Let us review the agenda. The number one problem in the world today, and Trump’s greatest threat, is the climate crisis, which is accelerating its destructive consequences. Trump will undoubtedly promote fossil production, but the Environmental Protection Agency will maintain the protective and preventive regulations established over the past few years, 12 states will continue to apply restrictions on emissions, and large cities will continue to spread renewable energy.

Regarding immigration, this time Trump did not insist on the wall (most of which he while he was last in the White House). In this campaign, he turned to “mass deportations,” which can mean common-sense controls to cross the border, as already agreed with the Mexican government regarding non-Mexicans, or an illusory hunt for individuals without proper documents in neighborhoods, workplaces and family homes, which would not only be savage but logistically unfeasible. In reality, it is to be hoped that Congress will reactivate the bipartisan agreement for immigrants’ legalization and access to citizenship that Trump ordered to be stopped not because of its content but because it would have been approved during the campaign and would have taken away his favorite topic for demagoguery.

As for Israel and Palestine, the biggest problem is that Trump is now prioritizing enmity with Iran, which finances and pushes Hamas and Hezbollah and whose agents tried to assassinate him twice (or perhaps thrice). He will have a hard time resurrecting the Abraham Accords that his Jewish son-in-law negotiated during his first term: exploring again the two-state solution in exchange for diplomatic recognition of Israel by Arab countries. Now, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates will only accept it if Trump diminishes his hostility against Iran, where a “reformist” candidate won the presidential election and seems to have appeased the fury.

Regarding Ukraine, Trump boasted that he would “fix it in 24 hours,” but was not very specific. Two days after the election, at the Valdai Forum, Russian President Vladimir Putin rushed to a peace agreement based on the “self-determination” of the people of Donbas in exchange for respecting Ukraine’s borders. Putin also that Russia could restore natural gas supplies through the Baltic to Germany, which Ukrainian agents . A Trump adviser has a plan to defend Ukraine’s neutrality outside NATO for the next twenty years. All this sounds similar to the Minsk Agreements reached a few years ago by Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy with German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron, which US President Barack Obama ignored.

In the face of Trump’s disdain, the European Union may reinforce internal solidity and external autonomy. Many NATO members are already ceasing to be free-riders on the United States and are fulfilling their commitment to invest at least 2% of GDP in defense. Their number has risen from four to 23 in just six years.

The biggest alarm raised by Trump’s election is that the future of democracy and legal security in the United States may be in jeopardy. Will there be “revenge” against “internal enemies,” and will he go after politicians, judges, generals, officials, journalists and other opponents? He may not need to once the pending court cases are canceled and he has satisfied his obsession with returning to power. The Senate Republican group has already rejected Trump’s nominee to lead it, and the Senate can veto some of his announced appointees. It is worth remembering that in his first term, Trump appointed three Chiefs of Staff in four years and changed most members of the Cabinet, including State, Defense, Justice, Interior and Homeland Security, a tenor of personal instability that is likely to continue.

Some of Trump’s boasts may end in a major ridicule, such as ordering Elon Musk to cut a third of the budget. Incompetence could also sink him in the face of some unforeseen catastrophe, as happened to during US President George Bush’s second term with Hurricane Katrina and to himself with the COVID-19 pandemic. Will Trump be able to maintain a regular daily work schedule in his eighties, or will he, like Joe Biden, be busy only from 10 AM to 4 PM? It is not guaranteed that he will complete four years in good shape.

Ultimately, Trump could also become a chaotic parody of the befuddled White House visitor in the film (1979). As Mister Chance says, “I can’t write. I can’t read. But I like to watch television.” Just like Donald the Returned.

[The author’s first published this piece.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

The post To Understand Trump, Take Him Seriously, but Not Literally appeared first on 51�Թ�.

Back then, the airport was like a fortress. I was a young officer having my last thrill by riding around on the machine gun nests of military trucks and walking to posts on the Line of Control between India and Pakistan. Some of the fighters we had been facing were battle-hardened Pashtuns who would come swinging down from Afghanistan, which was then (as now) ruled by the Taliban.

After my flight reached its destination, I went to my parents’ home and unpacked my uniform. In a few days, I would leave for Oxford to read for a degree that would change my life. My parents and I were having a late dinner when a fellow officer, now in India’s Intelligence Bureau, called on our landline. (In those days, we did not yet have mobile phones.) He told me that the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York were crumbling after a spectacular terrorist attack.

The following is a piece about the man who engineered those attacks and changed the world as we knew it that day.

A story of a chap named Osama

Osama bin Muhammad bin Awad bin Laden, better known as , was the one of more than 50 children of Muhammad bin Laden, a self-made billionaire who made his fortune executing construction projects for the Saudi royal family. Osama’s mother, Hamida al-Attas, was Syrian whom good old Muhammad divorced promptly after the child’s birth. Muhammad recommended Hamida to an associate, Muhammad al-Attas, with whom she had four more children. Of his father’s $5 billion, Osama inherited $25–30 million.

Osama reportedly liked reading the works of Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery and French President and General Charles de Gaulle. Osama also played football — soccer for our American friends — as a center forward. He was an Arsenal fan.

For all his wealth and Western interests, Osama was discontented with the state of the world. As a devout Sunni Muslim, his main interests were the Quran and jihad. In 1979, when the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan, Osama left for Pakistan and used his own money to fund the mujahideen fighting the Soviets. Soon, he was in bed with the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) who were fighting Charlie Wilson’s War to give the Soviets a bloody nose.

The carousing and cavorting Congressman Wilson funded the mujahideen lavishly. Yet this did not endear Wilson’s beloved homeland to Osama. This pious Muslim (who left behind 20–26 children and probably had more sex than the playboy Wilson) founded al-Qaeda in 1988. As per the Federal Bureau of Investigation (), the goal of this organization was a worldwide jihad. Osama was virulently opposed to American presence on Muslim lands, especially his native Saudi Arabia.

Osama began training young men in places like Afghanistan, Pakistan and Sudan to unleash a campaign of terror against the US. On February 26, 1993, two al-Qaeda operatives a van packed with explosives into the public parking garage beneath the World Trade Center and set off a big blast. Six people, including a pregnant woman, died, and over a thousand were injured. The FBI arrested five of the seven plotters promptly and found the mastermind Ramzi Yousef later in Pakistan.

Yousef’s plan was to topple North Tower with his bomb, and the collapsing debris of this tower was to knock down South Tower. This cunning plan failed, but his uncle, Khalid Sheikh Muhammad, succeeded in knocking the towers down more than eight years later.

