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Jewish World Review August 22, 2005 / 17 Av, 5765 In this drama of democracy, hangers-on compound mom's tragedy By Jonathan Gurwitz
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
A mother — an ordinary citizen — is camped out to protest against the war in Iraq, demanding an audience with the highest elected leader in the land.
Hundreds join her and face counterprotesters who support the president and his policies that led the nation into war.
Congress has adjourned for vacation. The summer doldrums have set in. The great issue before the republic is: Should he meet with her, again, or shouldn't he? The nation is watching. The world is watching.
What's taking place beyond the gates of President Bush's Crawford ranch is a quintessentially American drama. It is a display of what Joseph Nye, dean of Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government, calls soft power.
In a book by the same title last year, Nye recognized the necessity for the United States to employ military and economic forces — hard power — in its foreign policy. Yet the exercise of hard power carries with it negative consequences: increased perceptions of U.S. arrogance, more dislike of the amorphous global concept that is America.
As television cameras from around the globe pan across the Texas landscape and capture the drama in Crawford, they are transmitting a powerful demonstration of soft power. Millions who live in oppressed societies, millions more who have been force-fed a daily diet of news and commentary about the unrestrained, brutal power of this president must wonder in amazement: Why can't he make that woman disappear? At the very least, why can't he silence her?
Welcome to America.
Were this drama the only performance in Crawford, it would be all for the good. Good for a society that is so easily diverted by trivial matters. Good for our democracy. Good for American soft power and, therefore, good for its hard power.
But there is another performance taking place in Crawford, one that is an ancient and grand tragedy. It is a tragedy, first and foremost, about a mother who has lost her son.
There is no greater sign of disorder in the cosmos than the death of a child. If a child can precede his parent in death, then day does not necessarily follow night and a rainbow will not always follow the storm.
For her personal agony, Cindy Sheehan's intemperate comments about this country and its leaders and her disturbing devotion to repugnant conspiracy theories can be understood and forgiven. What cannot be forgiven is the double tragedy of interest groups and political operatives greasing Sheehan's slide into ideological hysteria and using her grief to promote their own partisan agendas.
If only they had had a Cindy Sheehan a year ago, they are certainly lamenting, George W. Bush wouldn't have won the election in November. Summer in Crawford would today be stretching out in unobserved silence.
In domestic politics as in foreign policy, there is hard power and there is soft power. The hard power that would capitalize on a mother's grief and disordered world may achieve a certain result, but it also has its negative consequences. The soft power that shows compassion and restraint cultivates allies.
The drama of democracy should be clearly visible for all to see. The tragedy of a grieving mother is something that should be quietly comforted. Everyone should celebrate the first. No one should exploit the latter.
Rather than made-for-television theatrics to advance a political cause, those who claim to support Sheehan would do far better to offer consoling words and grant her and her family respite.
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JWR contributor Jonathan Gurwitz, a columnist for the San Antonio Express-News, is a co-founder and twice served as Director General of the Future Leaders of the Alliance program at NATO Headquarters in Brussels, Belgium. In 1986 he was placed on the Foreign Service Register of the U.S. State Department.Comment by clicking here.
© 2005, Jonathan Gurwitz |
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