Globalization, destructive as it has really been in its universal economic outcomes, has also brought about some significant changes in the national self of many individuals of various nationalities throughout the world. Such indiduals, of whom I find myself to be one, while remaining national or even nationalistic in their selves, have grown, in their national selves, to be, in different degrees, a “citizen of the world” as well.
Considering that these days nothing happens in or to any part of the Earth which is not going, sooner or later and directly or indirectly, to affect all the other parts too, these individuals consider it both as a human right and a civic, or at least moral, duty to be concerned with the world affairs as if these were part of the internal affairs of their own respective countries. And it goes without saying that America is one, if not the, country no-one, who cares for his or her own homeland, can possibly afford to ignore.
This, however, is the only apology I, a non-American, can offer the conservative American for expressing opinions about the President Elections American Way, as it is currently at work in Obama’s and McCain’s campaigns. Still, he or she, the American conservative, officially called “Republican”, has of course every right to find me, an alien_ a dammed Iranian poet in political exile, and that not even in America but in England, that is, a decreed-to-death runaway from the Islamic-Republic-stricken Iran_ to be meddling with things that are none of my bloody business.
Be that as it may. I have been fortunate to be in the USA during the current month, which has given me the opportunity to some-what closely follow the two opposing campaigns as they rage against one another, bestowing the various televisions’ political analysts and commentators of the country every day with hot food for deliberation.
“Rage”, I say. But with a difference in each of the two campaigns.
McCain and his chosen would-be Lady Vice-President Palin are most of the time both on the offensive, whereas Obama and his Biden, are, again for most of the time, on the defensive. Both teams, I said, rage against one another. But McCain’s and Palin’s rage is that of two politicians who, unfortunately, mistake or at least confuse arguments with nervous accusations and angry insults. Whereas Obama’s and Biden’s rage is the undertone rage of two experienced and mature politicians who know that anti-arguments are by and in themselves defense enough.
Palin’s spending $150,000 mostly to buy cloths for her beautiful self is symptomatic of the way the would-be next Republican government’s high officials would, as their predecessors did, spend American people’s money as if it was their own.
But I feel certain that it is not going to be only so far that Mr. Biden’s or Obama’s treatment of people’s large sums of money contributed to and for their Election Campaign has been impeccable.
I, too, am an admirer of Mrs. Palin’s looks and find her stylized “womanness” and rather cheeky wit in answering questions of grave importance without knowing what on Earth she is talking about. She is proud of her vigilant mind in monitoring “The Enemy”: From where she stands in Alaska, she says, she is able to see Russia. I do not think, however, that even Mr. would- be Republican President’s Mr. Joe the Plummer would, in his benevolence towards the Republican Party, be silly enough to take that as sufficient experience in foreign affairs for Mrs. Palin to become the next Vice-President of a country powerful enough to be the unchallenged Master of the World today.
The funny truth about Mrs. Palin’s alleged “experience” in Foreign Affairs was revealed in a comment Mr. D.L. Hughley jokingly made the other night on CNN: “I can see the moon from my window; but that doesn’t make me an astronaut!”
What America needs is a wise Vice-President who leaves the business of ever-worrying about her or his ward- rope to the Hollywood celebrities and beauty contestants, and thinks, among a host of other things, of how she or he can make the best use of the vast treasury of the past experiences, his own as well as his predecessors’, to the advancement of her or his country’s Foreign Affairs. And I think that Mr. Joe Biden, if and once elected as Vice-President, would show himself to be the present man for the job.
Mrs. Palin admires Mr. McCain for not being afraid to use the word “victory”. Now, this word has, of course, its semantic uses in peaceful areas of meaning, too; but it is primarily a war word. And I feel certain that what Mrs. Palin has in mind is the prime meaning or usage of this word. She means to say that Mr. McCain is not afraid of starting wars and, no matter how desperate they have come to be, continuing them in the hope that, sooner or later, they end in American forces “victory”. But just how long are the American people going to be content with their great country being known in other countries and among many other people as the Greatest Warmonger in the World? I wonder.