The (known this way because unlike the British or the Europeans, Americans put the month before the day) involved 19 of Osama’s boys four hijacking planes and flying them to kamikaze-style suicide attacks on chosen targets. A third plane struck the Pentagon, and a fourth, which crashed in Pennsylvania, was apparently meant to hit the White House. Osama’s Pakistani henchman had pulled off a huge massacre on a shoestring budget, killing 2,997 people and injuring an estimated . Now, Osama had worldwide attention for his global jihad.

The US tilts at windmills

The 9/11 attacks led to mourning and shock in the US. Even the Japanese had only struck Pearl Harbor in distant Hawaii, which was not even a state yet. Osama had managed to strike the mainland US itself. This was a really big deal.

Later, the 9-11 Commission Report that Osama’s al-Qaeda was “sophisticated, patient, disciplined, and lethal.” Osama had issued two fatwas, one in August 1996 and in February 1998, calling for a jihad against the US. He declared that it was more important for Muslims to kill Americans than to kill other infidels. This charming chap was inspired by Egyptian Islamist author Sayyid Qutb and “unprovoked mass murder as righteous defense of an embattled faith.”

The murderous ideology that had inflicted such spectacular 9/11 attacks was bound to provoke a response. Under George W. Bush, who was not as bright as his father George H. W. Bush, this came in the form of the War on Terror, later jargonized as the Global War on Terror (GWOT). The US rushed into Afghanistan to get rid of the Taliban and succeeded speedily. Then, they engaged in a quixotic endeavor to build democracy in this famously fractious, mountainous land.

The US installed one notoriously corrupt leader after another into office. These men stole hundreds of millions of American taxpayer dollars. In the end, US darlings and Ashraf Ghani became lackeys of the Taliban, who are now back in power despite the blood and treasure successive US administrations poured into Afghanistan.

More importantly, the GWOT morphed into an invasion of Iraq in 2003. This was both unwise and unnecessary. Certainly, Saddam Hussein was no lovey dovey cuddly teddy bear. He was a murderer fond of chemical weapons and had gassed both Shia Arabs and ethnic minority Kurds.

Hussein had invaded Iran (in 1980) and Kuwait (in 1990) as well. The latter provoked the 1990–1991 Gulf War, where US troops annihilated Iraqi forces spectacularly. By 2003, Hussein’s Iraq was a shell of its former self. Besides, Hussein was a Baathist — a political philosophy that advocates a single Arab socialist nation — and no friend to al-Qaeda. Yet deranged American neoconservatives — many of whom were the children of Trotskyites — argued that Hussein would collaborate with Osama to unleash weapons of mass destruction on the US. This argument was bunkum but, just like their fathers, neoconservatives did not let reality get in the way of ideology. As a result, more American blood and treasure were lost.

The Iraq War destroyed the goodwill the US had attracted after the 9/11 attacks. Few people around the world bought the neoconservative bullshit. Even old allies like France and Germany refused to go along. Tony Blair valiantly sided with Bush Junior but lost his reputation at home for doing so.

Worse, the US under Bush Junior justified torture. My co-author Glenn Carle, a White Anglo-Saxon Protestant (WASP) with nine ancestors on the Mayflower, resigned from the CIA and wrote , a riveting read that captures the madness of this era. Needless to say, this US recourse to torture damaged its reputation globally and caused a crisis of confidence in the idea of America at home.

The US takes its eye off the ball

Arguably, the US has been the greatest superpower in history. The 9/11 attacks were spectacular, but they were perpetrated by little men in the shadows. Crazy ideologies always come up from time to time, and Islamist fanaticism is not new. Muslim countries tend to have very few minorities for a reason. After all, believers have a religious duty to convert everyone to Islam. Fanatical Muslims have resorted to torture and murder in their aim to convert pagans and dissenters from truth with a capital T. The medieval Mughal emperor Aurangzeb and the more modern Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini are just two examples from a long line of crazy nutters. 

If the neoconservatives had read some history, they would have realized that the War on Terror was a bloody stupid idea. You can go to war against a state, but not against an idea, especially not if this idea has been around for a long time and just refuses to die. Plenty of disgruntled young men and even others need a villain whom they can blame for everything. When an ideology offers 72 virgins in heaven, it is an attractive proposition to many testosterone-filled fanatics.

The US got distracted by the War on Terror and ignored other key developments. Few remember that 2001 is not only the year of the 9/11 attacks but also the year in which China joined the World Trade Organization (WTO). Enter the Dragon was the blockbuster movie Americans somehow missed. The 2016 paper “The China Shock” how the entry of China into the global market deindustrialized many economies and depressed worker wages as well. The Rust Belt, where much of Donald Trump’s core support base lives, is a classic example of this shock.

Anyway, fast forward to today and a new Cold War, which includes a full-blown trade war, has broken out between the US and China. If the US had woken up to the Chinese challenge earlier, this would have been entirely avoidable.

There is also an argument to be made that the US was blind to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s tightening grip on power. For years, the US and its allies, especially the UK, were happy to enjoy Russian cash pilfered from oligarchs from Mother Russia. They never really used their leverage against Putin to contain him or, earlier, to help build a Russian economy that was less extractive or exploitative.

To this day, Russians blame Bush Junior for unilaterally pulling out of the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) that prohibited both countries from “deploying nationwide defenses against strategic ballistic missiles.” Putin had promised the US full support after 9/11, and Russians still view the US abandonment of ABM as a stab in the back. Fueled by irrational fears post-9/11, it was entirely unnecessary and extremely unwise.

A weaker, more divided post-9/11 US

I am convinced that many neoconservatives were well-meaning. I met some of them during my time at Oxford. Some of them were Rhodes Scholars and were convinced that an American invasion would lead to democracy. By their logic, there would be rivers of milk and honey in the region, and everyone would sing kumbaya. This is exactly what many Bolsheviks believed in 1917. Yet what they got was lovely Joseph Stalin’s paranoid mass killings and secret police chief Lavrentiy Beria’s rampant raping.

Naive neoconservatives forgot that the road to Hell is paved with good intentions. The invasion of Iraq was followed by the rise of the Islamic State and a savage civil war that spilled out into Syria, where the Russians got involved. A former commandant of Sandhurst (the legendary British military academy) who came from a gloriously imperial family remarked to me in 2003 that the borders in the Middle East were all in the wrong place. Mark Sykes and François Georges-Picot had not quite got everything right. Yet the trouble is, where do you draw new lines in this famously volatile region? Neoconservatives shook the hornet’s nest, and the results will remain with us for decades to come.

