Hugo Chavez, Jimmy Carter and America’s Image in the World

On Tuesday, March 5 Hugo Chavez, the fiery and controversial president of Venezuela died of cancer at the age of 58. Since his death there have been numerous articles and commentaries seeking to evaluate the life and legacy of this charismatic leader. As I have listened and read this reports, there seem to be two consistent themes that have emerged. 

First, it is clear that Chavez was a champion of the poor in his country and around the world.  As one CNN report  said, “Chavez played a pivotal role in bringing the plight of Latin America's impoverished people to the top of the political agenda.” In his 2009 documentary South of the Border,  Oliver Stone walked with Chavez through the neighborhood where he had grown up and clearly portrayed a leader in touch with the poorest of the poor in that nation. These are the people mourning in Venezuela’s streets today. As a result he was not well regarded by the business community or the wealthy elites because he nationalized many businesses and redirected government funds to programs to help the poor. He even offered cut rate oil to the low income homeowners in the U.S. as a sign of his concern for those in need.

However the other thing Chavez was known for was his antipathy toward the United States particularly in its military and economic domination throughout the world. To that end Chavez befriended many countries, such as Iran and Syria, and leaders, such as Fidel Castro, who have been historic enemies of the United States. Though he came from a relatively poor and powerless country he did not seem cowed by the threats made by the U.S. and so was a persona non grata to many U.S. political leaders. While I am in no position to evaluate Chavez’s skill as a leader, one has to be impressed with the courage with which Chavez sought to buck U.S. control of Latin America. He even mentored several other leaders in the region to take similar stances and to turn their governments in a more socialistic direction.

However, my purpose is neither to praise nor criticize Hugo Chavez as a leader, but rather to point out a coincidence between this focus on his legacy and a recent speech made by former President Jimmy Carter made on Feb 24 at San Francisco’s Commonwealth Club (to listen to the speech go to this link ). Since leaving office in 1980 no former president has done more to promote peace and justice around the world than Jimmy Carter, and at 88 years old he is still going strong. While Carter certainly had his failings as a president, one cannot but be impressed with how he has used his status to good ends around the world.

In his speech Carter pointed out that since 1945 the United States has increasingly been seen by other nations of the world not as a force for peace and human rights, but rather as a nation that is constantly at war and denying human rights. He noted wars such as Vietnam, Grenada, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Central American incursions in the 1980’s often were done to deny human rights and overthrow legitimate governments than to defend those rights. Moreover, he pointed out that currently the U.S. is violating at least 10 paragraphs of United Nations Declaration of Human Rights.  He said that if the U.S. is to become the great nation it used to be, it must change course and become a defender of justice and human rights rather than a violator. As examples he spoke about the use of drones in Afghanistan, as well as being the major arms dealer to all sorts of nations in the world. He also pointed out that the U.S. imprisons the highest percentage of its population in the world and along with Saudi Arabia and China has the highest rate of capital punishment.

As I listened to a replay of Carter’s speech on the day of Chavez’s death I could not help but be struck by the common theme stressed by two very different leaders from two different positions in the world. Hugo Chavez, a recognized champion of the Latin American poor, and Jimmy Carter, a recognized champion of peace, see the United States as more of threat to the world than its protector. The former was a self-identified foe of the U.S. but the latter still proudly proclaims the United States as the greatest nation in the world. Yet, such a coincidence of their perspectives cannot be ignored.

In business ethics one of the simplest tests of a person’s character is for that person to look him/herself in the mirror and ask whether the person looking back is a person of integrity, compassion and honesty. The great American myth is that we are the defenders and promoters of justice and democracy around the world. Yet our own country suffers increasing economic disparity, while lining the pockets of the very wealthy. We are the only developed nation in the world without universal health care and our public school system has been put up for sale to the highest bidder through charters and privatization. We still have many prisoners in Guantanamo Bay that have never even been charged with a crime, much less given a trial, and we continue to be directly or indirectly involved in armed conflicts all over the world. Can we as a nation look ourselves in the mirror and say we are the best we can be, that we are living up to our values and ideals as Americans?

Recently I took a group of students to visit the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia, which recounts the writing of the U.S. Constitution and its development throughout U.S. history. Every time I visit the Constitution Center (which has been about 10 times) I am struck by the high ideals on which this country was founded. At the same time I am struck by how far short we continue to fall. What Hugo Chavez and Jimmy Carter reminded me was that not only do I see that, but so do the vast majority of people around the world. Perhaps instead of puffing our chest out in defensive patriotic pride, we ought to take a long look in the national mirror and heed Pres. Carter’s call to seek to be the nation we say we are.

