Archive for the 'Foreign Policy' Category

Of dreams and fathers: Barack Obama, growing up abroad, baseball, cricket, and daddies

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on December 02, 2008
in Father, Foreign Policy, Memories, Politics, Race and Traveling
. 0 Comments

Among the various books I read on our trip to New Zealand was Barack Obama’s Dreams from my Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance. I’d put it off for some time, but started it on the long flight down to Auckland and finished it in a Sydney hotel room. It’s the best book I’ve read by a president (or president-elect), and I’ve at least glanced at most of what our recent office-holders have produced. (I tried to read Bill Clinton’s massive autobiography, but ended up getting overwhelmed by detail, and skipped about.)

It’s not original to note that Barack Obama is an extraordinary figure, absolutely unlike anyone we’ve ever seen in American politics — at least, absolutely unlike anyone who has risen so far, so fast. Dreams from my Father, which is all the more powerful because it seems to be written by a man without any conscious sense that his words might be used against him someday, reveals Obama to be more exceptional than I had previously imagined.

It would be a bit ridiculous to say that I identify with our president-elect. I not only have not achieved what he has achieved, I have not had to overcome the obstacles he has had to overcome. (Though addiction and mental illness posed challenges that my socio-economic and ethnic circumstances did not.) But all good autobiography contains universal themes; we all have parents, after all, about whom we have often mixed feelings. Many of us struggle to discern a purpose and direction for our lives, and go through a quarter-life crisis of confidence. Barack Obama’s journey, in a broad sense, is a common one, though in its specifics it is both unique and jaw-droppingly impressive.

One of the things that I like best about Obama is that he has lived abroad; indeed, more than any other president in recent memory, he spent a significant portion of his childhood outside America (in Indonesia). Obama doesn’t hold dual citizenship as I do, and despite the slurs of a handful of ignoramuses, his devotion to the United States is unquestioned by any serious person. But he has tasted living abroad, and not only doing so, but doing so in comparative poverty. Not all international experience is the same. It’s one thing for the scion of a wealthy family to do a junior year at the Sorbonne, living off parent’s money; it’s another thing altogether to live as Obama did as a child, playing with street children in rural Indonesia. Anyone who is going to make claims for American exceptionalism ought to have had some first-hand experiences of living in — and not just visiting — other parts of the world. Though the child is not always the father of the man, reading Obama’s biography makes me hope that it will be so, particularly in regards to how he thinks about America’s place in the world. Continue reading ‘Of dreams and fathers: Barack Obama, growing up abroad, baseball, cricket, and daddies’

American foreign policy, still a potential force for good: in support of I-VAWA

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on May 06, 2008
in Foreign Policy, Global Feminism and Rape, aggression and violence
. 2 Comments

McKenzie at Women Thrive writes to alert me about the International Violence Against Women Act (IVAWA), introduced in the House just last Thursday by Southern California’s own Howard Berman (D-Panorama City). A similar proposal was introduced in the senate last year by Joe Biden (D-Del.) and Dick Lugar (R-Ind.), showing bipartisan support.

The good news is that violence against women is preventable and that there are proven solutions that work. The International Violence Against Women Act (IVAWA), if passed, would, for the first time, comprehensively incorporate these solutions into all U.S. foreign assistance programs - solutions such as promoting women’s economic opportunity, addressing violence against girls in school, and working to change public attitudes. Among other things, the IVAWA would make ending violence against women a diplomatic priority for the first time in U.S. history. It would require the U.S. government to respond to critical outbreaks of gender-based violence in armed conflict - such as the mass rapes now occuring in the Democratic Republic of Congo - within two months. And by investing in local women’s organizations overseas that are succesfully working to reduce violence in their communities, the IVAWA would have a huge impact on reducing poverty - freeing millions of women in poor countries to lift themselves, their families, and their communities out of poverty.

Find out more here. (PDF-file)

I haven’t yet read any criticism from the left of IVAWA (and yes, I’ve done a google blogsearch.) There are those in lefty circles who are profoundly suspicious of the idea of utilizing the State Department — and, potentially, the Defense Department — to advance women’s rights. Laura Bush’s claims that the USA liberated Afghan women have begun to ring hollow with the retrenchment of conservative forces in that country, and it’s clear that talk of “letting girls go to school” was part of a very effective pro-war propaganda strategy. One reason why progressives were generally so much more supportive of the Afghan war than the Iraq adventure had to do, I think, with a sense that Afghan women desperately needed liberation from the Taliban in a way that Iraqi women did not need freeing from the far more enlightened, albeit still-thuggish Baathists.

I would not like to think that IVAWA would give cover to more internationalist adventurism. As satisfying an idea as it is to send the 101st Airborne ’round the globe to liberate women from oppression, the well-documented result is that the “liberators” usually replace one form of violence (often familial) with another (military). Freeing a woman from an abusive husband by turning her into a widow is hardly the best way to promote global justice.

Of course, I agree with groups like Women Thrive that part of progressive action is shaping and directing American foreign policy. Global change cannot come through the churches and NGOs alone. Protecting women and girls from violence ought to be a stated U.S. interest, and I like the idea of tying aid directly to measurable improvements in women’s living conditions. Without resorting to military action, there is much that the USA can do to transform the lives of the oppressed and marginalized for the better. For those who despair about the foreign policy of our country, I-VAWA is a reminder that there is much good that we can yet do collectively, as a people and a nation. I’m glad that the bill has bipartisan backing, and urge folks to write or call their elected representatives in support.