I was reading TIME magazine on my way to Chicago last October. I was reading it cover to cover because, well, there was nothing else to do, and I came to this article on Pakistan. Normally I would have bypassed this article, but I started reading it because I thought either I would get into it and find it interesting, or I would read it, find it boring, but at least learn something. The article was about the former woman prime minister of Pakistan (which I found surprising, since Pakistan is a Muslim country) who had come back to Pakistan from a self-imposed exile to a groundswell of support and celebration. It was a good article and I kept track of the ongoing development in this story of this woman leader who was going to bring democracy to Pakistan. I found her compelling and courageous as she had survived numerous assassination attempts. In fact, an attempt on her life was made the day she came back to Pakistan when a suicide bomber blew himself up killing over a hundred people. After all, this was a wealthy Harvard and Oxford educated aristocrat who could be globe-trotting and living it up. If it were me I wouldn't have voluntarily gone into a country where so many wanted me dead.
So, with that said, I was stunned yesterday morning when I got up and flipped on MSNBC so see the headline: Benazir Bhutto assassinated. All I could do is gasp and then sit there in silence. Not only had I come to admire this woman, but I immediately began to empathize with her supporters. This woman represented hope to these people, and you could see the devastation they were experiencing. Not only was this a huge loss to Bhutto's numerous supporters, but this a big deal for U.S. foreign policy. Pakistan is teetering on Islamic extremism, and there was a deal in the works for Bhutto to become a co-president. This would have made Pakistan a more moderate, secular country; as well as making Pakistan a stronger partner in rooting out terrorists. But now that these hopes have been destroyed with an assassins bullet, there isn't anyone to act as successor to Bhutto. She was it.
Later I realized that virtually every American today was going to be confused by the fuss over this woman with the funny name who was killed in some foreign country. Honestly, this pisses me off, as it does much of the world. Americans would have been more upset if Brad and Angelina broke up. We tend to think we're the only people who matter. For much of us, our attitude is that we're the biggest, baddest and richest so who cares about all those other countries. I know this is true, not only because I see these sentiments expressed on TV and in people I talk to at work and elsewhere, but because, up until a couple years ago, I too acted this way. What changed my thinking was my church's growing concern for poverty abroad, a shift in the kinds of authors I read, and a quote by former president Bill Clinton.
A couple years ago I was reading a news magazine and it featured an interview with Bill Clinton. I couldn't tell you what the interview was about, but something he said struck me. It wasn't anything too profound and it's something I think most people would agree with, but it's always stuck with me. He was asked about our current foreign policy, and he said that right now we're the only superpower, but there will come a day when we're not the biggest dog on the block. And so it's important to work with other countries and form relationships. He then went on to talk about how India and China's economies are exploding, and the possibility of them forming an alliance of some sort. It's a statement that's true, yet I know it's a reality most Americans don't want to swallow; especially these assholes, who are why I think we're in Iraq, but that's another post. Most of us like our empire. We live sedated existences. We're sedated with Hollywood, pop-culture, the mainstream news organizations who trumpet American greatness, tabloids, some forms of Christianity, and having it "my way." We're happy in our own little worlds, and are oblivious to what's going on in the rest of the world.
I get irritated when I hear pundits always talking about doing what's best for America, or when they talk about how many Americans have died in Iraq. What about what's best for the world? What about the Iraqi's who have died? What about the soldiers from other countries? Maybe this is a macrocosm of what I mentioned above. The fact is, is we are an empire, and all empires have eventually fallen. We are part of a global community. The way we live, who we vote for and the way we interact with the rest of the world matters. At some point we won't be the biggest dog on the block.
I'm probably writing this because I've become something of a collectivist in the past couple years. I tend to focus on the common good rather than just what benefits me. Take health insurance for example. I have health insurance. I work in the pharmacy of the largest hospital on this side of the state. My job isn't going away. My health insurance isn't going away. What the hell do I care if our next president is a free-market, privatization-cures-everything Republican? I'm still going to have coverage. I care because there are people that won't, and our country has the capability to see that everyone is covered. The whole is more important than me.
That's also why I mourn with the Pakistanis the loss of a great leader. Their country matters, not only because it's nuclear and bordering on unstable, but because they're fellow humans who are part of this world too. All men are created equal, right? God love's everyone. My hope for 2008 is that we'll get a president who focuses on diplomacy, whose very, very last resort would be war, and a president who doesn't mis-pronounce the names of foreign leaders. That's why I'm voting for change. Vote Obama '08 ;)....JK....Ok, not really.
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