A challenging view of US elections
and what Bangladesh could learn
by Hasan Ali Imam
A FEW weeks after Barack Obama’s victory, I thought it apt to put forward my view about the US elections as the euphoria subsides. I must be in a small minority who had supported McCain-Palin from afar considering that the British and Bangladeshi politicians and media were largely in favour of Barack Obama. The Republicans had my moral support as they are the sister counterparts of the UK Conservative Party, to which I belong.
Waking up to a nightmare on Guy Fawkes Day
I woke up to my nightmare. I learnt the results of the US elections in the early hours of Guy Fawkes Day (UK time), the very day when Guy Fawkes and his accomplices plotted to blow up parliament 400 years ago. Guy Fawkes certainly would have cringed at the thought of people celebrating the choice they made to elect their first black president 400 years later through the very system which he tried to destroy.
Guy Fawkes’s effigies are burned on November 5 every year on a bonfire to remind us of the plot to destroy the mother of all parliaments. But in the early hours of November 5, 2008, it seemed that the symbolic elephant of the Republican Party was burning on top of the bonfire.
Republican strategists will debate, for years to come, what could have been done differently. But the world’s focus is now on Obama’s magnanimous victory and the opening of a new chapter in American history.
Is Obama’s victory historical?
History was apparently made when America elected its first black president. The euphoria was electric and indeed history was in the making. From a personal standpoint I believe Barack Obama is one of the most powerful orators I have ever heard and possesses elements of gravitas and suave that would attract any crowd. It seemed that the long hard struggle of the African-American community finally ended when Obama was elected president.
The US, UK and Bangladeshi media have painted the result as an historical event. I believe that this new history started before the election of Barack Obama. People seem to have forgotten that two influential African-Americans had already attained the highest levels of office under George W. Bush. Condoleezza Rice and Colin Powell both became secretaries of state, where they were in positions of considerable influence advising the president and they got to that stage not because of their colour but because of their abilities. Rice and Powell had already proven that there were no glass ceilings in the first place. But these historical events seemed to have been missed by the pages of this new history book. Why is that? I believe it is because of the fact that Conservatives/Republicans do not boast about the issues of race, they just select the best people for the job and get on with it. That’s the way it should be.
Race, politics and King
For me the 2008 US election was one of the most exciting elections I had witnessed since the contest between Al Gore and George Bush in 2000. The media made great play of the race issue and the implications for America, should a black president get elected. However, I am always suspicious about the politics of race and I was concerned about the overt focus on the race issue at this election.
Maybe a thought experiment may help you to understand my point. Imagine a voter voting for McCain because he is white and not vote for Obama because he is black. Would this be construed to be racist? Yes. Now imagine the same voter who votes for Obama because he is black and not vote for McCain because he is white. Is this racist? If it isn’t racist then what is it? American voters had more sense than to focus on the race issue alone and I am sure they looked at other characteristics such as leadership, influence, presentation and vision… all of which Obama possesses.
Let me now take you back to 1963 at the Lincoln Memorial. There, Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his historic ‘I have a dream’ speech. I regard King as the most influential visionary of the 20th century and Obama is very close behind. One part of King’s speech rings true today as it did 45 years ago. He said: ‘I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the colour of their skin but by the content of their character.’
This is true equality. King would have been proud of the election of Barack Obama and his dream would be partly realised. I say ‘partly’ because judging by the reaction to the election results, the US has some way to go before fully realising King’s vision of judging people by the content of their character and not by the colour of their skin.
Furthermore, ethnic ‘minorities’ should not regard themselves as minorities, be they Afro-Caribbeans in the US, Asians in the UK or the Hindu community in Bangladesh. If they are citizens of the particular country they reside in then they are a part of the majority, i.e. equal citizens. Furthermore, there is no such thing as a glass ceiling, only limitations that we place in our minds. At least America is half way there now in realising Martin Luther King’s dream. The rest of the world needs to follow suit.
