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All the difference in the world

ZAFAR SOBHAN
I was recently taken mildly to task in our letters page for focusing so much of my attention on the 2004 US presidential campaign. Mr. Rafiqullah Bhuyian of Maghbazar (Oct 8) suggested that rather than discuss the merits of the potential candidates, I "would have done better to analyze and expose the underlying structural features which remain the same no matter who is occupying the Presidential seat." Mr. Bhuiyan then singled out the disproportionate power wielded by the pro-Israel lobby, the influence of the military-industrial complex, and the continuing repression of the African-American population as examples of these structural failings in the US body politic, with the closing admonishment that it is issues such as these that need to be addressed if the US is to play its rightful progressive role in the world.
I hope that Mr. Bhuyian feels that I have done his argument justice and I would like to thank him for a measured and insightful response. It is always gratifying to receive evidence that readers are engaging with what you have written and especially so when the engagement is so thoughtful and intelligent.
Indeed, Mr. Bhuyian gives me the opportunity within these pages to address an issue that has been the subject of much debate in recent times.
I think my first point of contention would be to state simply that I do not think that Mr. Bhuyian should fault me too much for not having written the column that he wished me to write. The column he would like me to write sounds like it would be a good one there is endless fodder for writing a column that takes as its subject the underlying structural flaws of the US political system and a strong argument can be made and has been by many others that many of these features remain constant regardless of who is in power.
Certainly, there are many people within the US who have given up national politics in disgust for this very reason some are active at the community level to effect what change they can and some have given up entirely. This is also what my unscientific observation leads me to believe that a large percentage of the rest of us feel too. Indeed, I believe that other columnists in this publication have penned a number of first-rate columns along the lines suggested by Mr. Bhuiyan. I therefore felt and continue to feel that readers would be better served by a discussion of the crucial US presidential race than by me adding my voice to ground already well covered.
But this brings me to my main point of contention with Mr. Bhuiyan: the suggestion that it makes little difference both inside and outside the US who the president of the US is. I believe that events since the election of President Bush in 2000 have demonstrated quite clearly the shortcomings of this perspective.
Simply put, it makes all the difference in the world. When this president has bombed Afghanistan into rubble and invaded Iraq and destabilized and demoralized the entire world with a calculatedly arrogant and xenophobic foreign policy it simply beggars the imagination for people to cling to the view that it would make no difference who is in the White House. When this president has plunged the nation into an economic morass and continues to enact policies that bitterly divide the country and further marginalise the disempowered, it makes all the difference in the world. When this president has pushed through unprecedented legislation that eviscerates civil liberties and civil rights and allows for incarceration, trial by military tribunal, and execution of non-citizens, without the right to legal counsel or indeed to hear the evidence against you, it makes all the difference in the world.
I agree that many regrettable features of the US political landscape will remain unaltered regardless of who occupies the White House. I might even be persuaded to agree that wholesale change for the better is unattainable given the present political reality. But I cannot accept that this means that the differences that do exist between two candidates for the office of president cannot affect us in the most profound of ways.
We can bemoan the cancer at the heart of the US political system and we can work to bring about the fundamental change that is indeed necessary for the US to be a progressive force in world politics. But in the meantime, I believe that it is useful to effect what change is possible with the tools at hand.
St. Francis of Asissi perhaps said it best: "God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and wisdom always, to know the difference." It may not be possible to change US hegemony in the world today nor the inherent ills that distort its politics, but it is certainly possible to change the US president. I, for one, think it would be a good start.
Zafar Sobhan is an Assistant Editor of The Daily Star