In the 2010 midterm elections, we have just seen a significant rightwing revolution in American history. Only a blind person could have failed to notice this revolution in the making. In 2007, the American economy plunged to the bottom, taking most of the economies of the developed nations with it, causing a recession second only in magnitude to that of the 1930’s in the 20th century. Everyone knows who and what caused this crisis. So let me skip the details.
The American taxpayers bailed out some big banks and financial institutions, released them from their “toxic assets” and set them free into the fortune building wonderland. As a result, these institutions, which were on the verge of bankruptcies owing to their dishonest practices, made more profits than ever before.
At the same time, the Congress imposed some restrictions on them, so that the taxpayers might not have to suffer the consequences of their greed once again. But the banks and the billionaires said: not so fast buddy, let us show you “who is the boss!” Bang! What followed was a rightist revolution. No surprises here. The masters had decided to crack their whip, and used their conventional clout in manipulating democracy.
The American democracy is complex but only for those, who dwell in its thicket. For those, who are not interwoven in its fabric, the contours and the facets are clearly perceivable. Nevertheless, there are times when there are glimpses of its machinations apparent even to a non-inquisitive mind and this was that moment.
In the region of India, where I come from, once there was a serious political crisis. There were riots in the streets and people had died. The then prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru and his education minister, Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, a famous Qur’ānic scholar, came to deal with the crisis. In a huge public rally, which I attended, Nehru spoke, rambling and ranting as usual for two hours. Then Azad spoke briefly only for a few minutes. He started off saying: “mein phool patton ki bat nahin karunga, mein to jad ki bat karunga” (I will not speak about the foliage; I will speak about the roots.) This seminal statement has kept ringing in my ears ever since.
What we are seeing in this country: wars, economic crises, health crises and even political assassinations, as we have witnessed recently, are all rooted in our system of democracy and yet we go on ranting about the spikes and thorns forever. The roots, which lie at the bottom of all these do not even come to our minds.
In any political system, be it a dictatorship or democracy, there are only two sides: the rulers and the ruled. The popular axiom: ‘the government of the people, by the people and for the people’ is only a façade behind which lie a mêlée in which one side is clobbering the other.
In America, the gulf between the rulers and the ruled is very wide. Unlike most of the western democracies, here in America one cannot be elected to the presidency or other offices, without the backing of millions of dollars, which must be spent on television advertisements and other means of propaganda. Needless to say that this money comes directly or indirectly from big business and organised lobbies: political, cultural and commercial, which have vested interests in the government. Those elected must then serve their interests.
At the same time, to get elected, one needs votes from the common people, who must forego their own interests after the elections. It is here that the American democracy exhibits its finesse. As the common man must forget his interests after he has cast his vote, he has to be desensitised, his mind numbed and his social and political consciousness kept to the lowest possible level. Here the media plays the most important role. After all, it is owned by the big business.
Is it surprising therefore that America, the richest nation in the world, has one of the lowest standards of education in the industrialised countries? Is it an accident that our hospitals, our research institutions and our high-tech industries are filled with the Asian and East-European immigrants, without whom, America will find itself further south in the chart?
In short, the relationship between the two sides in the American democracy, the rulers and the ruled is the same as it existed in feudalism and in serfdom. They had serfs and peasants; we have a captive electorate. What has changed is only a degree of sophistication.
In 2008, Americans were awakened to a glimmer of hope that may be all this was destined to change. Barak Obama’s candidacy appeared on the horizon as a rainbow of expectations, promising to usher in a revolutionary new era in the history of politics in this country. The young, who had come of voting age (our intelligentsia), saw him as the one who would fulfil their dreams and lead them out of the wilderness of despair. Others saw him as a novelty and as a symbol on which they could shower their feelings of Christian benevolence.
To the media, the Democratic candidates, the black man and the white woman presented an exquisite opportunity for an exciting year of journalistic forays. More exquisite was the fact that contrary to the convention, Obama’s funding had come in small donations online from small people. This amounted to millions of dollars far exceeding the money his opponents were able to collect from big donors. All of a sudden, there was entirely a new electoral landscape. His election was hailed by friends and foes alike as the triumph of virtue in American democracy over the evil that it had been subjected to. Where else could this have happened? Where else in the white western world was a black man president? They asked.
Furthermore, not only was he the president of America but he was the most powerful man on earth. However, President Obama wanted no part of this fantasy land. He was not to be swayed by the wishful thinkers and deterred from doing what his instincts would urge him to do. After all, we humans cannot easily redesign ourselves. So revolting against the Messianic mission enforced upon him, he turned his back on his campaign contributors (the small ones) and told the dreamers that it was time to wake up. They woke up alright. They woke up, not only to his present but also to his past.
Here was a man, who had previously turned his back on his African religious heritage and then again had turned his back on his mentor and pastor Jeremiah Wright, preparing to be listed in history as the first (and probably the last) black president of the United States. Ideas he had plenty; ideals, he had none. Now the pundits are advising him to move to the middle in Clinton-Morrisonian style. Dick Morris is not to be heard these days. Instead there is a new guide in town: William Daley, an executive of J.P. Morgan. He had openly opposed Obama’s healthcare reform and the financial regulation bill – My God, what a turnaround, from Obama to Nobama!