Japan and Germany after World War II were relatively homogenous industrial societies. Neither Afghanistan nor Iraq was one. Both are multiethnic concoctions where the idea of a Westphalian state is still an alien import. The likes of Paul Wolfowitz and Paul Bremer were infernally arrogant and criminally ignorant in their policy prescriptions. De-Baathification in Iraq led to the disbanding of the military, the police, the firefighters, the teachers, the doctors and other employees of Hussein’s state. To survive, not just thrive, everyone joined the Baathist Party. Instead of creating a thriving democracy, neoconservatives unleashed chaos and civil war. We are still reaping the bitter harvests of the toxic seeds they sowed. 

Like the War on Drugs and the War on Crime, the War on Terror failed. Simplistic solutions to complex problems always fail, even when they may seem successful for decades. Neither Nazi Germany nor Soviet Russia were able to create the utopias they promised. Instead, both led to nightmares. So did the War on Terror.

Osama’s aim was to weaken the US. He succeeded. Trump won the presidency first by defenestrating Jeb Bush from the Republican Party and then by beating Hillary Clinton in the presidential election. The reality television star blamed both of them for the Iraq War. The neoconservatives’ chest-thumping form of American nationalism had paved the way for him. Trump offered a rawer version of patriotism to those on the Right who feared that America had become weak. To them, “Make America Great Again” proved to be an irresistible offer.

At the same time, the Left lost faith in the idea of America. American campuses started viewing the CIA and the FBI as sinister organizations. Many young Americans see their country as an unjust superpower dominated by the military-industrial complex. Osama had blamed the Great Satan — the term used in many Muslim countries for the US — for the sad plight of Palestine and Lebanon. Thousands of students camping in campuses seem to agree.

The Taliban is back in power in Afghanistan. Terrorism still persists even though we have avoided a repeat of 9/11-style spectacular attacks. Airport security is a pain in the wrong part of the anatomy because no one wants to be on a plane headed into a monument. No one trusts President Joe Biden’s democracy agenda because they have seen this American movie before. The soft power that Harvard Kennedy School’s Joseph Nye speaks of stands greatly damaged. Worst of all, a coarsened, far more divided US seems ill-prepared to lead a more fractious world.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

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Republican candidate George W. Bush stood and started to answer this question before the chair interrupted him and warned he was digressing. “Help me with the question,” he requested after getting tongue-tied. The questioner wanted to know how he was personally affected. Democratic candidate Bill Clinton took his turn to answer. He stood, walked toward the audience and spoke, not to the audience but to the woman who had asked the question. He motioned to her, his eyes fixed on hers. “In my state, when people lose their jobs, there’s a good chance I’ll know them by their names.”

It was a transformational in politics. Of course, we didn’t know it at the time, but on October 15, 1992, at the University of Richmond’s Robins Center, politics changed. The hapless Bush was aloof and seemed almost contemptuous while Clinton interacted relaxedly with the audience without feints or deviations. It was as if he was having private conversations that could be heard, not overheard.

Outside politics, cultural change was turning us all into voyeurs. I don’t mean that people started to take an unwholesome pleasure from watching others engaged in sex or suffering in some way (although some might have). No, the new voyeurism involved the guiltless enjoyment of observing or eavesdropping on private conversations and discovering intimate details of others’ lives, particularly through television and, later, social media. This reflected a growing fascination with the personal and often unfiltered experiences of others. We called it curiosity. It soon extended into politics.

Political celebrities who seem like real people

Celebrity culture was, for many, a Trojan horse: Innocuous-looking enough to allow into our lives but baleful in its consequences. Our captivation with the lives of other people seems perfectly natural now. But it wasn’t in the 1970s. The misleadingly inoffensive horse entered in the 1980s, so that by the early 1990s, it had already taken up residence. Impatient with entertainers who were cautious about sharing details of their private lives, audiences wanted everyone to be like Madonna: unsparing in their distribution of the minutiae of their lives. 

Audience appetite was for real people —  not the disproportionately impersonal and untouchable godlike characters who dominated public life for most of the 20th century, but people who resembled the other people they were supposed to entertain. 

This affected politicians. It seems laughable that we once looked up to them. For most of the 20th century, they were guardians in a benevolent moral and ministerial sense. The electorate admired, respected and, in some cases, idolized these near-transcendent beings. By the 1990s, however, audiences no longer admired politicians from afar; they wanted close-ups. What’s more, they demanded access to their private lives, blurring the lines between public service and entertainment.

Clinton seemed to understand the power of ordinariness. The folksy, down-to-earth charm that characterized him and allowed him to face several accusations of impropriety and an impeachment with equanimity made him one of the most popular presidents in history.

Clinton’s kind of ordinariness became a valuable resource. Audiences responded to politicians who mirrored themselves: They may have had more power, authority, status and attention; they may even have led more opulent lifestyles; but, unlike politicians of earlier eras, the new breed could and probably should exhibit the same kinds of flaws and problems as the people who followed them. So, Clinton’s sex scandals, far from being a source of damnation, worked like a celebrity benediction. There had been sex scandals before, but never anything approaching Clinton’s triple obloquy. The media, which by the early 1990s were ravenous for scandal, covered it extensively.

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Bush’s struggle to connect with the audience starkly contrasted with Clinton’s approach, highlighting a shift in what Americans began to value in their leaders. Bush followed Clinton to the White House. He was prone to gaffes, making him the object of parody and criticism, especially after the 9/11 terrorist attacks and the subsequent US invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq.

By contrast, Bush’s successor Barack Obama masterfully balanced the demands of celebrity culture with a scandal-free image, projecting the persona of a cool president. He had suaveness, eloquence and an uncommon ability to connect with a broad range of people, from appearances on talk shows to a preparedness to share his (he was known to favor Beyoncé, Tyla and Kendrick Lamar.)

Harris, Trump… and Oprah

Obama’s successor, Donald Trump, entered politics as a fully formed celebrity in a similar way to President Ronald Reagan and California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger — all three were well-known entertainers before their forays into politics. Trump hosted The Apprentice for 14 seasons from 2004 till 2015, so, by the time he won election in November 2016, he was an established figure in the media and popular culture.

Trump may have lacked Clinton’s magnetism and Obama’s relatability, but he could challenge both with his sex scandals and ability to dominate the news cycle. He had little experience in public office but was adept at maneuvering the media. Perhaps he still is. But is his audience still excited? Or are we witnessing Trump fatigue?

Audiences like novelty, freshness and new personalities. If Trump’s celebrity appeal begins to wane, Kamala Harris emerges as a pristine face in American politics. Despite being vice president since 2021, she’s relatively unknown. She’s probably the least-known nominee in living memory. She didn’t even benefit from the exposure of going through primaries. Ironically, this might not be such a bad thing.