A Pacifist Response to Libya

Monday night (March 28) Pres. Obama addressed the nation explaining his reasons for ordering military action to enforce a “No Fly Zone” in Libya. Essentially, he said that (1) he wanted to prevent the slaughter of innocent Libyan citizens by Libyan government forces and (2) that taking that action was in “our national interest.” While he did not spell out what those interests were, it’s pretty certain that a major factor in the decision had to do with the fact that Libya pumps out a lot of oil.

A few days earlier I was indirectly challenged by two people (a close friend who is clearly states he is not a pacifist, and a former student who is considering joining the Navy) to offer a pacifist response to the current situation in Libya; so here it is.

The root of the word “pacifism” is the Latin word “pace” or peace. In Biblical Hebrew the word for peace is “shalom,” which is a robust word not only meaning the absence of  conflict, but also the restoration of people to each other and to the creation. Shalom is celebrated in the passage from Isaiah where  the prophet writes:

            The wolf will live with the lamb

            The leopard will lied dies with the goat

            The calf and the lion and the yearling together

            And a little child will lead them (Isaiah 11.6)

Shalom is a picture of former adversaries living in harmony and trust, devoid of hatred or fear. As a pacifist I yearn for and work toward this vision of the world, realizing we might not get there fully, but we can get closer than we currently are.

Sam Keen, philosopher and author of Fire in the Belly, comes close to my position on war when he writes: “It would be Utopian to wish that men should no longer kill one another … But a much sounder Utopia is that which insists that murder no longer be legitimized” (p. 114). Applied to Libya it means, yes it may have been necessary to send war planes to bomb military sites and advancing armies in Libya in order to save lives, but let’s not try to legitimize or glorify the fact that we had to do it. The foot soldiers in Qadaffi’s army are as blindly “innocent” as the citizens who they threatened and the rebels fighting against Qaddafi. In war there are no winners.

More importantly we need to look at how we got in a position where it was “necessary” for us to invade Libya. Qaddafi has been in power for 40 years. A little less than 40 years ago in the mid-1970’s the United States faced an oil shortage which caused us to ration gas and wait in long lines to fuel our cars. Then-President Jimmy Carter implored the nation to turn down their thermostats, wear sweaters, drive fuel efficient cars and generally change our lifestyles. We didn’t listen, ridiculed Carter, started driving SUVs, chewed up more and more farmland for suburban neighborhoods and generally ignored the early warning the 1970’s gas crisis gave us. Since then we have had the hostage crises in Iran, two Iraq wars, a war in Afghanistan, ongoing conflict between Israel and Palestine, various crises in Lebanon, Egypt, and other Middle Eastern countries; and now Libya. Moreover, Colonel Qaddafi didn’t become a tyrant 10 days ago; he’s been a tyrant for 40 years; President Obama admitted as much the other night. So what is the common denominator connecting all of these events over the last 40 years? Our dependence on oil. President Carter was right then and is still right today.

I have no objection to a standing military that helps earthquake victims in Haiti or ferries victims of Hurricane Katrina to safety, or is currently helping the Japanese people cope with their recent earthquake. I don’t even object to the military trying to stop innocent slaughter in places like Bosnia in the 1990’s or Libya today. But when we must continually turn to military solutions, let us see these incursions for what they are: a tragic failure of we who are the wealthy of the world to curb our voracious lifestyles. This invasion would not have been "necessary" were it not for the oil. Qaddafi would have been a minor desert warlord were it not for the oil. He would not have been tacitly supported as the world looked the other way, had we been working to change our lifestyles so that we were not so oil-dependent.

In 1945, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a German pastor forsook his pacifist stance to take part in a plot to kill Adolf Hitler. The plot failed, Bonhoeffer was imprisoned, and was executed for his crime days before the Germans surrendered to the Allies. However as theologian Walter Wink notes Bonhoeffer never considered his participation in the plot a “justifiable action” but rather a sin, and he threw himself on the mercy of God for what he had done. At the time he saw no other option, but he never sought to justify it.

President Obama and the NATO forces are to be commended for the limited role our military has played in the Libyan situation. However, seen in the larger context of our voracious consumptive American lifestyle, and the “interests” we protect to maintain that lifestyle can not be justified. Our continual dependence on carbon based fuels to support our lifestyle continues to lead to wars, destroys the environment, drains resources for addressing desperate needs in our own country, and makes all the world’s people vulnerable to tyrants whose land happens to be sitting over an oil well.

