ktravula - a travelogue! » Politics

GOP Foreign Policy Debate

Kola — Sun, 13 Nov 2011 03:41:20 +0000

The latest GOP debate has just ended, with its illuminating moments. It’s one of those times when I had much to do but preferred to spend the time unwinding in front of my computer and television, with another finger on twitter. The United States foreign policy matters to everyone in the world since whoever gets to become president has to sit behind a desk with access to codes that can send nuclear bombs halfway across the world.

In spite of the aggravation I found myself experiencing at different times in the debate when candidates spouted sound bites to rounds of applause, I realize now that it was an important debate. For one, it showed the marked differences between all the men that want to sit in the position of the current president. Governor Romney wants to have a trade war with China. Governor Perry wants to scale back all foreign donations to zero, and Mr. Cain doesn’t have an idea about whether Pakistan is a friend or a foe, and Rep Bachman thinks that everyone wants to blow Israel up with nuclear weapons. I also realize how easy it is from this removed position of mine to scoff their foibles many of which stem from their inability to recognize the complexity of world politics.

In any case, this other news caught my attention and should probably keep me interested in US foreign policy interest for the next couple of weeks.

Defining Racism Wrong

Kola — Wed, 19 Oct 2011 04:53:10 +0000

I have come across this pernicious argument more than a few times now, and lately from Donald Trump and the “Hercules” actor Kevin Sorbo who appeared on Fox News yesterday to make the same point. The argument goes this way, that those who complain about Tea Party racism should direct their anger at what is the real racism: the fact that over 95% of black people voted for President Obama in 2008.

Sigh.

And there I was thinking that I live in a country that speaks English as its first language.

Sigh.

So here it goes, the real problem with that really pernicious argument: racism is defined as “the belief that inherent different traits in human racial groups justify discrimination.” I’ll break it down: racism is deciding that someone should NOT get something that everyone has access to, just because of the colour of their skin.

So, here again is a reason why it is less likely that it is racist that Obama was voted overwhelmingly into the White House by an overwhelming black vote: by the time he was voted as president, he was the first person of his race ever to get that close to a position that had been dominated for hundreds of years by people of a certain race.

I’ll make another analogy. Imagine these scenarios.

A: There is a school somewhere in the world which for four hundred years had admitted only people of a certain height/hair colour/dentition etc, and then one day, people who have for that period of time had been excluded from that process found a candidate that qualified as an outsider and was overwhelmingly supported – along with other support from the people who hitherto had that privilege. The student shorter than the average height requirement/hair colour/dentition is finally admitted, and everyone is happy.

B: There is a school somewhere in the world in which only one shorter/different-hair-coloured/wrongly-dentitioned student was recently admitted after about four hundred years. He is about to be removed by an overwhelming majority of the “establishment” regular people for no other reason that made sense, or had been applied for other “regular” people up until then.

Now, here is my conclusion. There is absolutely no evidence from the above to show that there is racism in any of the two scenarios A and B. Perhaps.

But…

It is MUCH LESS LIKELY racist that an underdog is collectively SUPPORTED to get equal opportunity, than that an underdog is collectively DENIED access to equal opportunity. And this is where Sean Hannity, Hercules, Donald Trump, and all the others got it wrong.

And here is one more thing. There is a clear difference between racial and racist politics. It is racial politics to vote for someone on the basis of their skin colour, but not necessarily racist. It is however clearly racist (as well as racial) to try to remove someone from a position because of their skin colour. The difference is the harm inherent in only one of them.

And here is one more thing I found on a Youtube comment: “black (and other minority) people, until 2008, have voted 100% for white candidates.” How racist is that?

Political Theatre Sucks

Kola — Tue, 26 Jul 2011 20:40:11 +0000

By the end of this year, one new phrase would have been added to the English dictionary – or at least the urban dictionary. That is “the debt ceiling”. To the layman, it means nothing other than the ball that both Democrats and Republicans in the US legislative houses have been kicking around for the past few months. If anything in the news is to be believed, in a week’s time, the credit rating of the country will be permanently damaged from the country’s default on its financial obligations except this “ceiling” is raised.

Horrible as that prospect seems, it has become nothing but a means of political posturing and hostage-taking by elected representatives. On the one hand a party that wants nothing cut out of its special interest programs, on the other another party (and its activist arm) which is hell-bent on opposing any compromise that involves as much as a tiny concession on revenue increase. From afar, all this just seems mad. This is not what you’d expect from “adults in the room”. I listened to the president’s speech yesterday where he did his best to again articulate his ideas of the best solutions to the problem. I also saw the almost immediate rebuttal and posturing by the Speaker of the House. And in that little space of time, the country was back again to a countdown to (as The Daily Show calls it, Armadebtdon: the end of the world as we owe it.)