Her paradigm will surely be Oprah Winfrey. A proven kingmaker with her pivotal “We need Barack Obama” at Des Moines, Iowa on December 8, 2007, Oprah has already given Harris her.

Related Reading

Do Celebrity Endorsements Help or Hurt Politicians?

As far as I’m aware, there is no celebrity equivalent of osmosis in which style, knowledge and appeal can pass from one person to another. If there were, Harris should learn how it works. Harris’ campaign already has an Oprah feel: The “Joy” theme is confection, though not meaningless confection: It suggests Harris will, if elected, be a person who brings great pleasure and happiness — as celebrities often do.

The most amusing political spectacle in history

It seems frivolous to discuss celebrity culture in the solemn context of politics. But let’s face it: politics is no longer solemn: The dignity that once seemed to ennoble politicians has vanished and whatever they say seems glib or, at best, rehearsed. Small wonder that audiences expect value-for-money entertainment from politics. Politicians, at least the successful ones, know this and often respond in a way that elicits a reaction. Trump has an intuitive grasp of this: His bombastic statements and bumptious behavior guarantee him an expectant audience and a breathless media. His dismissal of a miscellany of accusations with a shrug gives him a certain sheen. He also recruits established showbusiness stars, sometimes to their chagrin (Abba Trump to stop playing their music at his rallies).

Like everything else, politics changes. Some might despair at the prospect of politics succumbing to trashy and meretricious celebrity culture. But voters demand it: They want politicians who are as imperfect as they are, empathic enough to be relatable, unpredictable in a way that keeps everyone curious and, above all, entertaining. And, if they’re not, they’re gone: There are plenty of politicians with presidential aspirations who rose to prominence but not for long. Who remembers Deval Patrick, Jim Gilmore or Lincoln Chafee — all hopefuls from recent political history?

Voters are accustomed to being entertained by all manner of celebrity, some weaponized with talent, others just disposable and quickly forgotten. Harris and Trump both want to convince voters that they’re not celebrities but serious politicians. That means much of the campaign will be about trying to command the media’s attention and shape the way it presents the candidates, whether as impressively august with superabundant leadership skills or just pretenders. This guarantees the campaign will deliver a theatrical, extravagant and probably the most amusing political spectacle in history.

[Ellis Cashmore is the author of, now in its third edition.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

The post Voters Want Politicians Like Trump and Harris to Be Celebrities appeared first on 51�Թ�.

As the US political establishment pays its sometimes gushing respects to George H.W. Bush, who died on November 30, some journalists have us who he was, what he did and where he came from.

In an from his 2006 book, Playing President, seasoned journalist Robert Scheer described the race of political aristocrats to which Bush Sr. belonged. Scheer explains how that nobility of wealth and privilege managed to define its special role within the infrastructure of power: “They were as painfully aware of their having been schooled for that purpose as was the mass media so studiously ignorant of the importance of elite grooming in what passed for representative democracy.”

Here is today’s 3D definition:

Grooming:

A form of managed predestination of individuals who can be counted on to rule over the people in a democracy

Contextual note

When assessing the career of a personality like the democratically (s)elected George H.W. Bush, the use of oxymorons seems particularly appropriate. Scheer condenses a brilliant insight into his description of the mass media’s ability to remain “studiously ignorant” of how the grooming of the elite takes place.

The Daily Devil’s Dictionary’s oxymoron (“managed predestination”) to define this species of career preparation of future leaders may help the ignorant to understand one of the paradoxes at the core of America’s democratic culture by bringing together two fundamentally opposed memes: “predestination,” a central dogma in the theology of the Calvinist founders of New England, and “management,” which — alongside consumerism — defined the American religion of the 20th century. That is when the nation learned to manage money, people, resources, brands, currencies, time, political messages, interest rates, quarterly results, to say nothing of the network of military bases across the globe that permanently remind the world’s population where the managers hail from.

As Scheer at one point suggests, US presidents come in at least two strongly contrasting varieties: the “self-made man” (Abraham Lincoln, Jimmy Carter, Barack Obama, to mention only the best known) and the predestined (Franklin D. Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy, the two George Bushes). The predestined are a class of people who may become eligible for the presidency or other high offices, but who will navigate toward some area of in the economic power structure — in business or finance — that both underpins and gives direction to the supreme political power wielded by the master of the White House, whether from self-made or predestined stock.

Groomed as he was by his family and class, Bush Sr. was many things before becoming vice president and then president, including ambassador to China and head of the CIA. He may even have been in the investigation (and/or cover-up) of the Kennedy assassination.

But he was far less active and influential than his busybody father, Prescott Bush, who as a businessman was everywhere in the 1930s, and, according to General Smedley Butler, a member of the mysterious that sought to remove Roosevelt from office and impose a fascist government with Butler, the war hero, as titular leader. In 1952, Prescott Bush was elected senator of the state of Connecticut.

Historical note

Unlike Europe’s aristocracy, defined by families rooted in the land, the more dynamic American elite produces new dynasties around either business or political ventures. The Roosevelts, Kennedys, Bushes, Clintons and possibly the Obamas have cultivated within their family culture the notion of dynasty.

The classless interloper Donald Trump seems to have similar ambitions, though he and his family lack even the notion of grooming (other than his own hair). Since the American elite to which the Bushes, Kennedys, Romneys and Rockefellers belonged is an aristocracy made up of the predestined — those who by the grace of God (and carefully cultivated media ratings) stepped into the public spotlight — rather than of offspring who automatically inherit position and power, the American elite grooms its members not necessarily to rule, but to benefit from a consumer’s choice between business clout and political power or ruling from the background or the foreground.

Once a family dynasty gravitates toward the status of membership in the elite — whether Democrat or Republican, white or black — they adopt nearly identical values and spontaneously identify with each other as a family.

In recent months, the American public has seen numerous and close friendship between the Bushes, Clintons and Obamas. Do they agree on every important political issue? They would certainly deny it, because their individual celebrity is linked to their image of leadership in the parties, Democratic or Republican, that elevated them to the presidency. But do those issues that divide the parties matter? And what are those issues, other than a difference of “priorities” rather than fundamental choices?

They also join the clan of super-wealthy and share their narcissism with the media — all, that is, except Jimmy Carter.

In Robert Scheer’s that provoked candidate George H.W. Bush to demand that his friend, Otis Chandler, publisher of The Los Angeles Times, fire Scheer, presumably for impertinence, Bush, complaining about President Jimmy Carter’s policies, made this telling statement, which the practice of all recent presidents would confirm: “I think if we let our human rights policy appear to override everything, including our strategic interests, that the policy is wrong.”

