated. People in whose families land has existed before recorded time are being dispossessed. The urban poor and working class are being pushed to the limits of their endurance.

    Almost everywhere on the planet the powers of elite conservatism are on the loose, swallowing everything they can then blaming the victims for allowing themselves to be consumed by the merciless processes of a global political economy resentful of most of its inhabitants.

    We write not to bring to tearful resignation but to incite the maiden stirrings of renewed struggle.

    As Black people and Africans you must realize war is being made upon you. Thus, you will do well to wage your own war back against it. It is not necessary that you call the war upon yourself. War does not just come to the eager and willing. It more often falls on the weak, tired and unsuspected. To claim foul and unfairness will do little good; those that wage war against you will continue with greater relish the longer you ignore the reality of our situation. In America, Black people face resurgent racism. Trayvon’s case shows you can be killed in the middle of the street and your assailant be deemed the victim. Meanwhile, voting rights protection is being swept away. Black poverty and unemployment have escalated to Depression–era levels. That all this takes places under the first Black president only makes the caper sweeter for those effectuating it. American Blacks are being scammed of their hard won yet meager victories yet are mostly ignorant of the massive confiscation being enacted against them.

    Meanwhile, Africa undergoes similar assault. The historic forces that detest Black America hold similar content for Black Africa. Thus, rural land is being gulped by international agro-business while food prices climb as do poverty rates. The global economy demands Africa open its markets to international trade but the markets of established nations remain closed to the new types of trade that will assist Africa’s necessary industrial development. If we continue in this way, we will forever remain the lowest rung of the world economy yet they will tell us to be glad with the progress we are making. It will be true that we mark progress. However, that progress will be owned by others and not ourselves. The more we work and do as they say, the richer they become and the poorer you grow. During the coming decades, our commodity prices, especially oil, will stagnate or even lower in real terms. Our population and misery shall be the two things that are sure of rapid growth.

    Despite the talk of a world waiting for Africa to development, the world invests more heavily in Africa’s underdevelopment. As in the colonial era, the global economy will establish several outposts on the continent. These places will experience growth and dynamism. But it will not be growth based upon the growth intrinsic to Africa. These outposts will grow to the extent that they mimic how the global economy extracts Africa’s wealth from Africa. You will be told to look at these places as examples of what can be done for Africa when the reality is more akin to look at the harm being done to Africa.

    Again, this is why I write. I write to warn you of the war that comes dressed as a friend and that speaks the language of development. I write that you will know the powers with which we must contend and that you understand their strategies, tactics and wiles. This generation must do its best to lighten the burden of five centuries of pain endured by Africa and her children who have been scattered to the four winds. I write that the old sun might set on our broken state and that a new sun may rise on our dreams for equality and justice. As long as I sense malign forces seeking to harm us, I shall write as I do. I hope that you continue to read as you have.

     

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  • Post-mortem of a trial: Racism lives

    Post-mortem of a trial: Racism lives

    We walk blindly, moving forward into the past

    This is my second column about the Trayvon Martin/George Zimmerman case. The case is the stuff of drama. In short order, a movie will come of it. Zimmerman will write a book and shall be the temporary saint of the White conservative lecture circuit before slipping into a paranoid, forced anonymity. What will not happen is Travyon’s family seeing him again, except for the image he left in the corridors of their memories or the photographs they keep.

    However, I haven’t returned to this matter because of the individual trauma involved. I hold to this case because of its wider social and political consequences.

    Racism lives. This means the Black race remains endangered although not sufficiently alert to the trouble at hand. The trouble is not that of extermination or physical slavery as centuries ago. The danger is that of a sense of crippling inferiority. This sense is perceived and acted on but no longer formally acknowledged by either side of the racial divide characterizing Black people’s historic relationship with mostly White America and Western Europe.

    Because of the power differential that has existed for half a millennium, the two races view each other differently. To put it mildly, Blacks generally respect Whites but that respect is not reciprocated in equal portion. Each race stereotypes the other. The stereotypes Blacks hold of Whites are, to a large degree, authored by Whites. Therefore, the stereotypes are generally positive. Even the few negative biases amount to critiques that Whites have taken to the extreme what otherwise would be a virtue. Thus, the spirit of exploration becomes one of aggression, conquest, and colonialism. The belief in the primacy of science and technology to improve our material wellbeing becomes unbridled. It turns into the malpractice of distorting our environment and endangering our wellbeing through the very technologic and economic processes once touted as harbingers of a benign future. Any trouble with Whites it is not because they are bad but sometimes they are too much of a good thing.

    Stereotypes affixed to the Black race trend in the opposite direction. While Whites may overload on a fine thing, Blacks are characterized by multiple depravity. Our affluence lies in our nothingness. Almost every dysfunctional, criminal attribute known to man is viewed as our quiddity. While Whites are presumed the best, we are adjudged the worst even before evidence is adduced.

    Intellectually, most people know theses stereotypes are minatory and inaccurate. However, psychology often trumps intellect. After quickly acknowledging the mistakes of this line of thought, people turn back to the wrong ideas in order to embrace them. They find it is easier to live within the comfortable bounds of wrongful convention than to live outside of comfort yet be right.

    The trial of George Zimmerman must be viewed through this perspective if it is to be viewed with perception. Zimmerman is White and Martin was Black. The former killed the latter under questionable circumstances. In America, the clash of White and Black is rarely coincidental. It is a function of a history of racial animus and of the stereotypes that animus has brewed over generations.

    However, the prosecutors, the defense team, and the jury — all of whom were White — all claimed the case had nothing to do with race. While these people may have been in the courtroom, they did not understand the trial or their role in it if they honestly believed their disavowals. For them to say race played no role is worse than disingenuous. They engage in a most dangerous form of chicanery. They lied knowing it was a lie but feeling in their gut that the lie was better than the truth. They dare not admit Zimmerman’s racism because they believed in what he did. They supported it not because of the governing laws on the books but because of the subconscious racism that governs their perspective of the world and that raises the hair on their backs whenever they see a Black person in a situation or position they do not associate with blackness.