Gender, politics and Clinton
The arguments I raised above about race can also be equally raised about gender. During the Democrat primaries, Hilary Clinton played the gender card in order to attract female voters with the message that having the first female president would be a major step forward in realising the goals of women. This was one of her key selling points against Obama. The gender card was played skilfully by Clinton and she attracted the votes of 18 million women.
When the devastating news came that Obama had beaten her, the reaction from women Clinton supporters was that of disbelief and sadness. When I watched some of these Clinton supporters cry, I felt that the gender issue had gone too far. Was it really the end of the world for the women Democrats that Clinton lost the primaries? Isn’t Barack Obama equally capable of representing women and men just as he is capable of representing white voters and black voters? These are the dangers of playing the gender and race cards, they steer voters towards divisiveness.
Here is the million dollar question: Did Hilary Clinton really believe in the importance of women in high office? The acid test was the selection of Sarah Palin as John McCain’s vice-presidential running mate. Here you have the governor of Alaska who would have been vice-president if John McCain had won. Here was a chance now for Clinton to encourage her 18 million women supporters to vote for the Republicans and help Palin to reach the second highest office in the land. But Clinton opted to support Barack Obama.
So there you have it. The gender card was played out when it was in Hilary Clinton’s favour, but when the real opportunity came for her to support a female vice-presidential candidate, the sisterhood had mysteriously disappeared. Women and ethnic communities must refuse to be pawns in a game of divisiveness and political manoeuvring.
John McCain – an American hero
Whilst the whole world is focused on Obama’s victory, it is easy to forget the great American hero that is in John McCain. McCain had been through challenging times in his past when he was a prisoner of war in Vietnam. He was truly tested and he came through as an American hero. My other favourite quote from Martin Luther King is as follows: ‘The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.’
A man who was able to risk his life to defend his country is able to lead it. King’s quote was applicable when John McCain was in prison and was also applicable when McCain learnt that he had been defeated by Obama, a challenging scenario to contend with. He was a true Republican because he put his country before his party by offering support to Barrack Obama and to work with him for the greater good. Republicans and Democrats can come together because what unites them as Americans is greater than what divides them as opposing political parties. We must hope and pray that this sense of unity can be displayed by politicians in Bangladesh.
Republicans should celebrate
McCain’s loss is a setback to the Republican Party, but as McCain himself said, there wasn’t anything more that Republicans could do to win. The election couldn’t have come at a worse time for the Republicans as they had to contend with the financial crisis which occurred under the Bush administration, and people were not willing to break the link between McCain and Bush.
However, Republicans can be content with the fact that they had two terms in office under President Bush and more importantly we need to take a lesson from history as well as creating new ones. The Republican presidency under Ronald Reagan had inherited a weak economy due to the stagnation of the 1970s, a weak military and sky-high interest rates of 21 per cent. Reagan pursued the correct policies in the 1980s of expanding free markets that heralded a boom in the US in the 1980s and Communism had collapsed. Republicans should never forget their role in ushering an era of prosperity under Reagan, which was then followed by George Bush Senior and Bill Clinton. The conservative principles of free markets, enterprise, low taxes, freedom and small government had also been pursued in the UK by the then prime minister, Margaret Thatcher, who transformed the British economy in the 1980s. These policies are now benefiting China and India by transforming the lives of poor people.
Although John McCain’s defeat was a setback but they are right to support Barack Obama in riding through the economic crisis. However, they should now set their eyes on 2012 to reclaim the Republican presidency. Meanwhile, Bangladesh is focusing on its own national elections in December 2008.
Bangladesh 2008 – election fever!
Bangladesh is due to hold its general elections this December. The Bangladeshi media had praised the conduct of the US presidential candidates, Barack Obama and John McCain. There has been an eagerness by the press, the editors and commentators in Bangladesh for its election process to be as fair as the US elections and for visionary leaders like Obama to emerge from the current political quagmire. I just wonder how many political leaders in Bangladesh will listen to their own people’s desires for change, reform and vision. How many Bangladeshi politicians have actually read the newspaper editorials or listened to the commentators who wish Bangladesh to draw lessons from the US elections? I think only a handful of these politicians have listened to them. And out of those who have listened, how many of them will actually make the necessary changes? Virtually zero. So what needs to happen to transform the desires of ordinary people into actionable outcomes through the political system? I don’t know the answer, but one thing I do know is that out of 140 million people it shouldn’t be difficult to find someone who has the charisma and the vision of Barack Obama. That person has yet to be identified. Unless this happens, what we will witness in December will be a repetition of previous farces and fiascos because politicians are not willing to change. An example would suffice.