By “our strategic interests,” our doesn’t refer to the American people’s, but to the interests of those of the elite to which every president, including the “Kenyan” Obama, understands that they belong.

*[In the age of Oscar Wilde and Mark Twain, another American wit, the journalist Ambrose Bierce, produced a series of satirical definitions of commonly used terms, throwing light on their hidden meanings in real discourse. Bierce eventually collected and published them as a book, , in 1911. We have shamelessly appropriated his title in the interest of continuing his wholesome pedagogical effort to enlighten generations of readers of the news.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

The post How George H.W. Bush Was Groomed to Become President appeared first on 51�Թ�.

In an with British TV presenter Piers Morgan, US President Donald Trump revealed what he learned about Queen Elizabeth’s take on Brexit. It appears that she sees it as “a complex problem.” Emphasizing the deep insight of the queen, Trump followed this revelation with the observation, “I think nobody had any idea how complex that was going to be.”

Here is today’s 3D definition:

Nobody:

In political rhetoric, the fictional person that stands in for everybody, including the speaker, who has been complicit in a major historical mistake

Contextual note

Of course, plenty of people, including those who voted for Brexit, knew that it would be extraordinarily complex. But Trump has a habit of imagining what people didn’t know or understand. Concerning the health care law in the US, he famously , “Nobody knew it could be so complicated.”

By George W. Bush’s second term in office, between 2005 and 2009, most people in the US came to realize not only that there had been no weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in Iraq to justify the 2003 invasion, but that the consequences of that invasion were catastrophic for the entire region and for global stability in general. The politicians in the US and the UK who blindly supported President Bush and Tony Blair, as well as the mainstream media, when challenged on why they hadn’t seen the mistake, routinely claimed that nobody could have known that there were no WMD or that the effects of an invasion would be so disastrous.

As wrote in 2006: “Who thought Iraq had WMD? Most everybody.” Larry Elder found all the evidence he needed in quotes from establishment Democrats and Republicans, sufficient in his eyes to prove definitively that “most everybody” believed what, by then, were understood to be deliberate lies. Adding “most” in “most everybody” leaves some wiggle room to admit that “everybody” should be taken as hyperbole, but Elder carefully avoids mentioning any of the lucid observers of the time who weren’t taken in by the lies.

Historical note

In particular, Elder avoided mentioning people like , or of the International Atomic Energy Agency, who described the mood of the time: “Nobody wanted to challenge the President. Nobody wanted to believe inspections had anything of value to bring to the table. The press bought into that.”

In other words, contrary to popular belief, the “nobody” that Gwozdecky refers to doesn’t indicate people who don’t exist. It serves instead to describe a class of people hypocritically committed to ducking their responsibilities. That class of people began with politicians, but as Gwozdecky points out, it could have gone nowhere without the able assistance of the press.

As in 1898, when William Randolph Hearst told Americans to “remember the Maine,” the corporate media are incapable of stepping in to throw the slightest doubt on the supposed causes of war. War is good for the press and, the politicians believe, it is good for the economy. And they have a point. An economy built around the needs of the military — and potentially feeble without it — needs a war from time to time to keep the engine ticking over. And if the war is in a place where resources to feed the economy (oil, for example) are part of the stakes, it’s a no-brainer.

If politicians and the media have lost all perception of the ambiguity of “nobody,” they need only return to Homer to understand the power of the word that when he was imprisoned in the cave of the one-eyed Polyphemus, the Cyclops, who announced his intention to eat the Greek hero for dinner.

Wily Odysseus began by offering the Cyclops wine, which he found so pleasing he said to his captive: “Give me more to drink and tell me your name. I’ll return the favor and eat you last.” Odysseus gave him the wine, telling his predatory host his name was “Nobody.” More interested in the wine than in the meal, the Cyclops eventually fell into a drunken slumber, allowing Odysseus and his companions to seize a fiery brand and poke out the single eye of Polyphemus.

The blinded Cyclops began screaming to his countrymen, “Brothers, Nobody tried to kill me!” The others concluded there was no problem and left him to suffer. Odysseus and his companions then managed to escape, hidden beneath the sheep Polyphemus kept in his cave, which he let out for grazing in the morning.

In this particular case, Nobody — who was somebody — provided the positive solution to the problem and Odysseus continued on his tortuous path back home to Ithaca.

*[In the age of Oscar Wilde and Mark Twain, another American wit, the journalist Ambrose Bierce, produced a series of satirical definitions of commonly used terms, throwing light on their hidden meanings in real discourse. Bierce eventually collected and published them as a book, , in 1911. We have shamelessly appropriated his title in the interest of continuing his wholesome pedagogical effort to enlighten generations of readers of the news.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

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TODAY’S 3D DEFINITION: MORAL CLARITY

On October 19, shared with the world his slightly indirect critique of Donald Trump, as he warned his audience about the rise of bigotry and populism under the current administration. In particular, he lamented the loss of “moral clarity” in the younger generations.

Here is what he said:

“There are some signs that the intensity of support for democracy itself has waned, especially among the young who never experienced the galvanizing moral clarity of the Cold War or never focused on the ruin of entire nations by socialist central planning.”

Moral clarity is a term that has become rare in political discourse, especially when politicians are speaking among themselves. It is far more useful when speaking to a public who haven’t had time to think about the issue addressed.

Here is its 3D definition:

Moral clarity: unthinking adherence to a government’s declared value system, especially when the principles of that value system serve to justify in advance everything that one’s own government does, and condemns equally in advance any position that seeks to contradict it or call it into question.

Contextual note

define “galvanize” as “to stimulate or excite as if by an electric shock.” The “galvanizing moral clarity” Bush associates with the Cold War can be seen as a particular form of stimulation practiced by the American government between 1945 and 1989 to generate excitement for adventures in moral clarity, such as the war in Vietnam.

Background

George W. Bush is one those political thinkers who always remains committed to the ideas and thoughts he has expressed in the past. Nearly 18 years ago, during his first presidential campaign, he , in his always inimitable manner, the concept he now associates with the term “morality clarity.”

“When I was coming up, it was a dangerous world, and you knew exactly who they were. It was us vs. them, and it was clear who them was. Today, we are not so sure who the ‘they’ are, but we know they’re there.” — Iowa Western Community College, January 21, 2000

*[In the age of Mark Twain and Oscar Wilde, another American wit, the journalist Ambrose Bierce, produced a series of satirical definitions of commonly used terms, throwing light on their hidden meanings in real discourse. Bierce eventually collected and published them as a book, , in 1911. We have shamelessly appropriated his title in the interest of continuing his wholesome pedagogical effort to enlighten generations of readers of the news.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

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Louise Richardson, the incoming vice-chancellor of the University of Oxford, has attracted controversy for suggesting the US  to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.