Unfortunately, there is nothing else exciting on television these days so we will watch with bated breath. What works for me especially while watching an important football match is to imagine the worst, and just enjoy the roller-coaster ride of crazy emotions. I’ll do that now, since politicians have chosen this option over good old common sense. In any case, we still will always have Netflix. Thank goodness for that.

A Sad Day in America

Kola — Wed, 27 Apr 2011 06:35:16 +0000

Today ended like a dream, a series of surreal hours that – one after the other – confirmed some of the worst fears of sane tolerant people. I’m disappointed like I’ve never before been in the political process and a certain intolerance best exemplified by what had just happened. It was unbelievable. The president of the United States had called a press conference, cutting into all live shows around the country, to show a final definite proof that he was born in the country as he had always said he was: a long hand birth certificate. It was the first of any president.

For me, this is sad on many levels, and race had a very large role to play. A few minutes after the White House released said birth certificate which they had got on request from the records office in Hawaii to put the controversy to rest, media mogul Donald Trump – also a contender for the next election – went to a press conference not just taking credit for the disclosure but also asking for the president’s college transcripts thus casting doubts on his qualifications as well.

I am a firm believer in the inner goodness of every human being in spite of their colour. I approached this country and people with the same open mindedness and was – like everyone else around the world – ecstatic and absolved when Obama was elected in 2008 in spite of what many considered his biggest obstacle: the colour of his skin. And then, from then, disappointed as to how every criticism of his policies seemed to come with something more than just a mere disagreement with economic policies. The press conference by Mr. Trump exemplified for me an unfortunate culmination of an underlying culture of intolerance.

First he said the president wasn’t born where he said he was, then he said the president had paid over $2m to prevent himself from having to show the document. A few weeks ago, he said he had sent investigators to Hawaii and he “couldn’t believe what they’re finding.” This, we found, was a lie, as Anderson Cooper found out after sending his own reporters to Hawaii. It turned out that Trump’s men either haven’t been there, or haven’t spoken to any relevant people as they should have. Yet he kept hyping the issue up for ratings in the media. Today, as the document finally surfaced, you would think he would back down. No, “we will get experts to examine it,” he said. For a moment there, I remembered another third world country – Ivory Coast – where Laurent Gbagbo had used a similar case of citizenship to keep his opponent away from the political process for many years. Many years, thousands of lives, and a brutal civil war later, we know where Gbagbo now sleeps, and in what bad shape his country is. It’s not the perfect analogy, but it’s not too far off either. The script is the same: “show us your papers and we’d let you play.”

I don’t think that many Americans realize just how bad this reflects on the country to the rest of the world, and that makes it a little more unfortunate. I’m not American and may never try to be one. But seeing how the country treats its own and one of its best leaves very much to be desired. This piece published today puts it in very good perspective. (Thanks to Nneoma for the link)

For Nigerian Election 2011

Kola — Sat, 02 Apr 2011 01:33:45 +0000

… which begins today (depending on where you are) on Saturday, April 2, 2011. We made this video last year, half goofing around, and half using what we have to contribute to a social discourse. It now has almost fifteen hundred views. Today, for the benefit of all those on the fence about what to do on election day – and we hope that they have internet too – here are friends and colleagues saying it’s cool to vote.

Personally – at least from what I see – this election is one of the most defining in Nigeria’s history because of the amount of social consciousness it has generated, and the number of young people involved/interested in it. It could be – it actually is – our own revolution.

Feel free to share the video as widely as you can, until the end of the presidential election in the middle of the month.

Bye Bye Mr. President

Kola — Sun, 03 Oct 2010 03:00:45 +0000

Those who have read my rants in the past few days about the Nigerian election cycle would have noticed my preference for the incumbent as the best person to win the ticket and the election for 2011 in Nigeria. I made this choice because of his image as a uniter and someone whose ethnic background doesn’t becloud his judgement of his position as a responsible leader in a time of difficulty. For one, he is also a better and (to my opinion) more politically savvy person than the rest of the contestants. All that changed a few minutes ago.