Libya should cause us to heed the call Pres. Carter gave us nearly 40 years ago. The world can not afford us; we can not afford ourselves. A world beyond war, a taste of shalom, can only happen as we not only stop tyrants like Colonel Qadaffi, but also look at ourselves, and ask how are we willing to change so that war does not become necessary to protect our “interests?”

Seeking Leaders of Grit and Integrity

During our recent trip to Atlanta, my wife and I took the better part of a morning to tour the Carter Center and Library, the presidential library dedicated to preserving the memory of Jimmy Carter’s presidency. What both amazed and troubled us was the current relevance of the words and actions of Carter’s presidency. While his presidency (1977-1981) was overshadowed and ultimately undermined by the Iranian hostage crisis, many of the issues that Barack Obama is seeking to address today, were very much on Jimmy Carter’s agenda in the late 1970’s. Carter was a strong advocate for universal health care reform and energy efficiency (Carter is often remembered and ridiculed for encouraging people to turn down their thermostats and wearing sweaters, and encouraging the auto industry to develop more energy efficient cars). He was a strong advocate for peace in the Middle East, having mediated a lasting peace between Israel and Egpyt. Moreover, Carter presided over an economic recession and called for wealthy people and businesses to contribute their fair share. Carter was also a strong advocate for civil rights and was a man of unimpeachable integrity.

As my wife and I read Carter’s words on these and other issues, we were struck with how little our culture has moved from it’s bellicose, gas guzzling, pro-wealthy strategies. We could not help but see the parallels between the challenges Obama faces today and Carter faced over 30 years ago. When Ronald Reagan was elected president, he removed several of the environmentally-friendly policies of Carter, he released the controls on big business, and ushered in an era of increasing and growing disparity between the rich and poor. So here we are again with Obama addressing the same issues Carter warned us about 30 years ago.

As I walked through the Carter Center I was filled with feelings of appreciation and regret. When Carter ran for re-election in 1980, I did not vote for him; I voted for the third party candidate, John Anderson. Like many people, I was disappointed with Carter’s apparent lack of leadership. What I didn’t realize was that Reagan would so completely undo the good Carter accomplished, and undermine so much of the good he accomplished.

The other day I received a call from the Democratic Party seeking a donation for the upcoming Congressional mid-term elections. I turned them down and said I would focus on my local candidates. At the time I was not sure I was actually going to do that, but after reflecting on my visit to the Carter Center, I realize that we need to find candidates with integrity and with a progressive agenda in regards to health care, economic reform and creative solutions for seeking Middle Eastern peace. So often when I look at what goes on in Congress, all I see is a bunch of hypocrites pointing fingers, while taking contributions from corporations, pharmaceutical companies and other special interest groups. I don’t see many folks who care about the poor or the needs of the marginalized in our society (including undocumented immigrants). I don’t see leaders who are willing to step up and actually make universal health care a reality. I don’t see leaders who are willing to seek creative avenues for peace. However, they are out there; there are occasional politicians of grit and integrity like Jimmy Carter, and like Barack Obama.

I must admit that in recent years I have become cynical about our democracy. It appears that our representative democracy only represents those with the fattest checkbooks. However, I realize anew that I can’t make the same mistake I made about Jimmy Carter. He has done a great deal of good since leaving office, but another 4 years in office might have led to a far different result today. Perhaps we would not still be trying to pass health care reform; perhaps we would be much further ahead in the battle against global warming; perhaps the poor would have more dignity. Touring the Carter Center reminded me that the battle for justice and peace is an uphill battle, and those politicians willing to wage that battle deserve and need our support.

Racism at a Deeper Level

Former President Jimmy Carter raised a lot of hackles this week when he suggested that much of the intense opposition to Pres. Obama and his health care plan is racist in nature. He noted that as a Southerner, he can sense the “belief among a large number of white people and not just from the South that a black man is not qualified to lead this country.” I applaud Pres. Carter’s outspoken assessment. As expected, the mention of the R-word sent people off on all sorts of tangents, and even prompted Pres. Obama himself to disagree with his predecessor. Regardless of what he thought personally, that was a smart political move by Obama to rise above the name-calling.

However, Carter’s assessment should not be lightly dismissed. First of all, he has lived in the South during an openly racist time in its history, and has been around the world seeking to mediate conflicts of all sorts. A man of his stature and experience does not make such statements lightly. I felt much of the same sentiment when I left a town hall meeting a couple of weeks ago; among some in the crowd there were attitudes of elitism, classism and racism that was palpable. Furthermore, some of my African-American friends have quietly acknowledged to me the same feeling, as have some of my white friends. However, until Carter spoke up, many of us didn’t have the courage to say it, given the polarizing nature of the health care debate, the political climate of the country, and the general discomfort many feel when the topic of racism comes up.