Richardson is a well-respected expert on terrorism studies, and she made her comments in the context of a nuanced argument about how nations should best respond to terrorism in the contemporary era. However, it is inevitable, given both Richardson’s new status as the head of a prestigious institution and the politically charged nature of anything to do with 9/11, that her views have attracted some angry  in the . But is she right?

Much of the hostile media reaction to Richardson’s comments drew on contributions from the relatives of people killed during the terrorist attacks. Clearly, no one would wish to tell bereaved family members of those killed on 9/11 that their grief and anger in response to those events were an overreaction. But when talking of an overreaction to 9/11, Richardson clearly has in mind the broader collective response of the nation to the events, rather than the personal responses of individuals directly affected.

In this broader sense, it seems self-evident that the US did overreact in various ways to 9/11. In the weeks and months following the terrorist attacks of 2001, fear about the country’s newly realized vulnerability, combined with an invigorated sense of patriotism, spread throughout the country.

President ’s narrative that the terrorist attacks represented an assault on the country’s most precious values of freedom and democracy resonated with Americans. So too did the stated intention to go to any lengths to bring the perpetrators of these crimes to justice.

In many respects this outpouring of patriotic defiance stemmed from what is best about America—a strong sense of collective identity based on shared values, a commitment to seeing justice done and an optimistic belief that the wrongs of the world can be made right.

But it subsequently manifested in some ugly ways. Patriotism based on an assertion of common values can easily morph into an intolerance of dissent. This clearly materialized in the post-9/11 US. Voices that questioned the dominant narrative were  as treacherous.

A quest for justice combined with a fear of the “other” can also easily result in vengeance being aimed at the wrong targets. The of  in the US following 9/11 is testament to this. The pervasive sense of fear that a terrorist attack is designed to create also facilitated severe restrictions of the very liberties Americans were so keen to defend in the aftermath of 9/11. The clearest example is the  surveillance powers granted to intelligence agencies, including the National Security Agency (NSA).

Evidently, there was a sense in which the US overreacted to the terrorist attacks of 9/11. Americans felt deeply threatened by the attacks and were keen to reassert their common values in response to this threat.

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The Strategic Response

While it may be true that ordinary Americans were guided in their response to the horrors of 9/11 by a combination of fear and patriotism—resulting in an overzealous assertion of American values—the same cannot be said for those in charge of formulating some of the most controversial aspects of the government’s response to the attacks.

Many of those at the heart of the ruling Bush administration responded to the terrorist attacks on 9/11 less as a catastrophic event that elicited an emotive response, and more as an opportunity to achieve pre-existing foreign policy goals. Most prominent among these was the desire to remove from power in Iraq.

This goal was espoused by a neoliberal think tank, the Project for the New American Century, as far back as 1998 in a now infamous open to President Bill Clinton, advocating regime change in Iraq. Many of the signatories to this letter included figures who went on to play prominent roles in the subsequent invasion of Iraq in 2003. Among them were Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage; Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton; and Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz. Another was Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld who, on the very afternoon of 9/11, instructed  to immediately consider whether it could warrant an attack on Iraq.

These individuals—who were key to determining the US government’s response to 9/11—did not exactly overreact to the terrorist attacks. Rather, they sought to exploit the climate of fear and patriotism that emerged after 9/11, in order to pursue their goals in a wholly calculated and cold-headed fashion.

Did America overreact to 9/11? The answer seems to depend on which Americans we are talking about.

*[This article was originally published by .]

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Important in understanding the War on Terror’s true purposes is the fact that, in light of the US government’s tactics in waging the war, it is very difficult to conclude that it will ever end and in which geographic areas it will be fought, both now and in the future. After all, the tactics the government is using — to include seemingly indiscriminate unmanned drone attacks in multiple Muslim countries, detentions without trial or end, torture, renditions, and the continuing erosion of personal privacy here in the United States — all raise questions regarding the US government’s true aims and, for the most part, seem more likely to exacerbate the threat of terrorism, rather than alleviate it. After all, with Washington’s piecemeal approach of individually targeting terrorist suspects, it is difficult to grasp the government’s contemplated endgame, assuming one exists.

This is because, based upon this piecemeal approach, there is no endgame, as the US government can continue the war perpetually without meaningful democratic oversight or review, so long as it maintains its assurances of the existence of a credible threat. This is a natural consequence of the fact that the government maintains a monopoly on the information necessary to arrive at an informed decision on the war’s necessity and effectiveness. This is where the detention camps at Guantánamo Bay and other government detention policies come into play.

Because the US government’s strategy in waging the War on Terror appears to be so fundamentally ill-suited for accomplishing the war’s stated objectives and, as stated above, likely exacerbates the concern it allegedly addresses, Washington needed, and continues to need, what passes for evidence supporting the necessity for the war which is beyond meaningful review and democratic oversight. The US government claims that it cannot provide meaningful support for its attacks on the targets of its war, because, it claims, to do so would jeopardize national security.

We are asked simply to support its efforts without question. The US government’s detention policies, which place the purported enemy beyond the reach of the American populace and, to this day, largely beyond the reach of meaningful, independent legal counsel, provide propaganda fodder, in the form of the detainees, and enable the government to lend a sense of credibility to its threat claims. These detention policies, and the way that they are effectuated in near absolute secrecy, enable the Washington to unilaterally and completely control the narrative regarding the apparent threat posed by the detainees and their alleged colleagues who remain at large.

The US government, to this day, has, through these detention policies, been remarkably successful in controlling the detainees’ narrative, thus enabling the government to generate continuing support for a war that is, at best, ill-advised and at worst, illegal. This, and not any illusory national security benefit, is why so many detainees remain at Guantánamo Bay without meaningful hope of release and appear to be in a state of unending legal and practical limbo.

The detention camps at Guantánamo Bay were, from day one, meant to serve an instrumental role in shaping public and world opinion, that being to create a sense of urgency and overriding importance to the US government’s war-time footing in furtherance of its War on Terror. By continuing to maintain the detention camps at Guantánamo Bay, the government can effectively characterize those detained there in any manner it chooses, for the sole apparent purpose of justifying a response to the resulting perceived threat that those detained there purportedly pose. This, in turn, enables the US government to set the geographic, tactical, strategic, and temporal agenda for its perpetual war. Therein lies the primary utility of the detention camps at Guantánamo Bay and other prisons of similar effect.