One of the well-known Bangladeshi politicians (who I will not name) came to the UK and delivered a talk at my old university, London School of Economics, on the political situation in Bangladesh. One of the elements that had paralysed Bangladesh over the last decade had been fighting between political parties and within themselves. Ordinary people desire politicians of all persuasions would rise above partisanship and focus on national unity with the interests of people at heart. In my eagerness to find some common ground between the Bangladeshi political parties, I asked the politician the following question: ‘…Here in the UK there is room for robust political debate and there is also room for opposite parties to cooperate. Do you believe that there is room for you to work with your opposite party to solve the problems of poverty, lack of healthcare and terrorism?’
Her reply was that the opposite party were terrorists. Now I am all for short and succinct answers, but this was not what I was expecting. I must have been naïve to think that one could transplant Obama’s vision of a United America or McCain’s vision of Country First over to the Bangladeshi political system. I was saddened by her response and I often wonder how Bangladesh could move away from the psychosis of paralysed partisanship, why incumbent leaders refuse to stand down and make way for younger leaders with new visions for the country, why we seem to have a continuation of dynastic rule. A ray of hope appeared when the Nobel Laureate, Professor Muhammad Yunus, of the Grameen Bank had offered to create a political party with a view to overthrowing poverty once and for all. For reasons unknown to me his project crash-landed before it even took off. The changes that need to take place in order for the Bangladeshi and US/British political systems to align are vast.
An eminent Bangladeshi economist, Zaid Bakht, said that under the Obama presidency he would hope for Bangladesh to have special treatment in the export of garments to the US. I disagree with this approach. The world has moved on from quotas and special treatment. Protectionism and favouritism had stifled competition before. Dare I say that even economists (other than politicians) must change their old perceptions of favouritism and protectionism to that of innovation and competition. Economic policymakers must have faith in Bangladesh’s own workforce to produce quality marketable products. Hence, the solutions to Bangladesh’s problems must come from within where correct policies are laid down by the government through low taxes, investment in education and industry, improvement in healthcare and work conditions and where investments are made in research and development; only then can industries produce quality products at competitive prices which can be marketed to the US, Europe and other blocs. Economists and businessmen should be thinking globally and not just rely on a small quota share in one country. In fact, this is the vision that leaders from all political parties should have as they head towards the December elections.
It is very tempting for anti-capitalist doomsayers to herald the end of capitalism because of the global credit crisis. Free markets did not cause the crisis but monetary and regulatory policy mistakes made by the US government in 2004. With the right policies in place, the free market can lift the world out of the economic crisis.
Bangladesh could do well to follow developing countries like China and India, which have both adopted globalisation and are benefiting from it after jettisoning their failed Socialist policies. They have shown that prosperity is the answer to poverty; after all, poor people have a right to prosper, don’t they?
Hasan Ali Imam ran on the Conservative Party ticket in the 2005 general elections in the UK
Iraq’s gift to Afghanistan
The refocusing of the United States military effort on Afghanistan highlights the role of the Iraq war in training a new generation of jihadi operatives, writes Paul Rogers
IN MID-NOVEMBER 2001, a little over seven years ago, the war to terminate the Taliban regime in Afghanistan was nearing its end. The Taliban militias had vacated Kabul almost overnight and most of them were dispersing across the south and east of the country, as well as across the border into western Pakistan.
The George W Bush administration was, only two months after the 9/11 atrocities, on the brink of claiming its first scalp in the ‘war on terror’. Even at that stage, attention was already turning to the regime that had really been in the sights since Bush came to office: Saddam Hussein’s Iraq.
