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WORLD CITIZEN LETTER: 510
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WCL 510 February 2006
"When you can fake sincerity, you’ve got it made!"
This American saying, attributed to Ronald Reagan, sums up the way many outsiders see the US political scene. Aware that the legislators almost invariably are, or become, millionaires or billionaires, they see the Almighty $ as both talisman and mover in the scheme of things American. The charges and trial of leading executives of Enron, in perhaps the greatest commercial fraud in history, confirms their opinion. Graver in some ways is the closeness of the leading figure "good ol’ Kenny boy" to George W Bush.
The proof of the cynical saying has been seen again recently with the election of an African government determined to root out the corruption that has held sway for decades in Kenya. Western governmental donors have for many years been either complaisant or complicit in the perversion of aid intended to tackle African poverty that has instead lined the pockets of the corrupt elites who govern most African states. The causes ranged from supporting Cold War allies to payment for trade concessions. The total effects have been devastating. Since the downfall of colonial regimes, African countries have been systematically corrupted by money from the wealthy western states.
But if money is the root of all kinds of evils, as the Christian bible puts it, wealth is not usually seen in that light by Americans. In theory, they may make obeisance to their biblical warnings, but in practice they respect the possessors of money, assuming, without much justification, that its acquisition was routed through hard work and earning power. The examples of American hard work and thrift, from the 19th century railroad pioneers to the oil-barons and the automobile builders are still revered. That Bill Gates has only to sleep o’nights in order to wake up millions richer is applauded.
Europeans have learnt through a long and bitter history not to take the rich at their own valuation. They also have great scepticism when confronting politicians masquerading as evangelical believers, Christian or other. In the U.S. the quasi-universal acceptance of a crude non-scientific view of human evolution goes hand in hand with an equally crude view of the value of self-professed Christian politicians. There is a good deal of sincere belief admixed with political calculation, but the electorate are not skilled at judging sincerity until the insincere make mistakes that bring them into court or scandal. Even then, the profitability and resilience of the American economy enables the rulers to escape the full consequences of corporate malfeasance.
The democracy that confines itself within the national borders can afflict the rest of the world with its imperial will, partly through its financial sway, partly by the exercise of military power. We, the remaining inhabitants of the planet, have no say in the choice of these politicians who dominate our world, and that is where the greatest democratic deficit exists today. Americans still pride themselves on getting rid of the rule of an unelected king but fail to recognize that they have elevated a president to the equivalent position as far as the rest of the world is concerned.
And it is a web of financial corruption that sustains both the political establishment in Washington and its financial allies and subsidiaries throughout the rest of the world. To end such rule, the tradition in the U.S. has been "throw the rascals out" and this may yet result in a turn-round of the political leaders in Congress and the administration. But it will fail to end the corruption, for two reasons: Americans have a touching faith that wealth and virtue go together and they imagine that their own attachment to a history of democracy is a guarantee of impartiality in dealing with their fellow-human beings. It isn’t. Democracy today has to include all world citizens, not patches here and there.
John Roberts
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