So what evidence do we have that the US government is using Guantánamo Bay for public relations purposes, rather than for legitimate penal or national security reasons? One example supporting this conclusion comes from the past debate on whether there are some detainees at Guantánamo Bay, who are so dangerous that merely transporting them to United States soil for detention would pose an untenable national security risk. This argument, which is, on its face, suspect, highlights the nature of the Washington’s claims, not only with respect to the necessity of a facility like the detention camps at Guantánamo Bay, but also of the war itself.

There seems to be no reasonable explanation about how any detainee can be so dangerous that his (or her) mere presence within the territory of the United States would pose a security risk to the country as a whole. After all, the United States Bureau of Prisons is more than capable of securely housing the most notorious of convicted criminals. This argument, rather than being designed to ensure a secure nation, is designed to thoroughly demonize some or all of the detainees in order to create an atmosphere that supports the US government’s justification for the War on Terror, and its no-holds-barred tactics in prosecution of the war.

Another source of support for the theory that the detention camps at Guantánamo Bay serve a largely public relations purpose, is the government’s unilateral and complete control over the selection of defense counsel representing detainees charged before the military commissions. As mentioned in my  article on December 13, 2012, the American military simply will not permit the detainees facing war crimes charges before the military commissions to select their own counsel, which is curious in light of this right’s fundamental standing in the United States Constitution and criminal law jurisprudence.

The Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution grants a near-absolute right for criminal defendants to select their own counsel. However, this right is not being honored at the detention camps of Guantánamo Bay and the government is quite aggressive in its denial. Why? Simply put, this policy further enables the US government to control the narrative coming from the detention camps in a way that is consistent with its War efforts.

In summary, the primary purpose behind the US government’s detention policies in furtherance of its War on Terror is a public relations one. The government has always sought, and continues to seek, to characterize the detainees held at Guantánamo Bay in a manner that maximizes its ability to garner support for the War on Terror and its suspect tactics and strategies in furtherance thereof. This conclusion should lead one to question the underlying premises upon which arguments supporting the war itself are based.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

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By Francis Njubi Nesbitt

"Who is this man Mandela?" The US News & World Report asked in January 1990. Apparently no one knew much, since the magazine could only come up with three short paragraphs about the ANC leader. This sketch of Nelson Mandela's life seemed to be drawn from a Who's Who collection, detailing his early education, legal practice, and arrest by South African authorities in August 1962. Referring to him a as a "living legend," a "martyr," and "saint," the article noted that "Mandela has not been photographed or quoted directly since his final statement from the dock."

Nobody knew what Mandela looked like after 27 years in prison. Yet, the effort by South Africa's apartheid government to ban his image and words backfired as Mandela acquired a near-messianic aura. 

The "Free Mandela Campaign," launched after he was charged with sabotage at the "Rivonia Trial" in 1963, became one of the most visible international human rights movements of the 20th century. The United Nations General Assembly repeatedly called for his unconditional release. Trade unions, political parties, and student groups around the world joined the campaign to free the leaders of the ANC. 

In 1984, both houses of the US Congress adopted a "Mandela freedom resolution." Mayor Eugene Gus Newport of Berkeley, California, proclaimed June 9, 1984, to be "Nelson and Winnie Mandela Day." Detroit's city council adopted a resolution on September 10 of that year calling for the freedom of Nelson and Winnie Mandela. On October 11, anti-apartheid organizations in the US presented the United Nations with petitions for the release of Nelson Mandela signed by over 34,000 people.

The imminent release of what the London Times called "the colossus of African nationalism in South Africa” sent media around the world into a frenzy. "Waiting for Mandela" became the standard headline. In an article titled "Awaiting Mandela," The Economist wrote: "The man jailed a quarter of a century ago on sabotage charges now holds the key to peaceful resolution of his country's racial conflict." Nevertheless, the magazine managed to spend most of the editorial giving credit to apartheid leader Frederik Willem de Klerk for his "reforms." Returning to Mandela at the end, the editor observed: "Prestige apart, this is true: when arrested 25 years ago, Mr. Mandela was merely one of the party's four provincial leaders."

The Voice of Freedom

"Nightline makes history," Ted Koppel declared from Cape Town where he had relocated to cover Mandela's release live. Koppel hosted a "town meeting" before the event, where de Klerk's henchmen were given an opportunity to promote the new, "reasonable" face of apartheid. 

From the beginning, however, it was clear that the US media was out of its depth. The Mandela story did not fit into the neat news routines of the United States. First, the release was delayed by several hours, throwing everybody's deadlines off. Then, organizers allowed members of the South African Communist Party to hang the red flag on the podium and make "radical" speeches. Finally, Mandela's first speech in 27 years began with 15 minutes of salutations to all the dignitaries assembled and freedom fighters past and present who had made that moment possible. 

But it was Mandela's visit to the United States some four months later that most highlighted how much America had yet to learn about the anti-apartheid leader.

Nelson and Winnie Mandela arrived to a tremendous reception at John F. Kennedy International Airport on June 20, 1990. An estimated 750,000 New Yorkers lined Broadway for a "ticker-tape" parade usually reserved for returning war heroes and sports teams. 

Mandela rode through New York in a specially built bulletproof vehicle nicknamed the "Mandelamobile" by New York police. That night, 100,000 people jammed Harlem's Africa Square to hear Mandela speak at the same podium where Malcolm X had called on the South African government to release Mandela, two decades before. New York also honored the ANC leader with a rally of 80,000 at the Yankee Stadium, complete with a rock concert and vendors selling Mandela T-shirts, Mandela flags, and Mandela caps. Introducing Mandela, the equally legendary Harry Belafonte said there had never been a voice more identified with freedom. Rising to the moment, Mandela donned a Yankees cap and broke into an impromptu rendition of the toyi toyi, a South African victory dance. Time editors, astonished at the reception, titled the next issue of the magazine, "A Hero in America."

During his 11 days in the United States, Mandela visited eight cities, made 26 televised speeches, attended 21 meetings and fund-raisers, and addressed five news conferences. 

The interviews sometimes produced dramatic confrontations. In a pointed exchange with Koppel during a nationally televised "town meeting" at City College of New York, Mandela defended his right to meet with leaders of "rogue states" like Fidel Castro, Yasser Arafat, and Muammar Gaddafi. "They support our struggle to the hilt," Mandela told Koppel and proceeded to lecture him on gratitude and self-determination. "Any man who changes his principles according to whom he is dealing," he told Koppel to applause from the audience, "that is not a man who can lead a nation." Koppel was speechless. Breaking a protracted silence, Mandela laughed, asking: "I don't know if I have paralyzed you?" Members of the Jewish Congress at the "town meeting" argued that Mandela's support for the PLO was unacceptable, but quickly added that they appreciated Mandela's statement that he supported Israel's right to exist.

