cruelty, mendacity, hegemony
It does not have to be this way.
Re-reporting, editing, comment by Carolyn Bennett
“Respecting the rights of nations is not just a recommendation but a requirement. Instead of common logic, other instruments are used — that is not called a dialogue; it is called an order” [Islamic Republic of Iran’s chief negotiator at Istanbul meeting with six powers].Disproportionate power and the inordinate wielding of power, brute force, caustic coercion and condescension — the flagrant, age-old arrogance of power renders the hegemon unstable, delusional and, of course, suspect by the world’s sovereign nations and peoples.
Old hegemons late last week went to Istanbul, Turkey, intent on fulfilling their own prophecy. As if falsifying evidence or packing data to make research results come out the way the researcher wants, the hegemons failed (caused to fail) a conference. With good intentions, this could have been a quiet teleconference. But there were no good intentions leading up to or within the meeting. The actors, particularly the United States and Britain, wanted the world to see the failure they had set in motion.
The way of the hegemon— aided and abetted by mass corporate multimedia
- Bullies engage in long-standing aggression: they taunt and threaten and commit violence against their prey
- They conspire over time in setting the world against that nation or people (Saddam Hussein and Iraqis, Taliban and Afghans and Pakistanis)
- They agree to a conference (with their prey) and, leading into the scheduled conference, they announce to the world that “no progress” will come out of the conference; the conference will be a failure because a key conferee is a bad guy, an arm of an “axis of evil,” an uncooperative setter of conditions
- Powers come to conference, the hegemon fulfills his prophecy and quips: “See, I told you so.”
- No compromise. No progress. The status quo stands.
The Islamic Republic of Iran together with Britain, China, France, Russia, the United States and Germany met Friday and Saturday in Turkey. Agence France Press yesterday reported, “Talks between world powers and Iran ended Saturday without progress in tackling concerns over Tehran's nuclear program, and EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton said no more are planned.”
Iran’s chief negotiator responded: “Respecting the rights of nations is not just a recommendation but a requirement. Instead of common logic, other instruments are used — that’s not called a dialogue. It’s called an order.”
I agree.
My way of being is such that it refuses me the luxury of ignoring cruelty and mendacity — not matter the perpetrator or at whose expense.
Nuclear power, for whatever reason or use, is ill advised and dangerous for the short and long term but the United States cannot reasonably expect any nation, if it can do otherwise, to lay down its defense or development measures when all around that nation is nuclear armed to the teeth. Iran has nuclear bombed no nation or people; the United States can never make this claim.
Only the United States of America has dropped a nuclear bomb on cities and civilians. Only the U.S. is raining remote bombs on the peoples of Southwest Asia, the Middle East, the southern tier of the Mediterranean Sea to the Gulf of Aden.
Anglo Saxons have exacted unspeakable cruelty on the peoples of India and Africa and Asia. Western Europeans and North Americans have committed and sustained cruelties against peoples of the Americas, Central and Western Europe. Consider the Roma. Consider Indians of the Subcontinent and North America. Consider the Japanese and Vietnamese and Pacific and other indigenous islanders. The West has a history flowing with blood and unspeakable cruelty lasting to the present day.
Nuclear materials are dangerous no matter the use but the U.S. and Britain are in no position to lecture or demand that nations put down their arms or restrict their energy sources when the policies and practices of United States and Britain have retarded growth, created and sustained poverty, obstructed progress, oppressed peoples, terrorized and failed nations. They are persisting, moreover, in destroying the whole world, on a variety of fronts, for their pleasure.
The European Union foreign policy chief, Catherine Ashton, a Briton, told reporters after the weekend conference that was set up to fail, “We had hoped to embark on a discussion of practical ways forward, and have made every effort to make that happen. I am disappointed to say that this has not been possible.”
In the face of several years’ histrionics against Iran, this simply is untrue: entrenched power set the conference up to fail. The ridiculousness of Aston’s remarks would be laughable if the foreign relations situation in the Middle East and Persia were not so grave.
For the world and for women in particular, it is sad indeed that the likes of Catherine Aston and U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, whether camouflaged in trouser or skirt suits, are mindlessly reading the hegemon’s chauvinistic, mendacious, cruel script.
This is why it is not enough to set our hopes on women in high office, women in power. We must find women who are secure in their womanhood — not chauvinists or “one of the boys” or women who want to please men or be “just like them”: clones of entrenched ancients. We must find honest change agents, serious, courageous women who will be leaders dedicated not to personal image or the hegemon’s script but to assisting substantive world progress.
The Iranian chief negotiator’s words at the Istanbul conference can be more than the content for headlines or slogans. They are worth pondering in a movement to uproot entrenched power. Demand that world powers of all stripes desist in hegemony, mendacity, chronic cruelty; and seriously engage with all nations for the benefit of all nations and peoples.
“Respecting the rights of nations is not just a recommendation. It is a requirement.”
News source
“Multilateral nuclear talks with Iran end without agreement,” France 24 International News, January 22, 2011, http://www.france24.com/en/20110122-multilateral-nuclear-iran-talks-turkey-istanbul-end-without-agreement-ashton-jalili-p5http://www.france24.com/en/20110120-iran-talks-should-include-ending-sanctions-russia
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