Jonathan Power, a columnist at the Punch Newspaper here in Nigeria stated some things an ordinary American will find difficult to believe even though some of their renowned scholars such as Samuel Huntington (The Clash of Civilisation, 1999) had previously said the same thing.
From what I read, Jonathan made it known that Americans are full of themselves. This is made vivid in a statement credit to former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright “America is the indispensable nation” and “We stand tall and hence see further than any other nation”, which means other nations are dispensable and that American indispensability is the source of wisdom. So we non-americans see them as arrogant and unilaterism. Take for instance, the US government has in the last two years attemted to unilaterally prevent other countries from acquiring military capabilities that could counter her conventional superiority; enforce American law territorially in other societies; grade countries according to American standards on human rights, drugs, terroism, nuclear proliferation and religious freedom; apply sanctions against countries that do not meet American standards on these issues; promote American corporate interests under the slogans of free trade and open markets; shape World Bank and International Monetary Fund policies to serve the same corporate interests; intervene in local conflicts in which it has relatively little direct interest, gave travel warnings to her citizens for destination such as Nigeria labelling them highly volatile etc.
I will give kudos to Jonathan and even to the Punch Newspaper for having the guts to write and publish this piece: even I had to reaaly think deep before realizing that it is true, one hundered percent true.
Culled from The Punch, Friday January 23 2009, page 50, Vol. 17 No. 20, 313
Posts