    For them to admit Zimmerman’s prejudice would be to admit then try to discard their own. They have no reason to attempt such a thing. Their racism is a comfortable garment worn so long and that fits so smugly that they don’t notice it. It is part of them; it is them. To remove their prejudice would be tantamount to amputating a limb. They see no benefit in undergoing the painful operation for a dead black boy.

    For them, the lie that was the verdict worked because it returned the world to its proper balance. Zimmerman walked free, acquitted of killing an unarmed Black teenager. Confined forever to his grave, Martin was deemed culpable in his own homicide. Because of his race, the murdered was considered his own de facto killer. In effect, the jury decided the young man killed himself, that he basically committed the social equivalent of suicide, just because he did not bow to Zimmerman’s command.

    Zimmerman was not cloaked with legal authority to command anyone to do anything. However, the jury believed Martin’s status as a Black teenager automatically relegated him to a status were he should have obeyed Zimmerman or face the consequences of a real but unspoken law that has shaped the contours of American and world history for centuries. Perhaps the young man was not fully cognizant of his actions. Resisting Zimmerman’s encroachment into the quiet enjoyment of his personal space, the boy rebelled against the great weight of history.

    He might have thought this was a simple one-on-one confrontation. When race is involved nothing is simple and cast in isolation. Everything is tied to history and touched with larger meaning. Superficially, Trayvon was felled by a single bullet. In a more profound sense, this unwitting rebel was interred by the weight of a lopsided, unfair history; his actions were deemed improper by the legal system of a society that had already adjudged him guilty of some wrong by reason of his very existence. To be a young Black man is to be a criminal in waiting. According to the system, Trayvon got what he deserved and Zimmerman was unduly victimized for doing his civic duty containing this human form of the Black Plague.

    Most White Americans support the verdict exonerating the gun-toting Zimmerman; it accords with their racist perceptions of justice. They proclaim race did not play a role in the case. To admit that race was a factor is to confess to a problem. Why would they utter such a confession when the outcome was the desired one, as in the days of old before Blacks acquired civil rights?

    Most Blacks are appalled at the verdict; they sense its ugly ramification because they will bear its lethal brunt in the years to come. The nation is slowly but perceptibly returning to its former self where the door of justice was open to Whites but shuttered to Blacks. What the verdict says is that a Black person peacefully walking the street can be accosted by a White intermeddler. Unless there are objective witnesses around, the intermeddler can have his way with the Black person. The Black will be blamed for whatever happens to him. The verdict is an open invitation for White vigilantes to descend on any solitary black man who happens to be at the wrong place at the wrong time. The woods of southern states are littered with the corpses of Black men killed this way in years past. We come full circle back to this danger that made many Black men run home before sundown less he be caught, never to be seen above ground again.

    In a way, those who say race did not play a role in the case are right. To say it played a role is such an understatement as to be a lie. Race did not play a role in the case: Race was the case.

    Without the Black/ White divide, there would not have been a fatal confrontation. If Martin had been a White teen, Zimmerman would not have pursued him. However, based on the belief that some Black criminals had committed robberies in the area, Zimmerman concluded Martin was one of them. According to Zimmerman, the boy was walking too slowly. Who said there is nothing new under the sun? Low and behold, there is a new rule. A Black person can now be found guilty for walking below the limit permissible for him. In Travyon’s case, the penalty for this seemingly minor infraction was his very life.

    Twenty years ago, Zimmerman’s actions would have been known by its truer name: racial prejudice. Today, it is called justifiable pragmatism and deemed a civic service.

    In a certain sense, the verdict was foretold at the point that the prosecution team was picked. Prosecution lawyers made a jumble of the case because their hearts were not in it. They wanted Zimmerman to walk free. Their efforts were lame ones of merely going through the motions. The prosecutors knew their lives and status in the White community would be at risk if they sent Zimmerman to prison. The local White community wanted Zimmerman off and the prosecutors did what they could to oblige their neighbor’s wishes.

    As such, they were not prosecutors; they were like underpaid actors performing a secondary role just so the play could go on. After all, why risk their status? Travyon was dead. Nothing they did would bring him back. A vigorous prosecution would just make them pariahs in the community. Thus they behaved like the prosecutors in the Old South over fifty years ago when criminal cases were first being brought against Whites for violence against blacks. They tripped and fumbled through the case so that Zimmerman could walk and they could receive the silent, implied tribute of a community happy that the Black menace had received its just comeuppance. The clock always ticks but sometimes, sometimes, its hands move backward to return us to a past that never should have been.

    Enter into the fray President Obama. Immediately after the verdict, he issued a terse, anodyne statement that the jury verdict stands and must be respected. He is consistent in that his usual knee-jerk reaction to first assuage White conservatives was not placed out-of-joint by the case. However, Black and youth frustration has been mounting against him and the overall turn of events and issues in the nation. People have taken to the streets in protests. The nation is one incident away from a riot in a major city.

    Apprehended by the prospect of a race riot and being almost screamed at by a Black community waiting for him to show a little soul in office, the President issues a better still incomplete statement July 19. In that attempt, he tried to thread the needle to douse the frustration of the Black community without upsetting the satisfaction of the White at the verdict. For him, the attempt was a painful one in which he tried so hard to find the right words that he did not say all he needed to say. Historians of the moment will enjoy the irony of a Black president fidgeting to contain African American anger.

    He eloquently mentioned some poignant but relatively petty instances of racism he and other Black high-brows have suffered. He did this because he was not really speaking to the nation. This address was to Black people in particular. The subliminal message was that he was one of us and thus we should not go too far with the protests and demonstrations less we make his job harder. He was pleading, “give a brother a break!” Most people will be taken in by his tact but a growing number no longer see him as a brother. They will not relent to give him any break. They will see this as moment when the Black community just might emerge from protracted stupor to fight to keep the little it has. If that means the man in the White House must experience a bit of sweat under the collar, so be it. His salary is sufficient to take his apparel to a good dry cleaner.