The Castro issue proved less amenable to Mandela's charm. On June 28, the Cuban-American mayors of Miami and surrounding cities refused to meet with Mandela because of his statements about Fidel Castro. The airwaves of Spanish-language radio in Miami were filled with attacks on Mandela for his comments. Outside Miami Beach Convention center, African-American activists faced off with Cuban-Americans during an appearance by Mandela, attended by some 5,000 cheering admirers.

This snub from Miami's Cuban-American community led to a three-year boycott of Miami's tourism industry by African Americans organized by the Boycott Miami: Coalition for Progress, which announced in 1993 that Miami had lost over $50 million in revenues from cancellations by black businesses. The boycott ended in August 1993 after an agreement that called on Miami's business community to commit to black empowerment through providing loans, bonding, insurance, and contracting opportunities. 

In Washington, Mandela's schedule included meetings with the President George H. W. Bush in the White House, and a rare nationally televised address by a foreigner to a joint session of both Houses of Congress. During this address, Mandela called on the United States to maintain sanctions until apartheid had been dismantled. He linked the anti-apartheid struggle to that of American freedom fighters like John Brown, Sojourner Truth, Frederick Douglass, and Paul Robeson. In Atlanta, he paid tribute to the leaders of the civil rights movement and laid a wreath on the tomb of Martin Luther King Jr. 

"Can't Touch This"

Mandela's final stop in the United States was in Oakland, California, which was widely known as the "cradle of the divestiture movement." Congressman Ron Dellums was ecstatic about the visit. "I was elated when he agreed to come to Oakland to attend a rally in our municipal stadium," he said. "With tens of thousands of community activists filling the ball field and the stands, Mandela was greeted with thunderous cheers. Being able to bring Mandela home to my community and introduce him to my people brought to my mind the words of a popular rap tune 'Can't Touch This.'"

Nowhere had the anti-apartheid movement taken hold like in the San Francisco Bay Area. In the mid-1980s, longshoremen refused to unload South African cargo at Bay Area ports. Cities like Oakland adopted some of the toughest divestment laws in the country. In Berkeley, students boycotted classes, built shanties, occupied buildings, and were arrested in efforts to get the university to divest. In 1986, California Governor George Deukmejian signed legislation proposed by then-Assemblywoman Maxine Waters (D-Los Angeles) allowing the state's pension fund to divest its $13 billion in assets. Over 100 US companies, including IBM and Coca Cola, followed suit.

American conservatives, meanwhile, maintained a hard line against Mandela and his "maintain sanctions" campaign. President Bush and his aides in the State Department used every opportunity to praise de Klerk. At a press event during Mandela's visit, Bush took time to discuss his warm regard for de Klerk, even though the questioner had not asked about him. The White House had also tried to invite de Klerk for a state visit several times, only to reverse itself because of popular opposition. According to The Washington Post: "Mr. de Klerk can depend on a warm center of support in the White House. While Mr. Mandela has been a hero to the masses, Mr. de Klerk is officialdom's champion."

The Post argued that Bush's regard for de Klerk was based on a "habit" of supporting South African whites. Summing up Bush's position, the newspaper concluded: "Although American officials admire Mr. Mandela, they believe Mr. de Klerk is more important, and his departure from the scene would most upset prospects for peaceful change."

Forbes also joined the bash-Mandela club with an article by Michael Novak titled: "No Hard Questions Please, Nelson Mandela and the US Media." Novak accused reporters of "racism" and "double standards" for supposedly placing Mandela above criticism. "If Mandela were white — if he were Margaret Thatcher, Helmut Kohl, Fidel Castro or even Mikhail Gorbachev — his substantive views would certainly have been subjected to criticism." Novak also claimed that Mandela was merely a pleasant face of a "secretive and extremist organization" that "maintains a close alliance with the Communist Party."   

US News & World Report argued that the visit was "an unalloyed triumph within black America," but added that "much of white America wasn't paying serious attention. A riveting interview with Ted Koppel on ABC, broadcast during prime time, drew a meager 9 percent share of the television audience… Mandela discovered the same lesson as Gorbachev on his last visit: It's hard for any foreign visitor to fire the American imagination these days." 

Free at Last!

South Africa held its first democratic elections in 1994. The election featured the incumbent National Party’s F.W. de Klerk, Mangosuthu Buthelezi of the Inkatha Freedom Party, and Mandela of the African National Congress.

On May 2, 1994, de Klerk conceded defeat, saying Mandela had "walked a long road and now stands at the top of the hill. A traveler would sit down and enjoy the view but a man of destiny knows that beyond this hill lies another and another… As he contemplates the future I hold out my hand in friendship and cooperation." 

Hours later, Mandela claimed victory at a Johannesburg hotel. In a gracious speech, Mandela congratulated de Klerk and the people of South Africa, calling the moment "a joyous night for the human spirit." On May 6, the Independent Electoral Commission announced its final vote tally: 62.6 percent for the ANC, 20.3 for de Klerk's National Party, and 10.5 percent for Inkatha. On May 8, planes approached South Africa from all corners of the earth bearing the largest gathering of black heads of state ever. Three of these planes carried the 44-member official US delegation led by Vice President Al Gore and his wife Tipper, Hillary Rodham Clinton, and a congressional delegation. The overwhelmingly black delegation marked an historic stage for African-American participation in US foreign policy.

Vice President Al Gore emphasized the African-American connection in official remarks generally ignored by the mainstream US press. "The transition here and the civil rights movement in the United States have been closely intertwined longer than many realize," he said. "The lessons of the spirit which came out of America's civil rights movement have been vigorously exported to South Africa and have, in turn, been taken to the United States."

The ceremony was followed by an African and African-American healing ceremony at Johannesburg's integrated Marker Theatre, where poet Maya Angelo and South African artists raised up the names of the ancestors who had made the moment possible. Al Gore raised up the names of Du Bois and the African Methodist Episcopal Church and other African American activists, who had participated in the struggle. "To the United States, this transformation has special significance. After all, for years, Americans agonized over the horrors of our own apartheid. And the struggle for justice in South Africa and in the United States has in many ways been one struggle."

*[Note: Francis Njubi Nesbitt is a professor of Africana Studies at San Diego State University. He is the author of Race for Sanctions and has published numerous book chapters and articles in academic journals. This article was originally published by ].

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