I’ve spent this whole day at a public exhibition. You can call it “stuff white people like” if it makes more sense to you. It is an exhibition of food, wine, artworks, upholsteries, and other pastries at the Missouri Botanical Garden to last all weekend. It involves food tastings, wine sampling and a few other past times one could do while in a public park. The Botanical Garden itself was an ideal location and I was privileged to visit its amazing Climatron for the first time. It’s is an indoor garden with a tropical feel hosting hundreds of vegetation, many of which are already endangered in many parts of the world. One more peculiar thing about the market was that all the food, wine, upholsteries, artworks etc in the fair were all produced in the state of Missouri.

I have now just returned, only to read on the news that the President of Nigeria (Goodluck Jonathan) had, in a speech to ECOWAS yesterday come to the defense of MEND, the group who had yesterday claimed responsibility for the bomb blasts in the capi tal Abuja a few blocks from the independent anniversary celebrations – a blast that claimed the lives of about 8 people and wounded about half a dozen more. The president claimed that MEND who had already publicly claimed responsibility was not the real perpetrators, but was a stooge of some faceless enemy. ”WTF”, I first thought, then “What a shame,” and it was all over. Ethnicity, greed and nativity has taken over again, and the silver lining wiped out, all in an instance. Just yesterday while watching the independence parade on NTA, I was filled with some sense of solidarity with the president standing alone while his “brothers” from the oil-rich delta took the country to ransom and lose all previously-held goodwill. It would have been a source of political capital for such a president to be decisive, and to do what was necessary at the moment in time to show the perpetrators that killing innocents was not a way to show grievances. But now, he has relapsed into good old denial and it is all over. I have wiped my eyes from all drowsiness and confirmed that the wine has nothing to do with what I’m reading in the news. This is actually not the man we can trust with our votes for providing security for the nation.

I am now shopping for a new candidate.

What Shall We Do With The Next Election?

Kola — Sat, 05 Jun 2010 06:03:38 +0000

According to a recent insightful post at Nigerian Curiosity, there is a looming civilian coup in Nigeria, and we are not paying enough attention. According to several clear pointers, it is not likely that the next election holds on schedule if it holds at all. A new chairman for the electoral commission has not been appointed, and the acting one has confessed that there are no enough funds, infrastructure or time to conduct the a free and fair election next year. The next president is expected to be signed in on May 29, 2011 and the electoral body needs at least six months to prepare for the election if it must be credible. INEC must also leave at least four months (I don’t know if this bit is in the constitution) between the time the new politicians are elected and the time they’re sworn in – so as to give room for all needed litigations.

The questions are:

When will the new chairman of the electoral body be announced by the president?

When will the new Electoral Laws be passed by the Senate in time to guide the new INEC head to conduct a free and fair election?

What does the constitution say about a situation where polls are inconclusive by the end of the four years tenure of incumbent politicians?

Is anyone really listening that none of these seem feasible in the next couple of months due to the nonchalance of politicians that stand to gain so much from the chaos that will mandate them to retain their seats in the absence of an election?

My Suggestions

Let us all send strong letters, opinions, articles and phone calls in the way of our elected officials to do the right thing right now. Let’s have your own suggestions. The time to act is now.

Henry Iwenofu

Kola — Wed, 28 Apr 2010 09:04:11 +0000

Remember Henry Iwenofu, the Nigerian proprietor of the African food place at St. Louis that first gave me an experience of home? You can read the post here.

He is now the candidate again for the State of Missouri’s House of Rep. 71st District under the Democratic Party

His Meet & Greet Fundraiser event will take place in St. Louis tomorrow. I’d like to drop by there if I can. A great guy. I wish him all the best.

It’s a Recession & I Know Now

Kola — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 11:14:43 +0000

The news of the recession in the United States has never hit so close to home as it did for me last week when I read this article on Clarissa’s blog. Clarissa is a professor in my department. Apparently, the state of Illinois has been holding out on its workers for so long a time that now it is so hard to pay fees, and the Universities are going to have to suffer in the coming months. Coming from a country where it is commonplace for Professors to be owed many months salary by the government, it is a painful reminder. But in a country where order, probity and accountability are virtues expected at the highest level of government, it is a totally upsetting news.

In some way, I am immune to this situation because my pay is not tied to the state of Illinois, but the prospect of downsizing a department already understaffed for required languages is not one that I would look forward to with glee. It is very easy to throw out the words such as depression, recession and financial crises, but when it hits home in its ugliness, words fail in conveying the pain it brings to the folks involved.

I doubt that the case involves only the state of Illinois, but a few people I’ve spoken to about it seems to believe that it is a reflection on the dirty politics that has marked the state for a very long time.

ktravula - a travelogue! » Politics

GOP Foreign Policy Debate

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