    In the end, he ran into a wall of his own making. While trying to explain the social and political ramifications of the case, President Obama maundered haltingly at moments. He knew what he should say but he could not bring himself to uttering the word that needed to be said repeatedly. He dared not use the word “racism” too often. Instead he spoke of this harsh, flinty reality in soft euphemisms like “historic incidents and antecedents.” Give the rest of the brothers a break, Mr. President! If you can’t say racism is alive, real and killing people, then you have not lived up to the moment and to the unique responsibility you have chosen by commanding the desk in the Oval Office. You remain a standard politician, a man who is black but ill at ease with being a black man.

    It is not that you are bad but that you have sidestepped the higher purpose of your mission because fulfilling that purpose comes with political price you deem too costly to bear. You want everyone to love you. In the end, everyone will remember you by half, as an elaborate incompletion.

    On one level, the case is a simple criminal trial in Florida. On another level, it is universal warning. Racism is not only afoot, it is armed and claiming ground lost in recent decades. This affects not only Black America but Blacks everywhere. Zimmerman shot Travyon because the boy decided to be his own person and stand his ground. This is a metaphor with larger political and economic significance. As they strive to define themselves and stand their ground, Black people and nations will be accosted. The very prejudice that excused Zimmerman’s behavior now fuels increasingly overbearing and paternalistic Western economic and political policies toward Africa. Leaders of those African nations that tow the line, doing sheepishly as instructed, will get a pat on the head. Their people, however, will be asked to sup on the ash and dust of their poverty. Those people and nations that seek to stand will have a tough time of it. Yet, dignity and justice are worth the fight. In the years to come, we shall see of what material we are made. We shall see if we lower our heads and bury our dignity because we eschew the fight. Or will we have the courage of that solitary teenager who stood his ground because he had done nothing wrong except seek to find his way home.

     

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  • Race on trial in america

    Race on trial in america

    To be a black man is to eat the daily bread of injustice

    To some, the epigram above would seem from a bygone era. After all, the White House is occupied by a Black man twice voted into office. His election surely was no accident. Racial progress has been made on some levels. However, the mean past dies hard because the ills of the future always try to rescue it.

    What we thought was a monumental breakthrough has cheapened into a poor lithograph of what could have been; President Obama’s ascendance has been reduced to an image of an image, a compound mirage. At best, it serves as a weak foretaste of something more substantial to come. At worst and more likely, it herald the advent of a cold, calculating and compromised black leadership class: A leadership that devotes itself more to its own position and maintenance than the welfare of those upon whose backs it climbed to get into the leadership position. We are witnessing the birth of a new Black American leadership – one from the people but not of or for them.

    After President Obama there shall come a long procession of black-skinned Wall Street proxies and hirelings like photogenic, articulate Newark Mayor Cory Booker who is preparing to contest for Governor of the New Jersey in the near term and has trained his farther sights on national office. Unlike the progressive Black politicians of yesterday, this man has been and will be bankrolled by the biggest financial houses and the deepest pockets America has to offer. He will receive this tainted largesse because the policies he advocates are a smooth elixir to the well-heeled but a mean tonic to the poor and broken. Yet, he will tell the people that he is doing all that can be done. Any other alternative would be too radical and unreasonable to consider. It will be a lie but Black people will believe him because he looks like them and because they figure he must be great because he has managed to get big money on his side. In their analysis, they will be partial correct and only in a superficial manner. He looks like them. However, it is not that he is great enough to have convinced Wall Street to be at his side. The truth is that he has been cunning enough to go the side of Wall Street.

    With the future looming as dank as the past, Black people are trapped between the tide and backwash of a national history that refuses them respite. Forget the relatively small corps of entertainment and sports figures who have attained affluence. In the antebellum period, a few blacks were slaveholders, some of them viciously so. They were the nadir of social derangement, the perverse quiddity of a racism that ultimately makes a man make a slave of himself. There are few evils greater than this.

    A subtler yet dangerous evil tracks modern Black America. Four decades of minute accumulation of average Black household wealth has totally dissipated since 2008. The drainage has yet to cease. Black children in parts of the rural South are so ravaged and impoverished that European humanitarian nongovernmental organizations have been plying these straitened communities with the same type of assistance normally reserved for Africa or Haiti.

    Joblessness and underemployment touch close to one in three Black men. More likely a Black man will see the inside of a jail or prison than that of a university classroom, unless he is fortunate enough to be employed to provide janitorial or other menial services to the learned institution. Black America suffers higher rates of almost every disease with its causality primarily linked to a person’s living environment or diet. Violence has become one of the ghettoes leading forms of recreation. Our people kill each other at a higher rate because we place little value on our own lives, as only a degraded people do. The rich and powerful despise the sight of the poor and the wretched, but they rarely hate themselves. It is only the poor and degraded who compound their misery by despising themselves in the same way that others despise them.

    To add injury to prior insult and injury, instances of racial violence and discrimination seem to be waxing.

    A bright light in the Black community has been the Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU’s). These schools have been outlets for higher education for a Black community starved of learning and immersed in the ignorance that accompanies political and economic powerlessness. Without these schools, the malaise in Black education would have flared into utter catastrophe. If these largely government-funded institutions are shuttered, the number of Black youth attaining tertiary education will dwindle significantly.

    As a candidate, then Senator Barack Obama spoke to audiences at HBCUs extolling their work and vital service to a struggling community. He positioned himself as a staunch champion of their cause, promising their endangered status would change under his presidency. For years, there has been a slow erosion of government funding for these institutions. Some smaller, financially weaker schools have already receded into the pages of history. Many others are on the chopping block, and with them the hopes and aspirations of thousand of Black students for higher education and a better life. Given the disheveled condition of the Black community, if there were a time to give the HBCUs a vitamin boost, it is now. Instead, the leeches have been liberally applied and bloodletting has proceeded apace.

    Under President Bush and Republican-controlled state governments, HBCUs had been a favorite target for budget cuts. It was hoped President Obama would change this. He did: he made things worse. A slow draining under the Bush Administration has become a geyser under President Obama. While talking sweetly to HBCU officials in their private meetings, the Obama Administration has presided over HBCU budget cuts and other measures clipping 300 million dollars in funding in the past two years.