But if the Afghan campaign witnessed what seemed to be a lightning victory, the failure to kill or capture al-Qaeda’s leader Osama bin Laden and the Taliban figurehead Mullah Mohammad Omar left a bitter taste. It is worth recalling that these were ‘public enemies one and two’, meaning that Mullah Omar at the time far exceeded bin Laden’s own deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, in importance. It may be largely forgotten today, when the Egyptian ideologist offers the western media rich pickings for his propaganda statements, but in late 2001 and for some time after Mullah Omar was the person most wanted for leading the Taliban and sheltering al-Qaeda.
This is especially relevant in the week that Afghanistan’s president, Hamid Karzai, has offered Mullah Omar safe conduct and protection if he agrees to engage in negotiations to help bring the bitter war to an end. The suggestion of dialogue with Taliban elements is not in itself radical: some talks are reported already to be underway on both sides of the border with (it is assumed) what are termed ‘moderates’ in the broad and dispersed coalition of militias and paramilitaries. Indeed, such initiatives have been a regular backdrop to difficult times in the Afghan campaign.
The most remarkable thing about Karzai’s outreach, though, is that it should have been made to Mullah Omar himself. The president’s fragile position as the head of an increasingly unpopular administration that is mired in corruption and mismanagement helps explain it. But it is also a sign of wider Afghan concern at the increasing levels of insecurity, especially the upsurge in attacks on NATO’s supply-routes from Pakistan which bring in three-quarters of all the supplies for the 67,000 foreign troops in the country.
In March 2008, for example, more than forty NATO tankers were destroyed in a Taliban attack; soon afterwards, military-helicopter engines valued at around $13 million were taken in another raid. More recently, the situation has become even more critical. There has been a backlog of over 1,000 trucks waiting on the Pakistani side of the border, following a series of well-planned attacks on convoys.
The incoming Barack Obama administration is well-nigh certain to maintain current forces in Afghanistan, and indeed will probably increase them by more than 10,000. Britain is planning to put another 2,000 troops into the country and is also intending to redeploy its Merlin helicopters from southern Iraq to reinforce the limited numbers of helicopters currently in Afghanistan.
A slow entrapment
The implication of these trends is that the war in Afghanistan looks set to escalate, in ways that are already putting pressure on leading politicians and military strategists to seek fresh ideas. Iraq still has significance, however, in the overall thinking and direction of the al-Qaeda movement.
Iraq’s key role can be explained by reference to the attacks of September 11, 2001, which were to have such devastating consequences for the country. The motives of the 9/11 operation included attempting to lure the United States, the ‘far enemy’, into Afghanistan. The idea was that the US would experience the same fate in the country as had the Soviet Union in the 1980s – embroiled in a long, unwinnable war that exerted a heavy toll of casualties and end in the humiliating retreat of a superpower. The war would also provide a new cadre of jihadist paramilitaries with valuable combat experience against modern armed forces.
The United States did not immediately fall into the trap. Instead, it used a combination of overwhelming airpower, special forces and the comprehensive rearming of the Northern Alliance warlords to oust the Taliban. Yet since the appearance of early and quick success, the US and its allies have indeed been gradually inveigled into a costly war against an elusive enemy. Along the way, Iraq has provided an astonishingly destructive diversion – in three respects:
* it has forced the US military into a huge refocusing that has both drawn attention away from Afghanistan and made it easier for the Taliban/al-Qaeda nexus to re-establish itself
* the massive civilian casualties and destruction in Iraq galvanised support for al-Qaeda, not least with the assault on Fallujah (the ‘city of mosques’) in November 2004 – which was seen in much of the Muslim world as akin to an Islamic 9/11
* the five years of war in Iraq have given rise to a cohort of young combat-trained jihadist paramilitaries. There are now some thousands of them spread across north Africa, the middle east and west Asia. They represent a new generation, the equivalent of the sons of those who fought against the Soviets in the 1980s. But they have the added advantage of having trained themselves not against disillusioned Soviet conscripts in a scratchy rural Afghan environment, but against the world’s best-equipped professional armed forces, the US army and marine corps, in a primarily urban milieu.
