Dangerous
Dangerous
Posted 11:24pm (Mla time) Jan 23, 2005
By Conrado de Quiros
Inquirer News Service
Editor's Note: Published on page A14 of the January 24, 2005 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer.
THE BBC merely confirms what most of the world has known since 9/11. George W. Bush is a dangerous man. He is not the nemesis of terror, he is the spreader of terror.
Only the Philippines, India, and Poland do not think so. On the average, across all countries, 58 percent of the people BBC interviewed believe Bush's reelection has made the world an unsafe place to live in. Unfortunately for Americans, the animosity is extending past Bush to them as well. The BBC sample, 21,000 of them in 21 countries, made no distinction between the American government and the American people, between Bush and his constituents. "Negative feelings about Bush are high and are generalizing to the American people who reelected him," said BBC.
I don't know about Poland, but I do know that the Philippines and India have one thing in common, which is the spectacular divide between the rich and poor. Which is pockets of opulence coexisting alongside unthinkable misery, which is mansions or palaces surrounded by high walls coexisting with hovels and cardboard dwellings tumbling out like flood. Which is a small caste of Brahmins coexisting with a mass of Untouchables, which is enlightenment and brilliance coexisting with ignorance and dimwittedness. It's not surprising many Indians see the world the same way as many Filipinos.
The difference, of course, is that India was colonized by the British and we were colonized by the Americans. Gandhi freed them from their yoke, not the least from the subjugated mind that went with it. Nobody did the same thing for us. To this day, we seem to think Bush is beloved by all the freedom-loving peoples of this earth.
Well, he's not. And unfortunately for us, our misimpressions about the world do not carry a small price. What particularly scares the hell out of me is the breathtaking idiocy with which we advertise our lackey-ness to the fellow before the world. That is patent with our recent acceptance of being chief enforcer of Bush's "anti-terrorist" campaign in this part of the world. Only a couple of weeks ago, and only less than a couple of years of our being thrust into the UN Security Council, we agreed to head a "super committee against terrorism," as Ambassador Lauro Baja proudly put it. Only a country that enjoys being humored, or being uto-uto, could possibly have grabbed a gift nobody wanted.
You would imagine that the abduction of three Filipinos in Iraq and Afghanistan would already have taught us lessons in prudence. Those three aren't the last, certainly not with this kind of posturing. And that is probably the least of our worries. If you saw the CNN and BBC interviews across the globe last year shortly before the US elections, you'd know that Arabs absolutely loathe Bush. It's a level of anger and resentment that makes for wars of attrition. They cannot feel very hospitable to a people who adore him, and who have a president that's anxious to do his bidding. It's not American aid that's keeping us afloat, it's the OFWs' dollar remittances. You want to make war on that?
But what's truly unfortunate, and alarming, is that the anger and resentment are spilling over to the American nation and not just to the American Caesar. It fuels the belief, spread by the Bush gang itself, that the anti-Bush sentiments around the globe are essentially anti-American sentiments. These things have a way of turning into vicious cycles, Americans turning more paranoid, agreeing to emergency measures-including "preemptive" ones-to defend themselves, and pissing off the world even more.
I've always thought America was rived between two worlds, between the worlds of slavery and anti-slavery, between the worlds of imperialism and anti-imperialism, between the worlds of Randolph Hearst, Joseph McCarthy, and George W. Bush, on one hand, and Benjamin Franklin, Mark Twain and Martin Luther King, on the other. With the former often getting the upper hand and pushing back democracy as the American Founding Fathers knew it, apart from giving America a wretched image abroad. The notion of forcing "our way of life" down the throats of peoples across the world, which was the premise of William McKinley's imperial venture more than a century ago, is anathema to democracy. It is a contradiction in terms, the very spirit of democracy being freedom and choice. The 21,000 BBC interviewed are not terrorists. Neither do they approve of terrorism. That is why they do not approve of Bush, too.
I myself have always distinguished between the American government and the American people, between American policy and the American spirit. The second, which expresses itself in the ardent defense of rights and freedoms at home, and in spectacular achievements in science, literature and sports, is admirable. The first, which expresses itself in the piling up of weapons of mass destruction and the indifference to planetary concerns other than dreams of conquest, is detestable. The second is a beacon in a windswept sea, the first is the wind that blows over a field of death.
The American people in any case have been known to carry out their Edsas, if in less loud and cantankerous ways than their counterparts across the Pacific. They did rise to bury McCarthy and they did rise to impeach Nixon. They've already given their current president fair warning they do not believe in his war (55 percent of Americans told a Washington Post/ABC News survey the Iraq War wasn't worth fighting for) and he should not construe their votes as a mandate for it. But, well, they've got their work, or protest, cut out for them. There is so little time, the clock is ticking, the American image is being tattered everywhere by the minute.
All because they've put a caption under the American Eagle that reads: Dangerous.