    This stands as perhaps the most severe diminution HBCUs have experienced within any comparable timeframe. While trying to maintain their composure because they still believe it is out of school to publicly criticize the first Black President, the leaders of HBCUs privately scream betrayal. Like the community at large, they have found out the good fellow in the White House is a man who is Black but is not really a Black man. Thus, he sides with the Republican conservatives in choking this important asset to the Black community. For conservative racists, this is a symbolic but relatively small victory that will not ingratiate the President to them. For the Black community, it is strangling defeat that will render cinereous the educational aspirations of many Black youths.

    The teenage Trayvon Martin might have been fortunate enough to have been included in that shrinking number of Black male university students. Unfortunately, he was killed by George Zimmerman in February 2012. Charged with second-degree murder, Zimmerman recently stood trial in Florida. Zimmerman pled he shot the lanky teenager in self-defense, allegedly fearing the boy would beat him to death with his bare hands.

    The trial has ended; a jury now deliberates the matter. Zimmerman will likely receive a lesser sentence of manslaughter in the end. In some ways, this might be considered justice. A few decades ago, Zimmerman would not have been tried and, if tried, would have likely have been acquitted. As with most things American, race factors into this case. At first, the police did not arrest or charge Zimmerman with a crime although he had killed an unarmed teenager. They let him go quietly home and would have left him there. Only after the public outcry of the Black community, did the justice system move to provide a semblance of justice by charging the man with a crime. Had a Black man shot an unarmed White teenager in similar circumstances, that man would have instantly been arrested and charged with heinous murder.

    We shall never know all that transpired on that evening sidewalk in Sanford, Florida. Only two people know what occurred. One of them is died and the other has a vested interest in a rendition of events that depict him as the victim. Zimmerman’s version is what the mainstream wants people to believe. In America, an unarmed Black male can be fatally shot yet the common perception is that he was at fault. In killing a Black male, a White shooter is presumed the victim and presumed to have been under threat by reason of decedent’s color.

    What we know about the case is Martin was walking home after going to a local store to purchase snacks. Carrying a bag of candy in one hand and soft drink in the other, he strolled home. An unofficial neighborhood crime watch volunteer, Zimmerman somehow considered Martin suspicious but never could articulate why he assumed the teenager was a threat. Against the instructions of a police department operator with whom he had communicated, the armed Zimmerman left his car to follow Martin on foot.

    A confrontation ensued. When it ended, Martin was on the ground, dead from a fatal gunshot at close quarters. The stocky Zimmerman had a few superficial lacerations on the back of his head and a swollen perhaps broken nose. Zimmerman’s excuse was that he shot Martin because he feared the boy might beat him to death.

    Under the Florida law of self defense, a person does not have to attempt to flee before using lethal force it that person was under a reasonable apprehension of fear of death or grievous bodily harm from an assailant. Thus, Zimmerman claimed he had killed in justifiable self defense.

    The claim is ludicrous in two parts. First, Martin was traipsing homeward with snacks in both hands and talking on the phone to a friend. This hardly fits the aspect of a criminal on the make, let alone someone intent on attacking a burly man like Zimmerman for no reason. Moreover, Zimmerman had pursued Martin. Without Zimmerman stalking the boy, the fatal exchange would have happened. If anything Zimmerman was the aggressor, not Martin. If Zimmerman aggressed then self defense should be unavailing and Zimmerman should face prison.

    Second, Martin had no special martial arts skills that would have turned his hands into lethal weapons. He was a lanky teenager that is all. Rarely do we hear of a teenager bare-handedly beating someone to death because such a thing rarely happens. For Zimmerman to claim he was in fear of his life because he received a few punches from a teenager does not jibe with normal human experience. If Zimmerman’s position becomes the standard, then every schoolyard skirmish is now a life and death situation where a teenager is legally within his write to shoot dead his rival classmate. Of course, this would be tragic and silly. However, it would be the inevitable fallout of a verdict confirming Zimmerman’s theory of defense.

    Additionally, Zimmerman claimed Martin severely bashed his head multiple times against the sidewalk. However, the medical testimony showed the head wounds to be superficial at worst. The wounds were inconsistent with Zimmerman’s testimony of severe bashing. None of the wounds rose to the level where one should fear for his life or be in apprehension of severe injury.

    In a pretrial statement, Zimmerman disclaimed knowledge of Florida’s self-defense law. However, it was uncovered that the man pined to be a police officer to the extent of taking criminal justice courses at a local community college. The course instructor testified self defense was a major component of the course and that Zimmerman was one of his best students. Zimmerman lied when he feigned ignorance of the law, perhaps for good reason: to save his hide. Knowing he had killed the only other witness, Zimmerman could well have fashioned a tale he knew would accord with the provisions of the state’s self defense law.

    There were other lapses in Zimmerman’s account. In pre-trial statements, he said Martin grabbed Zimmerman’s gun. However, there were no fingerprints or DNA attributed to Martin on the weapon. Also it seems unlikely that Martin was straddling Zimmerman and pounding Zimmerman as claimed yet still allowed the man to reach to his waist, extract then gun and then get off a clean, deadly shot at such a close range that the heated muzzle of the fired weapon singed Martin’s clothes. If Martin had established such physical dominance over Zimmerman when matters were at the level of fisticuffs why would Martin suddenly become lax and give Zimmerman wide quarter when the man had a gun in hand?

    The trial will send a powerfully wrong signal should Zimmerman walk free. The trial will become a standard for the crafty and the criminal genius. The plea of self defense will be a strong, available cloak whenever a person is sufficiently cunning to lure their victim to an isolated placed occupied solely by the two of them. Once the victim is done in, the killer may contrive any tale that suits him so long as it fits within the contours of the self-defense law. This controversial law will become a legal invitation for premeditated murder. Be assured, a disproportionately large percentage of Black males will be the victims.

    Fearing possible race riots in some Florida cities once the verdict is reached, local authorities have their police forces on high alert. The more time changes the more it goes backward. In 1980, parts of Miami Florida went aflame as the Black community combusted after several policemen were acquitted in the homicide of a Black motorcyclist. The motorcyclist had led the police on a chase through the city before surrendering. The man died of multiple skull fractures after the apprehending white police officers pummeled him multiple times with nightsticks and flashlights through he offered no resistance.