We are living in a world, where words like democracy and dictatorship have lost their meanings. Marx had given the slogan: “workers of the world unite”. They never did unite. Their workers’ utopia was sabotaged by Gorbachev and modified beyond recognition by Deng Xiaoping but the capitalists, without even publishing their manifesto, united into an almighty globalised force. Today capitalism is omnipotent and omnipresent. It is faceless, non-discriminatory; does not have any religious affiliations, no race barriers and no geographical boundaries; nurtures every religion under its wings and provides solace to every race on earth. Here in the United States, the Capitol Hill is where it lays its eggs and 535 men and women sit to hatch them.
There are three big businesses, which drive the engine of global capitalism: the oil industry, the pharmaceutical industry and the arms industry. Although the first two are closely linked to the happiness and the miseries of people on earth, the armaments industry is highly specialised; assumes patriotic posture and determines the conditions of war and peace – or rather war on peace – and has adversely affected the lives of every man, woman and child. It writes the prologue for the Armageddon.
We can start with the wars in Europe, the First and the Second World Wars, the Korean War, the war in Vietnam, the two Gulf Wars and the present Afghan war. Millions of lives have been lost in those wars, including those, who died and were maimed in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. What were the outcomes of those wars? Did any ideology triumph? Did any empire expand? Did any group of people gain advantage over other groups? Did the common man in America receive any return on the enormous sacrifice of lives his fellowmen made in those battlefields? None! It was just a morbid dance of destruction, a satanic exposition of murder and pillage around the globe, in which, the Capitol Hill and the White House have played a prominent part.
In the First World War the Rothschilds had financed both the sides. Similarly, the financiers controlling the armaments industry sell arms to the belligerents on both sides posing as patriots in each country, extorting profits from hot conflicts as well as from the Cold War. They are demons without borders. To achieve their goals they must create the conditions of fear and an atmosphere of paranoia among people, the most fertile ground for which is the United States of America, its legislators and its ill-informed electorate. The Cold War was their coup de grace, no battles, just war drums and massive arms sale.
The United States now spends 54% of its annual budget on “defence” and homeland security, much more than the rest of the world combined, although the main defence activity now is not armies and marines, navies and air forces but the C.I.A. drones, which shower fire on villages in Afghanistan and Pakistan. This is supposed to prevent attack on the continent of America by the Al-Qaeda brigandage across the oceans. People are also made to believe that the Taliban have such mystical powers that they would engage America’s military might on the American soil, if not confronted in the Indo-Caucasus.
“If we don’t fight them there, we will have to fight them here” is the amazing Goebbels style propaganda lie, the people here has been bombarded with for ages. Proposals to increase expenditure on education and healthcare, which threaten to reduce profits for the arms merchants are immediately countered by the Rightist revolution.
Those were some of the features of the American democracy. Now let us turn to the Arab-Israeli conflict in this context, the most relevant subject in this argument. Notwithstanding the rights of each party to their homeland, the atrocities committed on the Jews by the Europeans and the Jews on the Palestinians, the present realities stand on their own and should be viewed vis-a-vis the global power politics.
The biggest part of the world’s expenditure on armaments is directly or indirectly connected with this conflict. The security of the state of Israel, which everyone is harping about, is only secondary to the wellbeing of the world armaments industry. The Arab-Israeli conflict is a bonanza for the arms manufacturers. The conflict provides it to endow Israel with the most sophisticated weapons that have been invented and dump the extraneous hardware in the Arab countries. It is all a part of the war games and testing the equipment in reality situations. The process is guaranteed to continue, as long as Israel remains “invincible” and Arabs “the barking dogs”. In the Eighties Saddam Hussein was one of the largest importers of arms in the world, but in the two Gulf wars, his hardware was sitting in the junk yard and his army folded up in disgrace.
In the contemporary scene, Saudi Arabia is where the money is and the population full of princes with the penchant for extravaganza. Consider this comparison: Saudi Arabia’s population is about seven million, its total troop strength 247,000 and its annual defence expenditure 38.2 billion dollars (ninth largest in the world).
In contrast, India has a population of more than one billion; its total troop strength is 4.8 million (second largest in the world) and its annual defence expenditure is only $32.7 billion (less than Saudi Arabia’s). It is anybody’s guess where the Saudi money is going and who is benefiting from it. Besides, one cannot see by any stretch of imagination the Saudis going to war against anyone any time soon instead of waiting for the Americans and the Pakistanis to arrive.
So I strongly suggest that people, who are downtrodden, such as the Palestinians, see their problems in the light of the contradictions mentioned above. Humanity is now in two camps: the invisible exploiters and the exploited masses. The former has unity and solidarity, the latter is disingenuous and distraught. It is incumbent upon the exploited to know and recognise the enemy and then unite against him with those who have similar predicaments. This is the only solution.
Waiving national or Islamic flags is glorious and spectacular but will be of no avail. The battle between truth and falsehood is universal, as mentioned in the Qur’ān and every other scripture. The American Muslims must join with Christians, Jews, Hindus, Sikhs and the Buddhists on a common platform and fight against the tyranny of injustice. This way there will be no stereotypes and no scapegoats. When you succeed, those who are on the side of justice, Muslims or Jews, will be rewarded and those on the other side will be thrown into the dustbin of history.