The American Indepedence Day Commemoration

A Jekyll and Hyde story

 

REFLECTING ON THE LAW By Prof Emeritus SHAD SALEEM FARUDI 

shadsaleem@yahoo.co.uk

As the US commemorates its 234th Independence Day, it needs to re-examine its policies and purify its soul.
THIS Sunday, the United States will commemorate the 234th anniversary of its Declaration of Independence from Britain.
The historic document was not just an assertion of self-determination against colonial subjugation, it was also one of the world’s most stirring affirmations of the constitutional ideals of human rights, political participation and limited government.
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
These beautiful, opening words of the Declaration have rightly been described as “the most potent and consequential words in American history”. Notwithstanding some sordid realities and shabby practices of the American body politic till the 1960s (like slavery and racial segregation), the ideals of the Declaration have animated American political theory over the last 234 years and inspired countless Constitutions around the world.
For much of its history, the United States has been regarded as a sentinel of constitutionalism, democracy and human rights. The US Constitution of 1787 distils one of the finest models of check and balance ever devised. The Bill of Rights, incorporated into the Constitution in 1791, provides a paradigm for entrenching fundamental rights against the naked power of the executive and the legislature.
It is a tribute to the greatness of the United States that for the last two centuries, its shores have beckoned millions of migrants from around the world. America’s bosom has cradled the dreams of disparate peoples from everywhere.
Its Statue of Liberty in the New York harbour symbolises America’s enduring love for liberty. Its free market system promotes economic opportunity and prosperity undreamed of elsewhere.
In the last century, the USA sacrificed billions of dollars and thousands of men to fight Nazism, fascism and communism. It supported de-colonisation and opposed apartheid. It condemned the Anglo-French-Israeli invasion of Suez.
It gave Marshall Aid to a Europe shattered by the ravages of World War II. It provided men, machines and money to many Third World countries.
It was the main architect of the UN Charter and many other gilt-edged provisions of international law. It contributes generously to many international organisations like the United Nations, World Bank and International Monetary Fund. Its universities sponsor foreign students from many lands.
Sadly, there is also a dark side to America. In some respects, US Governments since Truman have played Jekyll and Hyde around the world and exhibited multiple personalities. Evil has often mixed with good and heinous crimes with heroism. Liberty at home but a licence to impose hegemony and brutality on people abroad has been a consistent US policy of the last century.
The United States professes peace but is always at war with someone or the other. Its dominant military-industrial complex has transformed the creed “in God we trust” to “in arms we trust”.
From 1945 till now, it has dropped bombs and missiles on 29 countries, 24 of which are in the Third World. It used atomic weapons to decimate the innocent population of Hiroshima and Nagasaki even though the Japanese army was on the verge of collapse.
Washington maintains 180 or so military bases around the world. Its military budget in 2009 was US$661bil (RM2.1 trillion) or 43% of the world’s total! In the past it has conquered and colonised nations in Latin America and Asia.
George W. Bush invaded Iraq and Afghanistan and Barack Obama has not had the courage to undo that wrong. At the behest of Israel, the USA is threatening Iran with military strikes.
In the decades after World War II, Washington helped undermine many independence movements and propped up dictators in order to win the Cold War. To extend its imperial reach, it overthrew the rulers in Hawaii, Cuba, Puerto Rico, the Philippines, Nicaragua, Honduras, Guatemala and Chile.
It intervened in Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos causing the death of two million Asians and 58,000 Americans.
On July 4, 1988, its navy attacked an Iranian A300 Airbus in mid-air killing all 290 passengers on board. Under Bush, the CIA ran overseas torture chambers, resorted to kidnappings (renditions) of “terror suspects” abroad and transported 11,000 prisoners to camps for imprisonment without trial.
In the economic sphere, the United States preaches free trade but only to the extent that would assist its mega-corporations to take over indigenous economies.
In the legal sphere, the US Governments under Reagan and Bush walked away from treaty after treaty, whether on small arms, Kyoto Accord, land mines, Biological & Toxins Weapons Convention, Anti-Ballistic Missiles Agreement and the ICC.
Side by side with its fidelity to human rights at home, the US gives unconditional financial, diplomatic and military support to Israel’s 62-year-old genocidal, apartheid and military policies in Palestine, Syria and Lebanon.
To many American leaders, no law or ideal is so worthy that it cannot be sacrificed to prop up Israel. Despite policies on non-proliferation, the US conspired with France to enable Israel to develop nuclear bombs surreptitiously.
Then, in an act of incredible appeasement, Washington connived with Tel Aviv to transfer nuclear capability to the racist regime in Pretoria in return for Pretoria allowing its soil for Israel to conduct its nuclear tests.
Washington hinders any international scrutiny of Israel’s atrocities. It has vetoed 45 or so UN Security Council Resolutions against Israel. In 2001, a near unanimous, 14-1 Resolution to station a UN Peacekeeping Force in Palestine was shot down by Washington.
To the United States, the Palestinians have no right to international protection, not if that hinders Israel. The suffering of the Palestinians is regretted but the Promised People have to be given their Promised Land.
On June 26 at the G8 Summit, Obama joined other leaders to pontificate about Israel’s decision “to relax certain elements of its blockade” of Gaza. But he said not a word about the illegality and inhumanity of Israel’s three-year genocidal strangulation of 1.5 million people.
Despite all this dissonance between lofty principles and flawed practices, we wish to send our felicitations to our American friends on their Independence Day.
At the same time we are entitled to wonder: Has America taken leave of its conscience in the Mid-East? How far are its policies inspired by “enlightened self-interest” and not deep-seated racial and religious prejudices?
One will do well to repeat Martin Luther King’s reminder that “we are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny” and “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere”.
As it commemorates its independence, America needs to re-examine its policies and purify its soul. Its massive power combined with the lunacy of Israel can maintain the unjust status quo. But that will not bring peace because both Israel and America should know that the human spirit cannot be vanquished. There will always be people willing to die on their feet than live on their knees.
> Shad Saleem Faruqi is a graduate in Government from Wesleyan University, Middletown, Connecticut and carries fond memories of the USA despite his misgivings with US foreign policy.