    2013 is still 1980 in some ways. A racially-charged court case is in hand. Again, the dead Black male appears to have been dealt a punishment much more terrible than anything he might have done. Unlike the fearful local authorities, I doubt the Black community will erupt if Zimmerman is exonerated. The Black community has lost its spirit and drive in many ways. There is little fight left in the community except for its people to fight among themselves.

    In the end, this case is a human and social tragedy. Zimmerman thought the boy suspicious for one reason only. Martin was Black. Thus, Martin died because of his skin color. For many Whites in America, this is enough of a defense to set Zimmerman free, no real questions asked. Thus, they feel Zimmerman is being persecuted. The case serves to remind Blacks that in America, the self proclaimed land of the free and home of the brave, they are not as free as their white counterparts but that they must act braver because the legal system and society deems them culpable even when the wrongdoing is perpetrated against them. The current paucity in Black leadership means injustice will grow. In America, to be Black is still to be blamed.

     

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  • Two men of Africa

    Two men of Africa

    Heroes come too rarely yet pass so quickly

    If only the plow fields of human endeavor obeyed the rules governing physical objects. The sun rises and sets. Day turns to night to return to day once more. We literally set our clocks by this constant rhythm. Such is not the case in the affairs of man. The passage of a person of greatness does not guarantee another shall rise in his stead. The only certainty accompanying the passage man is that the man shall be forever gone. Who may fill the vacuum is a matter of hope and conjecture, not of certitude. Sometimes light is replaced by light, sometime by darkness. Sometimes it is replaced by nothing at all.

    Nelson Mandela lies in the hospital. He has been in this position many times in recent years. Although eventually discharged, each convalescence weakened him, meaning the next visit would come quicker than the one it followed. Slowly, the decline has brought us to the current point. This time something seems different. Something funereal lingers.

    The media pictures the situation as Mandela clinging to life. This is false. It is not Mandela holding to life. It is us desperately clinging to Mandela. We refuse to let him go. We are too frightened to allow him to be mortal even at this frail point in his life. We have turned him into a monument and seek to once more confine him in this edifice we have created of him. He is more legend than human; we subconsciously hope the greatness of his past will somehow redeem our future missteps.

    Debate whether the family should allow him to pass quietly or deploy the finest medical practitioners to keep him alive, even in a reduced state, misses the point. You don’t allow this rare individual to pass quietly into history. The family is emotionally and morally obligated to fight like soldiers to keep him with us as long as possible. As painful as this slow walk to the exit may seem, they have no other alternative. They must fight for him as he had fought for all of us. To some, this struggle is futile because no one cheats Death. Yet, for that very reason they must struggle against the impossible. In so doing, they give a fitting tribute to their beloved.

    No public figure in the past fifty years has ever personified the best aspirations of a nation and mankind than Mandela. Usually, when the world proclaims a man “the father of his nation,” we sheepishly glance about because we the statement to be hyperbole. When that term is applied to Mandela, it is not an exaggeration. It is an understatement.

    History records that Nelson Mandela became president of the South Africa on 1994. This is factually true but inaccurate. In a more profound way, Madiba was destined to become president of non-apartheid, democratic South Africa the moment he was sentenced to Robben Island. On that isolated rock, Mandela found his better self. Thrust into a predicament that would have embittered most personalities and warped many minds, Mandela managed to groom himself for the great task at hand. He is that rare figure who can have a daily encounter with inhumanity yet emerge the better for it.

    His foes sent Mandela to prison so that they might be rid of him. Instead, they had enrolled him in a unique school of governance and tolerance. Being that school’s valedictorian, Mandela would be the only plausible choice to lead South Africa from a cruel, rigid night into a hopeful but uncertain dawn. As such, his captives were more complicit in dismantling their racist state than they care to admit. Time and time again, upon the submerged stones of condign irony, human progress traverses the waters and tides of backwardness to reach a safer place on a more placid shore.

    Not since President Lincoln steered America through its moment of truth, the Civil War, has a single person carried a nation on his back as had Nelson Mandela when he ferried South Africa from racial cataclysm to a better, if still imperfect, future. For America, an assassin’s bullet took Lincoln from the scene as the nation turned from war to the tasks of reconciliation and reconstruction. Because of Lincoln’s absence, reconstruction did not take place as it should have. After Lincoln’s interment, no hero arose to continue in his footsteps. At a critical juncture, the nation was placed in the custody of leaders of lesser mettle and more selfish interests. Post-war reconstruction and the integration of former slaves into society were impaired. It took another century of pain and struggle for Blacks to attain a status unfettered by legalized racial discrimination.

    Mandela’s historic task was as steep as Lincoln’s, in some ways similar, in some ways different. The latter had to prevent a divided nation from splintering apart over the issue of race. He had to begin integrating the newly freed minority into a wounded but healing nation. On the other hand, Mandela had to keep a tense nation from sliding into violent insurrection. Presiding over the transfer of political power from a brutal minority regime, he had to assure this powerful minority that its legitimate interests would be protected. He also had to assure the suppressed majority that a new reality had truly been set forth. Yet he asked this majority to exercise patience in not pressing too hard, too fast for radical socio-economic change.

    His primary task was to keep intact the new architecture of power. He had to prove Black leadership was sufficiently disciplined and sane to effectively govern the nation without grounding its relatively sophisticated, if grossly unequal, political economy. Keeping the nation intact and creating a political culture of tolerance and compromise are the obelisks marking the accomplishments of this man.

    It would have been too much to ask even this remarkable man to have overseen the needed reconfiguration of South Africa’s political economy. The black majority still wallows in depravation and cut itself on poverty. Many townships are nothing but aliases for ghettoes; they teem with the young, wretched and disenfranchised. If the current situation persists, the previous racial apartheid will transform into a socio-economic apartheid, pitting white and black elites against the pedestrian bulk. On the surface, things have changed because racial discrimination has been restrained. However, it will still be apartheid. As such, it will blight the nation and the people will eventually reject its imposition. Whether this is done with reason and in peace or with the rush and sweep of a violent, desperate hand depends on the political leadership. Thus far, those who have come after Mandela look much smaller than the work fate has given them.

