Obama, King and Gandhi-31/10/2010

By Sudheendra Kulkarni , 31/10/2010

Obama, King and Gandhi

A visit to Mahatma Gandhi’s samadhi is customary for all the heads of state coming to New Delhi. For the US President Barack Obama, who arrives in India next week, the visit to Rajghat will be more than adherence to a hallowed protocol.

Obama, King and Gandhi

This is because, the emotion that the Mahatma evokes in Obama is more than admiration; it is also, at a deeper level, personal gratitude. Gandhiji's concept of non-violence influenced African-Americans' struggle for equality and justice, which was led by his worthy follower Dr Martin Luther King Jr.

For a once-racially divided America, electing its first non-white president in 2008 was an act of self-healing. In his book, Stride Toward Freedom, King writes: "Gandhi was probably the first person in history to lift the love ethic of Jesus above mere interaction between individuals to a powerful and effective social force on a large scale."

However, a question inevitably arises: Is Obama a worthy follower of the creed of non-violence as preached by both Gandhiji and the 'American Gandhi'?

Obama, King and Gandhi

Obama came as a breath of fresh air after the end of George Bush's eight years in office. Bush's 'War on Terror' had quickly degenerated into hi-tech savagery, killing and maiming tens of thousands of innocent men, women and children in Iraq and Afghanistan.

It completely eroded the sympathy that the US had received from the world community after the 9/11 terrorist attacks. The blatant lies manufactured by the Bush administration to justify the massive military attack on Iraq further lowered America's moral stature in the eyes of its admirers.

Moreover, the cost of waging the two illegitimate wars, according to www.costofwar.com, is a mind-boggling $1,099,871,117,472 since 2001, and rising each minute! These wars have wrecked America's debt-ridden economy, and are at the root of all the current economic woes, record unemployment, erosion of common people's savings and the rapidly spreading anxiety and uncertainty in American society.

Obama, King and Gandhi

Obama was expected to do a U-turn on America's strange fascination with war. After all, USA has been almost uninterruptedly at war in some or the other part of the globe after the end of WWII. King himself had remarked that the US is the "greatest purveyor of violence in the world."

Sadly, Obama's response, in his first two years in office, to this institutionalised violence has been timid. The war in Iraq has ended, with questionable gains for America. However, its war in Afghanistan hasn't. And there is no sign that the US military is going to honour the deadline of July 2011 declared by Obama himself for the withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan.

Apart from the fact that the US war in Afghanistan is morally illicit, it is also unwinnable. Its only outcome will be more deaths, more destruction, one more defeat for America -- and more profits for its military-industrial complex. Ironically, its other beneficiaries are terrorists themselves and the state of Pakistan that continues to give them a safe haven.

In the modern era, a major test of adherence to the creed of non-violence lies in total nuclear disarmament and demilitarisation of international relations. So far, Obama as the Commander-in-Chief of a country that has a huge stockpile of weapons of mass destruction, has not shown the "fierce urgency of NOW", to use an apt phrase coined by King, in discharging his duty toward the world community. He has also not questioned the logic behind the US playing the role of a superpower, which goes against the very grain of global democracy.

Obama, King and Gandhi

He believes that his country should continue to have its current pre-eminent position in global security. It is a belief that defies the consensus among peace promoters around the world that what the 21st century needs is a radically new democratic architecture for global military security, financial stability, sustainable development and environment protection.

For a young and charismatic politician who had raised hopes of being a change agent, Obama has largely disappointed his admirers around the world. As in the case of his many well-wishers, my moment of disappointment came when he chose to accept last year's Nobel Peace Prize, which he didn't deserve, and also from his acceptance speech in Oslo.

He acknowledged in the speech that his becoming president of USA was "a direct consequence of Dr. King's life's work". Yet, in the very next breath, he also said, "As a head of state sworn to protect and defend my nation, I cannot be guided by their ["Gandhi and King's"] examples alone. I face the world as it is, and cannot stand idle in the face of threats to the American people." The threats to America are highly exaggerated and, in any case, largely the result of its own policies.

In his Oslo speech, Obama also saw the root causes of violence in the very nature of man: "War, in one form or another, appeared with the first man," he stated, a theory hotly disputed by many philosophers and social scientists. "Barbarism is an intermediate sleep, not an original darkness" in human evolution, says Maharshi Aurobindo. Gandhiji himself has often affirmed that violence is not the innate nature of human beings.

All in all, it appears that Idealist Obama has not been able to prevail over President Obama. No wonder, the highly successful slogan that he had coined for his election campaign -- 'Change You Can Believe In' -- is now being seen as 'Change You Cannot Believe In'.

Source: The Indian Express