I do not know what former Pres. Carter may have meant by the comment, but I can speak to my own thoughts. As offensive as some of the signs at last Sunday’s “Tea Party” march (comparing Obama to Hitler being THE most offensive), I have attended enough events where similarly deriding signs regarding George Bush were present to know that signs in themselves are not the issue. The mistake many make is that we equate racism simply with making openly racist statements or gesture. Most culturally sensitive people today know that such statements will only get them in trouble, so those racist statements may be thought but not spoken.

No, the racism I sense is at a deeper, subliminal level and has more to do with white people’s sense of identity than the actual words we say. Several years ago I attended the Damascus Road Anti-Racism Training sponsored by the Mennonite Church, at which I was introduced to racism represented by the image of an iceberg. The tip of the iceberg is the overt racist acts and statements most people associate with racism. However as the saying goes, such acts are only “the tip of the iceberg,” the symptoms of a much deeper condition. In the middle layer of the iceberg is the power structure that inherently favors whites in many aspects of society’s institutional life. One only has to look at the well-publicized inequities in criminal justice cases, public education, housing, health care and the like to show how society’s structures privilege whites at the expense of people of color. (This is an assertion that I know many whites might dispute, but I am not addressing that issue here). However, at the base of the pyramid is racial identity, which gets to how we whites were shaped by family and culture to think of ourselves in comparison to other racial groups. It is at this most basic level, that I sense many white people are reacting unconsciously and irrationally to President Obama. His very presence as the most powerful leader in the country and perhaps the world does not fit with our identity as white people.

In thinking of this most basic level of racial identity I refer to myself as a “recovering racist.” I was born into a racist culture, and racist perspectives shaped me before I was cognitively able to examine my beliefs and values for myself. Like a crack baby born addicted because of his mother’s addiction, so too I was born into a racist culture that said whites were more important, smarter, more worthy, worked harder than others, and therefore deserved their privileged place in society. As much as I might deride such thinking on one level, on another level it is hard to walk away from the comfort I have believing I am better than others. Like an addict seeking to break free of his addiction, I must every day confront the vestiges of racism bred into my cultural DNA.

Now let me be quick to add that I grew up in a home where racist attitudes and statements were never tolerated. In fact we children were often told not to think of ourselves better than others, and I can remember more than once when my mother chided me for such attitudes. We had African-American students living in our home thru a program called A Better Chance. Yet I grew up in a culture where African-Americans were generally portrayed either as Little Black Sambo, Aunt Jemima, or Amos-n-Andy on the one hand, or an angry rioter, a shiftless bum or an illiterate thug on the other. I grew up in a culture where we made decisions by saying “Eenie, meenie, miney, moe, catch a N____ by the toe…,” where community variety shows had white men in black face, and where little black porter statues were place on people’s front lawns. Furthermore, until the Cosby show, I never saw a media image where African Americans or any other person of color were anything remotely like the white people we saw on TV. Whether they were black, Hispanic, Japanese, or Chinese, we had derogatory names for them that we used freely and without thinking.

These subtle and not-so subtle images portrayed a clear message: “We (whites) are not like them (blacks).” As the racial and ethnic consistency of our society has increasingly diversified, the threat to white people’s place as the dominant group has intensified. Projections are that by 2040 or so, white people will make up less than 50% of the population. For a nation that 200 years ago basically saw itself as a country of European transplants, this is a major identity shift. We whites got accustomed to being in control, to being the standard by which all things are judged, and to being in the driver’s seat of society’s rules. Obama as president is a visible reminder that the racial and ethnic power balance has shifted, and that being white does not make one feel as secure as it once did.

Obama’s prominent and capable performance as president has stirred understandable differences of opinion which are not racist in themselves, but which sometimes are fueled by a deep-seated white fear and insecurity. What I felt at the town hall meeting may be similar to what former Pres. Carter was alluding to when he said the opposition is fueled by the fact that the president is an African American. That doesn’t mean that all opposition to Obama is inherently racist. However it also doesn’t mean that just because people refrain from making openly racist statements or gestures that they are not racist. Racism is so deeply embedded in our psyches that it is not so easily expunged.

Many folks felt that with Obama’s election we had crossed some multi-racial threshold in this country. Somehow by electing a black man to be President, we could now rest easy, pat ourselves on the back, and say "we really ARE an inclusive country." However, instead I think what we have seen is that as Barack Obama has assumed his role with directness and decorum, something deep within the white soul begins to tremble at the change that is coming and life as we whites have known it will not return no matter how hard some may try.