    To his credit, Mandel laid the foundation for this difficult work. The impending tragedy of South Africa is that it was not Mandela’s historic mission to do this work yet he might be the only one at present who could. This is one reason the people cling to his life as if it is their own. While the reformative task is rarely discussed in public because it disturbs the myth of racial harmony, most South Africans realize they must soon confront this truth lest it confront them at a moment and in conditions less benign than what now exist.

    However, they are unsure they can do the difficult job in a way that will not undo the good work already achieved. They hold to Mandela in the futile hope that as long as he lives, things can remain peacefully as they are. As long as he is here, they feel the nation will not have to confront this historic imperative or that somehow he will guide them pass the rough thicket as he has done before. One cannot blame them for this belief. Any people in their position would reason the same way even if it amounts to reasoning against reason itself.

    Against this backdrop, President Obama begins his visit to three African nations. That President Obama, America’s first Black president, now visits South Africa as its first Black president begins to fade is a poignant moment. Some hope it is more than coincidence. Like the physical world’s abhorrence of a vacuum, somehow Mandela may pass the mantle of greatness to Obama. This would be nice for it has the ingredients of epic legend. Even though their precise histories and cultures differ greatly, the two nations are kindred in that both grappled with long-standing white-against-black legalized discrimination.

    In becoming the first Black American president, Obama’s rise was more meteoric and much less taxing than what Mandela endured. Compared to Mandela harsh odyssey, Obama waltzed into the White House. Yet, in some ways, Obama’s task was tougher. He was a minority candidate in a nation where the majority still gazes in suspicion at dark skin. In the end, Mandela had numbers supporting him. Obama had good fortune and the political dexterity of a masterful campaigner. Yet, campaigning is different than governance. Excellent campaigning elevates a man to a position of responsibility. Ability, character and statesmanship will determine whether he becomes a hero or a cipher.

    As Africa prepares itself for the departure of a genuine hero, it welcomes a Black leader who must decide whether he works for posterity or for the interests of the powerful. At the beginning of his presidency, I predicted President Obama would change American policy toward Africa, giving it a more enlightened hue. I was half right. He changed American policy. It got smaller, except for the one aspect that did not need to expand. America’s military presence in Africa has grown under this President while its humanitarian and diplomatic engagement has atrophied.

    His approach to Africa does not suffer an intellectual deficient. His problem remains psychological. Toward all things Black, he maintains a public indifference. That he is Black is no secret. It is part of his calling card and appeal. Yet, because he recoils from the thought of being accused of racial favoritism by conservative political elements in America, he purposely shortchanges those who support him the most. It is a strange phenomenon. In his defense, some will say he copies Mandela by assuring American Whites a Black man can manage the nation efficiently. Superficially, there is similarity but the vast differences of both nations make the comparison a thin one. In South Africa, the bulk of the political system was given in one fell swoop to a Black majority. The question then became would the majority push their once brutal overlords into the sea in an eruption of harsh justice and retribution. Mandela answered “no.” The masses endorsed him.

    With decent future leadership, he knew demographics favored the people over the long term. He did not need to push things. Time and prudence would do what political rashness could not.

    Obama is still a minority political figure. Although President, he does not control the political system. It controls him. Black Americans are as peripheral as ever; their plight worsens by the year. Time works against them. There is no real possibility of them supplanting the preferred position of the White population. Black America does not need time. It needs emergency help of the fist order. Those Whites who warn of a Black uprising know their warning to be counterfeit. Their reward is notoriety, and access to that ready and large constituency of racists. These antics fit into the tradition of America’s racial politics. They are also intended to frighten Obama. Thus far, they have been more successful at scaring the man than progressives, black and white, have been in emboldening him.

    As America’s first Black president, Obama has to be concerned with the dynamics of stupid racism; however, he errors in elevating those dynamics to the position of high policy. These are base sentiments that he must treat as real but also as the base things they are. In effect, he must seek a better balance between assuaging the unfounded but deep fears of racism with meeting the legitimate, suppressed aspirations of minority America and with Africa.

    He did not strike this balance in this current Africa trip. The visit has a travelogue quality about it. He is not visiting Africa as a policy imperative as much as he is going to popular tourist destinations.

    Had he wanted a truly landmark Africa visit ushering in a breakthrough American policy, there are other nations he could have visited. Libya was not on the itinerary. America warred to oust the strongman, claiming the fight was to liberate the people. Now, the place is a maelstrom. Democracy and prosperity are not readily had. It seems western concern stopped at removing Qaddafi and has not continued toward the welfare of the people. Day by day, more Libyans reminisce about Qaddafi. If things continue as they are, some people will disinter the man’s bones, figuring his ghost will be a better leader than the current group hoisted upon them.

    The President could have focused on the Congo. This nation is vital to the true development of the continent. But many interests converge to keep it the prostrate, sick man of Africa. UN military deployments in the country are too small to end the anomie. Congo’s smaller neighbors are close American allies. These nations fear becoming Congo’s satellites should the nation rise from the pit. Thus, they keep it submerged. To control this large nation, they must keep it poor and fractured. In exchange for maintaining this negative political power, these American allies forfeit the economic well-being of the entire region.

    Without the Congo as the driving force, the regional economy cannot grow beyond its smaller self. However, this does not stop these nations from conniving with western corporations to confiscate the Congo’s immense mineral wealth for a pittance, again leaving the nation poor and supine. Thus, the peace arrangement sponsored by America which effectively leaves these neighbors in control of the eastern Congo’s fate is artifice. They will continue to bleed the nation. Still, what is good for these smaller states is inimical for Africa as a whole.

    Due to the lack of courage and statesmanship, the smaller game takes precedent over the large objective. President Obama also could have visited the continent’s most populous nation, Nigeria, with its myriad potential and challenges. But the nation is too complex for the superficiality that describes this tour.

