The current events in the US and the Middle-East are restructuring the globe

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 28^th 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)