Here in
the US what seems to remind you that Americans are going for elections in
November this year is the media, apart from the few cars pasted with campaign stickers
like “Osama is Dead General Motors is Alive” and “Vote Republican, Since
Everyone Can Never be on Welfare” representing both the Obama and Romney
campaigns respectively.
The
truth is, American electoral politics is actually beyond maturity even though
it still conceals discourses of race and prejudice regarding questions of the
welfare of minorities and the poor. The fascinating thing about American
campaigns is the manner in which democrats and republicans work tirelessly to
convince the electorate about their policies. Among the many competing policy
issues, right now it seems the question is about who has a better economic plan
that will restore America’s and thus global economy to a clear path of consistent
growth. Another issue is regarding America’s foreign policy courtesy of
September 11 terrorist attacks and anti-American sentiments in
the Middle East and elsewhere. Electoral questions concern who has the gravitas
to be the powerful man in the World today.
But
where do US electorates learn all the electoral politics. The point is,
American media has been the arena in which conflicting interests between democrats
and republicans play out. If you pay attention to the media coverage of rival
political contenders, both sides are equally convincing as it played out in the
just concluded national conventions. Millions of dollars are spent on “approving”
political messages in the mainstream media as campaigns get ‘dirty’. It takes
little effort to see how CNN is pro-democrats or liberals while Fox News is
pro-republicans or conservatives and sometimes appears to be anti-Obama.
The
underlying reality is the fact that Obama and Romney are faced with new and
complex challenges that never faced any of their predecessors in the history of
American history. For example, the pressure of assuring Israel their full
support regarding Iran’s nuclear ambitions with Israel threatening to attack
Iran, stabilizing the current regime in Afghanistan, where American soldier
operating alongside their Afghan counterparts are killed by the latter, and the
current mess in the entire middle east. That is, the conflict in Syria and
anti-American demonstrations in Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, Nigeria, Yemen, even as
close to home as possible, in Sudan.
Out of
this conflict zones, Egypt is particularly important because of the peace
treaty the country made with Israel on the 28th of March 1979 in
Washington DC, following the prolonged Arab-Israeli war under the leadership of
Anwar Sadat, witnessed by President Jimmy Carter. The treaty was signed for the
sake of stability in the middle-East which is also now under threat. In fact,
America has been giving Egypt financial and other forms of assistance since
then and was instrumental for regime change in Libya. New questions are arising
in the political stage in the US on whether the recent events in Egypt would jeopardize
US relations with the country. These are issues that clearly pose a huge new foreign
policy challenge to the current American presidency. But what is the crust of this
new challenge then?
Out of
the many challenges America faces in the modern world today, the most salient
one is ‘terrorism’ which has become a huge industry. Every day billions of
dollars are spent on intelligence and technology in the hope of defeating
terrorism. America is currently flying Drones in parts of the world that, in
their view, harbor terrorists. They sent a couple of them to Libya after an
attack of their embassy in Benghazi that left their Ambassador and three others
dead. The truth is, counter terrorism efforts cannot materialize without the
support of local governments. Events unfolding in Libya, Tunisia and the entire
Arab world are perhaps the beginning of the last experiments of the competence
of the regimes in that region to fully co-operate in the collective and
collaborative global effort of ‘fighting terrorism’ to restore peace and
security.
The
critical point is that ordinary civilians irrespective of race, nationality, gender or religion have
often risked being victims of terror and therefore both the West and the Arab world must accept
the reality that peace cannot be realized through any form of violence, whether
it involves physical conflict or inflammatory language. There should always be
an opportunity for dialogue as means of resolving conflicts. The other
point is that even as we celebrate freedom of expression, it should be exercised
with utmost responsibility. These are tough questions currently hot in the US campaign
trails.
You see,
here in America, it really does not matter much who is in White House, whether
it’s the democrats or the republicans. The concern is the value of their
civilization. The truth is, Americans believe in liberty and democracy which
they are convinced is the best system if humanity is to explore its full
potential, thus, they are determined to export such values. The tricky question
is the extent in which they will achieve this through consent and the role of ally
states therein.
Fredrick Ogenga is a Visiting Scholar at the
Institute for the Advancement of Social Sciences (Boston University)
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