    In the end, it is good President Obama came to Africa at this time when all eyes are focused South Africa and its father, Nelson Mandela. Somewhere deep in his soul there must part of this son of Africa that would like to learn the deeper lessons of Mandela’s greatness and not just finish his presidency as an establishment, mainstream American politician in chocolate face. The great gift of Mandela was to convince the majority not to exert itself against a minority that had wronged it. Will Obama attempt to convince the American majority to treat more equitably the minority it has aggrieved? Will he actually lead the western world to give a better economic deal to the African continent the West has brusquely exploited? If he can muster the courage, he may still be the hero all hoped for. If not, then we must hang on to Mandela as long as possible because we will surely miss him when his time to depart eventually falls due.

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  • May the protests continue

    The rich man’s power lies in his secure, vaulted places. The poor man’s power is the street

     

    Before delving into the meat of this article, the Syrian tragedy demands attention. The United States recently joined Europe in publicly stating it would funnel weapons and other war materiel to the fractious rebel coalition. The move was taken because Assad’s forces allegedly had used chemical weapons. This was pretext. In reality, the initiative came because Assad had gained a significant battlefield advantage. Obviously the Syrian rebels could not halt Assad’s ascendance themselves. For the past year, Western nations have secretly aided and equipped the rebels. This level of lethal clandestine help from America and others has become insufficient due to the enhanced Iranian, Iraqi and Hezbollah martial subvention given Assad’s government.

    In a sense, President Obama deserves pity. Publicly, he confidently enounced the geo-political sagacity and moral rectitude of the new policy. Outside the public’s gaze, he must have been hauled toward this decision kicking and screaming.

    The US government ‘finding” of Syrian government use of chemical weapons is suspect. In early May, the UN’s lead investigator in Syria concluded the rebels had deployed the lethal chemical weapon, sarin. She found no evidence of regime use. The US quickly repudiated the report. We now know why.

    The facts uncovered by the UN inquiry do not fit the tale America wants to construct. For America, Assad must be seen as incarnadine evil and the rebels as freedom fighters of the noblest order. Facts contrasting this depiction are tossed aside. Again, American policy is based on a simplistic caricature of a complex, nuanced reality. Again, American arrogance has decided on a course of action before assessing if the facts warrant that action. Once the decision is had, facts become secondary. They are manipulated to support a conclusion that has been reached without their assistance.

    That Assad would order the small-scale deployment of chemical weapons is the masthead of illogic. With the battlefield tilting in his favor, the man had nothing to gain from a tactical deployment of chemical weapons. A cunning survivalist like Assad would not risk such a strategic blunder to gain ephemeral advantage in a relatively minor skirmish. He would not take the gamble providing Western detractors a pretext to escalate their support for the flagging rebel groups. Assad had little to gain from such a noxious display yet much to lose.

    The rebels had much to gain and little to forfeit by spraying chemical weapons then planting the delinquency on Assad’s porch. Pinning the blame on Assad suited rebel interests because it would prompt American action. This may have been the rebel’s most effective military maneuver since gaining the upper hand in the battle of Homs several months ago. It appears that all remains fair in war – even the treachery of gassing one’s own supporters — in order to gain an advantage.

    After President Obama’s prior statement that the regime’s chemical weapons use would materially change American policy, that the regime would be found to have abused the dreadful instruments become inexorable.

    After the world discovered the Iraqi war was based on a falsehood, the American government pledged it would not repeat the mistake. Seems an arrogance of power makes for a porous memory. The same type of dubious intelligence has been contrived to support a foregone conclusion in Syria. After all, it seems odd the UN and US can have basically the same information yet reach opposite conclusions regarding chemical weapons usage.

    Powerful interests embedded in the American political and military establishment seek Assad’s ouster. If this means war or near-war, let the slings and arrows fly. He is marked for ouster and these powerful interests are accustomed to hitting their mark.

    Thus, American involvement in Syria will escalate. This means the war shall enter a more violent yet still inconclusive phase. Increased American aid will prevent the rebel’s possible collapse. However, additional weaponry will not decisively change the equation. It shall make for a more lethal stalemate since Assad’s sponsors will respond in kind. The military battle cannot be won until the sponsors of one side cave or, conversely, give such massive, unmatched assistance that the other side’s sponsors find it too costly to compete further. America is the only military capable of lending such unparalleled support.

    President Obama’s announcement is a mistake albeit not of the magnitude of his predecessor’s fabrication of an entire war. America did not author the Syrian civil war. Assad penned this war with his unique script of injustice and suppression. However, America now may stoke the conflict beyond present dimensions. War hawks in America will become frustrated that increased weapons assistance has done little except birth a more violent standoff. They will pressure the President to escalate American involvement.

    Talk of no-fly zones, bombing and aerial support will dominate the policy discourse. In fact, there will be no genuine policy debate. The policy has already been determined by vested interests more permanently ensconced and influential in how the machinery of government grinds than is the current occupant of the White House. The American war factory will increase its assistance to the rebels because that is the nature of war machines. This tragedy will occur without an objective assay of America’s strategic interests or of the risks in catapulting Syria into a bleak unknown. It seems war, too, has reasons that reason shall never know.

    This escalation shall sadly bear President Obama’s name although he reluctantly heads the procession towards war. He may be the head but he is not the lead. Time and time again, to prove he is not effete, he has given the war hawks too much leeway. They have repaid him by cajoling him toward imprudent action. This time, his unwillingness to hold the war factory in check may well cost him and his nation a price heavier than he is wont to pay.

    Today, he gives increased aid to an unruly unreliable agglomeration in an obvious swamp of a martial emprise. Tomorrow, he will be pressured to send American planes into the Syrian airspace to make the battlefield safe for the rebels and rescue American prestige from stagnant misadventure. By his decision, the world moves one fateful step closer to heavy war in a strategic nation where both contestants enjoy support from rival great powers. This may be a short walk to disaster. The recent G-8 meeting concluded these great powers shall work to resolve the crisis. However, the internal politics of these nations augur against such cooperation. The cloud of war stands over Syria. Mars, the god of battle and prince of bloodlust, smiles as he polishes the instruments of war, hoping they shall soon be used in a massive eruption of destruction and death.