Posted 11:24pm (Mla time) Jan 23, 2005
By Conrado de Quiros
Inquirer News Service
Editor's Note: Published on page A14 of the January 24, 2005 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer.
THE BBC merely confirms what most of the world has known since 9/11. George W. Bush is a dangerous man. He is not the nemesis of terror, he is the spreader of terror.
Only the Philippines, India, and Poland do not think so. On the average, across all countries, 58 percent of the people BBC interviewed believe Bush's reelection has made the world an unsafe place to live in. Unfortunately for Americans, the animosity is extending past Bush to them as well. The BBC sample, 21,000 of them in 21 countries, made no distinction between the American government and the American people, between Bush and his constituents. "Negative feelings about Bush are high and are generalizing to the American people who reelected him," said BBC.
I don't know about Poland, but I do know that the Philippines and India have one thing in common, which is the spectacular divide between the rich and poor. Which is pockets of opulence coexisting alongside unthinkable misery, which is mansions or palaces surrounded by high walls coexisting with hovels and cardboard dwellings tumbling out like flood. Which is a small caste of Brahmins coexisting with a mass of Untouchables, which is enlightenment and brilliance coexisting with ignorance and dimwittedness. It's not surprising many Indians see the world the same way as many Filipinos.
The difference, of course, is that India was colonized by the British and we were colonized by the Americans. Gandhi freed them from their yoke, not the least from the subjugated mind that went with it. Nobody did the same thing for us. To this day, we seem to think Bush is beloved by all the freedom-loving peoples of this earth.
Well, he's not. And unfortunately for us, our misimpressions about the world do not carry a small price. What particularly scares the hell out of me is the breathtaking idiocy with which we advertise our lackey-ness to the fellow before the world. That is patent with our recent acceptance of being chief enforcer of Bush's "anti-terrorist" campaign in this part of the world. Only a couple of weeks ago, and only less than a couple of years of our being thrust into the UN Security Council, we agreed to head a "super committee against terrorism," as Ambassador Lauro Baja proudly put it. Only a country that enjoys being humored, or being uto-uto, could possibly have grabbed a gift nobody wanted.
You would imagine that the abduction of three Filipinos in Iraq and Afghanistan would already have taught us lessons in prudence. Those three aren't the last, certainly not with this kind of posturing. And that is probably the least of our worries. If you saw the CNN and BBC interviews across the globe last year shortly before the US elections, you'd know that Arabs absolutely loathe Bush. It's a level of anger and resentment that makes for wars of attrition. They cannot feel very hospitable to a people who adore him, and who have a president that's anxious to do his bidding. It's not American aid that's keeping us afloat, it's the OFWs' dollar remittances. You want to make war on that?
But what's truly unfortunate, and alarming, is that the anger and resentment are spilling over to the American nation and not just to the American Caesar. It fuels the belief, spread by the Bush gang itself, that the anti-Bush sentiments around the globe are essentially anti-American sentiments. These things have a way of turning into vicious cycles, Americans turning more paranoid, agreeing to emergency measures-including "preemptive" ones-to defend themselves, and pissing off the world even more.
I've always thought America was rived between two worlds, between the worlds of slavery and anti-slavery, between the worlds of imperialism and anti-imperialism, between the worlds of Randolph Hearst, Joseph McCarthy, and George W. Bush, on one hand, and Benjamin Franklin, Mark Twain and Martin Luther King, on the other. With the former often getting the upper hand and pushing back democracy as the American Founding Fathers knew it, apart from giving America a wretched image abroad. The notion of forcing "our way of life" down the throats of peoples across the world, which was the premise of William McKinley's imperial venture more than a century ago, is anathema to democracy. It is a contradiction in terms, the very spirit of democracy being freedom and choice. The 21,000 BBC interviewed are not terrorists. Neither do they approve of terrorism. That is why they do not approve of Bush, too.
I myself have always distinguished between the American government and the American people, between American policy and the American spirit. The second, which expresses itself in the ardent defense of rights and freedoms at home, and in spectacular achievements in science, literature and sports, is admirable. The first, which expresses itself in the piling up of weapons of mass destruction and the indifference to planetary concerns other than dreams of conquest, is detestable. The second is a beacon in a windswept sea, the first is the wind that blows over a field of death.
The American people in any case have been known to carry out their Edsas, if in less loud and cantankerous ways than their counterparts across the Pacific. They did rise to bury McCarthy and they did rise to impeach Nixon. They've already given their current president fair warning they do not believe in his war (55 percent of Americans told a Washington Post/ABC News survey the Iraq War wasn't worth fighting for) and he should not construe their votes as a mandate for it. But, well, they've got their work, or protest, cut out for them. There is so little time, the clock is ticking, the American image is being tattered everywhere by the minute.
All because they've put a caption under the American Eagle that reads: Dangerous.
posted by Dante at 10:08 PM
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