It is worth noting, as far as Foreign Affairs is concerned, that Mr. McCain is well in accord with his chosen would-be Vice-President. He remembers that during the shortened Presidency of the late John F. Kennedy, and while the Bay of Pigs Crisis was escalating, he, as a young man in military service, was a sailor or officer or something on a warship on sail toward Cuba. And so? Oh, yes, he, too, has had “experience”. And, therefore, he knows how to deal with national and international crises! Mr. McCain apparently forgets that he has had a great many comrades on that warship, the greatest majority of whom would, I presume, in his or her right mind, not take their “experiences” during the ordeal to have any thing at all to do with being prepared and ready to become the next President of the USA.
Now, I think neither Mr. Obama nor Mr. Biden should envy either Mr. McCain or Mrs. Palin for not having had such mind-blowing “experiences”.
But the most comical, to me, is the tone and the vehemence with which McCain speaks of Obama’s wanting “to redistribute the wealth of the American people!” He says, and never tiers of repeating this with such a mixture of resentment and surprise that makes it seem as if he were publicly accusing Mr. Obama of openly and shamelessly planning to commit a grave national crime.
Now, I know that the words “socialism” and “socialist” have, in this country, been turned into two political swear words. And this may seem not at all unfair, if we remember the crimes against humanity that have so far been committed in the name of “Socialism”. Yet, political condemnation of words, in actual usage, of the political vocabulary of our-or- any_ language, is, I think, a manifestation of ideological stupidity. Such narrow-minded linguistic efforts are doomed, in the long run, to fail.
I remember Mr. R. Kia-Noori, the then leader of the Toodeh (Communist) Party of Iran, in one of his regular internal-to-the-Party interviews, boasting that his Party had, during the previous two month, succeeded in making a swear word of “Liberalism”, thus rendering another service to our people’s Anti-Imperialism Islamic Revolution under the leadership of Imam Khomeini! The result was, along with an increase in Khomeinistic censorship, bestowing the world with the prestige of an underground term. No one ever gains anything through an ideological approach to, and treatment of, language.
But Socialization is not socialism. It is something else. It is another name for human progress. It is inherent in the history of humankind. Only individuals can throughout their lives be individualistic in their principles. Not societies. Justice demands that modern and progressive societies be in a constant process of ever-increasing socialization. Or else, social catastrophies shall always be on their way, one after the other. The ways to, and the means of, socialization are various in different cultures and in different times and places. Some of the ways and means are evolutionary and some_ like it or not_ revolutionary. But the End, the Aim, is always the same. And evolution had better work. Otherwise, revolution takes on.
Obama is not going for “Socialism”, as the well known creed in which, to and from the society, “every body gives according to his or her Ability and receives according to his or her Need”. No! Obama can not be going for that. Not in America. He is not crazy. He knows, at least as well as Mr. McCain, that this is America: that here, to go for socialism, for a politician, is to go for eternal damnation. No! He is certainly not a Socialist. What he is I can not express, unless I first coin a word. He is, I think, a “Socializationist”. He goes for socialization. And that is good. Both for America and for the World.
Eight years of Republican politics and two bloody wars are more than enough for all.
Which reminds me of a Persian political anecdote. On the occasion of President J.W. Bush and Mr. Haadjee Dr. President M. Ahmadinezhad first meeting one-another, Mr. Bush says:
-“Man Bush-am,” which is the Persian for “I am the smell.” Ahmadinezhad replies: -“Man khodesh-am,” which means “I am the thing itself.”
And, since Iranian people regard Ahmadinezhad to be a piece of shit, the American President’s words mean and connote:
_ “I am the smell of shit.”
Ahmadinezhad’s reply, however, stays the same:
_ “I am the thing itself!”
Yes. And, so, I wish Obama would successes. Why wish? Why would? I think he will succeed. And that, I do think, is good. Both for America and for the world.
October 29, 2008- Atlanta
Esmail Khoi, an Iranian poet in political exile, is a former Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of Teachers Education, Tehran. He lives in London.