    While governments make fools of themselves in Syria, populations across the world are tiring of being fooled by their governments.

    Protests abound in many nations. People take to the streets demanding redress from insensitive governments. Too many people suffer the weight and woe of economic inequality. Social services have been abolished so conservative governments may shift their fiscal deficits to deficits in the life the humble shall live. Wages are cut so the profiteer can achieve his thumping desire of seizing the fat and meat of the land. Jobs that should be had are now lost. Homes that should be places of light and the laughter of happy children and glad parents, are dark and vacant.

    Hope may not be scattered to the four winds but it has been evicted from its dwelling place. When a man and his dreams have been rendered homeless, he has little alternative but to take to the streets. As people realise, when their government professes “to serve” them, that the government actually uses the term in the same manner one does to say the chef has served the roasted lamb. The people are not the ones government calls to dine; they are the dish government gives the privileged to dine upon. The poor and weak are not the guests; they are the meal. Upon realising government has travestied democracy and betrayed their sacred trust, people have a choice. Most accept the sorted deal the strong arm of government thrusts at them. A growing minority has found that their feet may be their most effective voice. They have taken to the streets, marching in protest against arrogant, indifferent government. The people seek to turn the table by giving back to government much of the discomfort government has given them.

    Brazil has been wracked by an entire week of protests. Over one million people have participated. The protests were sparked when an insensitive government increased bus fares by nine percent, in part to fund World Cup construction overruns. Although government rescinded the fare increase, people remain in the streets. They like the taste of protest because they distaste the trajectory of their lives. The fare increase was but a fuse, not the incendiary. The real incendiary was the life struggle too many Brazilians face.

    Corporate media paints an impressive tableau of the Brazilian economic miracle. Denizens of the favelas say they have yet to see, much less experience, such a thing. Thus, they have taken to the streets in search of it. The protests’ intensity belies the myth of a carefree, happy folk. Yes, Brazilians love samba music; their festivities are second to none. But they are people still. It is a rare thing to secure happiness on an empty stomach. Such a thing may be paradise for an ascetic but is hellish for the rest of humankind. Brazilians still need to eat, send their children to school and buy grandma’s medicines so that she may survive, at least, one more day.

    The protesters now assail the decision to host the World Cup. For a nation with a large segment of its population gripped by poverty, hosting such a thing is a false monument of national progress that says “tudo bem” (everything is well) when everything is far from well. Hosting the World Cup amidst biting penury is a costly lark by a political elite too confident in its own power and riches. Estranged from the suffering of the many, this elite has become careless in its treatment of the working class backbone and the lumpen periphery that are the genuine Brazil.

    As much as the common people love football, they would rather the funds be spent on more milk, food, medicine, housing and education, not on stadia and venues only the moneyed can enjoy. The Brazilians have seen what the World Cup did for poor South Africans; Nothing. It lifted their hopes only to crash them in burnt disappointment. For the common South African, the games were an expensive narcotic. The high was costly but transient. The hangover was more permanent. When they awoke from the high, the people discovered they were no better situated than before. The poor can’t afford to pay such a stiff price for a momentary flutter of pride. Average Brazilians know this and many want no part of the foul procession. While the World Cup will hold, it will not do so as an unfettered party. By embarking on this immense frivolity, the Brazilian government inadvertently placed itself on trial. May the protests continue until government acquits itself by returning to working for the people instead of for itself.

    In Ethiopia, thousands recently protested political oppression and the massive displacement of farmers and whole populations by government allied with global agro-business. This took courage. Government in Addis Ababa traditionally has little patience with dissent. It usually descends on protests will the subtlety of a boulder. Perhaps the demise of brilliant but megalomaniacal late president Meles has allowed a crack of freedom in an otherwise stifled political space. Hopefully, the people will have the courage to continue protesting so that they may stake claim to a new democracy in this ancient land. If not, the ancient land will return to something resembling a more medieval structure of society and the repression inherent in such an old political edifice.

    In America, hundreds of Blacks protested before the White House. Slowly, Blacks are recognising they have given the tenant in that House their all while he has given them the shaft. Most observers have concluded President Obama’s Africa policy is weaker than his predecessors. To a large degree, his domestic policy suffers like affliction. Black America is in a worsened state than when the President took office. He has not lifted a finger to stem the hemorrhaging. His special gift to the Black community has been a series of public speeches haranguing them to depart from their stereotypic lethargy and expostulating that they should not expect any special help even if the economic ground is being swept from under them.

    Although it embraced him with a love transcending into adoration, he has turned a cold shoulder to the Black community. The forces of poverty and racism converge on that community to buffet it in manifest ways. Unless something is done, the Black community will plummet into a condition not experienced since the advent of the Civil Rights Movement in the late 1950s. That this decline accelerates under the watch of the first Black president seems an irony of history. The more the policies and psychology of this administration are weighed, however, the more it seems that things have taken this malign shape by sinister design. As with the military on the war front, the President appears to be enthralled to indifferent, if not regressive, forces regarding domestic policy and its relationship to the Black community. Thus, may the protest grow larger and more potent.

    In conclusion, almost imperceptibly people around the world are realising their governments have strayed too far from their stated purpose. Perhaps the most important protest was the Iranian presidential election. This time, authorities respected the ballot. If they manipulated the result, the authorities knew they could face with a massive protest crippling the regime. They did not want the Arab Spring to migrate into a Persian Summer. Faced with the reality of people power, those in formal authority bowed to the potential of the street and the common person. The West will view this as a sign that Iranians seek general rapprochement and a specific deal on the nuclear faceoff. The West reads too much of its interests into this essentially internal affair. The people voted in this manner because they want a government more responsive to their daily needs.

    The forces of arrogant, mindless conservatism hold sway over too many capitals and nations. This has caused us to live in a world of weakening democracy and growing inequality. These and other protests show people see the challenge and threat before them. Some know action must be taken lest the world fall into an era of where plutocracy, war and inequality rule and the common person becomes uncommonly destitute and bedraggled. Human progress has been won at too high a price for the world to slip back into the bog. May the protests continue.

     

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