A new generation
It now looks, pending a vote in the Iraqi parliament, as though the status-of-forces agreement signed on November 17, 2008 will be completed between the United States military in Iraq and the Nouri al-Maliki administration. If implemented, this could lead to the withdrawal of all US combat forces from Iraq by the end of 2011 (though other elements could remain). A degree of conflict in Iraq might in any event persist, but such an outcome would involve the focus of the war on terror moving nearly 1,500 kilometres eastwards to Afghanistan.
That, to the al-Qaeda strategists, is eminently satisfying. Their original expectation was of a slow and steady build-up to a guerrilla war in Afghanistan that would stretch over at least a decade. What they got instead was a diversion into a long war in the heart of the middle east that increased worldwide support for their movement and infused them with thousands of dedicated paramilitaries.
How that will play out over the next two decades is impossible to say. It is clear that many of the insurgency methods developed in Iraq have been introduced into Afghanistan and Pakistan to considerable effect. There is also evidence that paramilitaries from a number of countries are now aiding the rapid Islamist resurgence in Somalia, which may see the collapse of the current weak government in Mogadishu in weeks rather than months.
Beyond that, all is speculation at this stage. All that can be concluded for now is that Iraq has already served its purpose. Even if Iraq does achieve the near impossible and make some sort of transition to a more peaceful country, the war has already had its value for the al-Qaeda movement.
In January 2000, during an early phase of the campaign for the presidential election in November that year, George W Bush described the post-cold-war environment in his inimitable style: ‘...it was a dangerous world and we knew exactly who the “they” were. It was us versus them and we knew exactly who them was. Today we’re not so sure who the “they” are, but we know they’re there.’
One of the enduring achievements of his presidency is that there are now a lot more of ‘them’ there.
openDemocracy, November 20. Paul Rogers is professor of peace studies at Bradford University, northern England.
The nomination seekers
If the unsuccessful nomination seekers can resort to violent demonstrations before the Sudha Sadan and fight among themselves in the presence of heavy police guards, what will happen in the non-emergency period before the election on December 29? Is there any guarantee that the parties will not fight among themselves on the street?
F Islam
Dhaka
Dramatic
If the Awami League chief Sheikh Hasina has expressed her fear that the upcoming parliamentary election might be engineered, there are reasons to agree with her. The military-controlled illegal government expressed its bias to a gang of fundamentalist war criminals and their medium from the day one. Together they created many dramatic scenes to rehabilitate those guys and give them an upper hand by assigning credits to them.
MH Khan
Via e-mail
Lifting of emergency
Lifting of emergency is not only the demand of Khaleda Zia or the BNP alone, in fact it is the demand of all the political parties, all citizens, all donor countries and organisations. Lifting of emergency is essential for the smooth transition to democracy and a fair election. Your paper’s commentary (November 19) made it clearer. This demand of BNP is not in favour for its individual or party interest rather it is for the benefit of the entire nation and democracy.
Nasir
Canada
Bangladeshi in White House
Not only the Republican Party lost the White House, we too lost the chance of a Bangladesh-born girl getting a chance to live in the White House! Readers can recall that Senator McCain and Mrs McCain adopted a Bangladeshi child about a decade back.
Had Senator John McCain won the US Presidential election we would have had, come January 2009, a Bangladesh-born girl living in the White House!
However, the polls did not favour the senator. It was his loss and of ours as well — at least to some extent.
SA Mansoor
Dhaka
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Next on Quick Comments
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a. AL, BNP welcome polls schedule, want emergency lifted (New Age, November 25)
b. EMERGENCY LIFTING: Govt, EC pass the buck to each other (New Age, November 25)
c. Violence against women ‘grossly neglected’: UN rights chief (New Age, November 25)
d. DU students go on rampage over police action (New Age, November 25)
e. FUNDAMENTAL RIGHTS SUSPENSION: HC rule on govt as constitutional provisions challenged (New Age, November 25)
f. Markets soar on Obama economic team: Investors also welcome US government’s $20bn bailout of banking giant Citigroup (http:// english.aljazeera.net/business/2008/11/200811251234829577.html).
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