Ian Boyne, Contributor
CIVILISED, RATIONAL people were outraged and stunned last week when former Republican presidential hopeful and influential Christian Fundamentist televangelist Pat Robertson called for the murder of the democratically-elected Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, relentless critic of the Bush administration.
Commentators and editorial writers in North America and around the world staunchly condemned Robertson's call to murder, linking it to the behaviour of the Islamic extremists and terrorists, and pointing out that they have the same roots: religious bigotry, arrogance and intolerance. Christian leaders, including evangelicals, were quick to dissociate themselves from Robertson's appalling stance and by mid-week a severely chastened and isolated Robertson had to apologise.
Robertson's extremism was just what the opponents of the Bush administration needed to score some more points against the Republicans, and to point to the kinds of friends President Bush keeps. A strong supporter of George Bush and the founder of the Christian Coalition which has had a significant impact on American politics, Pat Robertson uses his well-viewed 700 Club television show to push the conservative agenda and to advance his view that Christians should build the kingdom of God on earth now. Robertson is a theocrat who would just as soon impose his Fundamentalist rule on American citizens - and indeed the citizens of the world - just like the Jihadists and Wahabists. These are the kinds of dangerous Fundamentalists and religious zealots I warned about two weeks ago in my column, 'Dark Days for Free Speech'.
BY ANY MEANS
What has Hugo Chavez done to warrant the call for his assassination? He has opposed the United States, supposedly God's chosen nation to enforce righteousness and the Kingdom of God in the world. Anyone as fierce and as defiant as Chavez who would stand in the way of God's instrument for the establishment of the Kingdom. (Businessweek's 'Evangelical America: Big Business. Explosive Politics', May 23 issue).
Robertson was just too open, politically stupid and lacking in self-control to have said out loud what others believe in their hearts. However, we must not exaggerate the number of people who are as extremist as Robertson. The anti-religious and liberal big media in the United States will use the Robertson incident to fuel its antipathy toward religious people and values, and they will tend to stereotype all conservative Christians and evangelicals as Robertson. The very fact that Robertson had to back off his comments so early, and that groups such as the National Association of Evangelicals have strongly condemned his statement, indicate how far we have come with the democratic project.
While I am a critic of the Bush administration, honesty restrains me from using the Robertson madness as representative of the Bush administration's views. You can't hold George Bush responsible for the views of all his supporters, no matter how prominent. (Though I support the view that Bush himself should unequivocally condemn the statement, as it was made not simply by a nonentity or some Fundamentalist nut in the backwoods).
Some of those who are expressing alarm that a Christian could call for the murder of someone else can either be accused of hypocrisy or muddled thinking. When Christians support war - as the vast majority of them do - what are they supporting but the taking of human lives? So secular people must not be alarmed and shocked that a Christian leader would sanction the taking of a human life, for Christians leaders, including popes, have always blessed merchants of death, either directly or indirectly.
Besides, in Christian theology there is a well-developed and very sophisticated 'Just War Theory' which sets out the conditions under which Christians can legitimately and morally support the taking of human lives.
So it is not the sanctioning of the taking of a human life in itself which should stun people. Many Christians would feel no compunction if the U.S. army had killed Saddam Hussein. In fact, many actually prayed to God for that.
GROTESQUE
The point is, on every count Robertson's call was grotesque, unjustified and reprehensible. It was not just Robertson's assassination call which was outrageous. Robertson actually criticised the Bush administration by saying, "There was a popular coup that overthrew him (Chavez); and what did the United States State Department do about it? Virtually nothing. As a result within 48 hours the coup was broken and Chavez was back in power." This was an illegal, undemocratic coup against a democratically-elected leader and this 'Christian leader' who supposedly loves democracy is actually criticising the U.S.A. for not supporting the coup .The coup against Chavez was not popular - that is why he could come back to power in two days.
Remember, there was a democratic challenge to Chavez -leadership in the form of a recall referendum, and with Jimmy Carter and his group of highly reputable observers in place, Chavez came out with an over 59 per cent rejection of the recall. The people wanted this man in power. Even the 700 Club report which I watched on the night Robertson made the comment admitted that Chavez is very popular with the people.
PRO POOR POLICIES
His rating approval today is over 70 per cent. It is not hard to see why. Hugo Chavez has been using Venezuela's vast oil wealth to carry out one of the most massive social transformation and poverty alleviation programmes in Latin America today, providing a counterbalance to the poverty-increasing neo-liberal policies being pushed by Washington and the Bretton Woods institutions. Chavez has hired 17,000 Cuban doctors who are a part of his mission of spreading health care among the people.
Today, more than 60 per cent of the 24 million population have free medical assistance. He is using profits from the state oil company to advance the interests of the working and peasant classes. Last year he spent nearly US$4 billion on social and agricultural projects, including housing, schools and clinics. Venezuela spends $25 million a month just to purchase food at subsidised prices for poor families. Venezuela has one of the lowest infant mortality rates in the entire Latin America.
Subsidised prescription drugs are available at up to 40 per cent below open market prices. Chavez has used Venezuela's oil wealth to build 3,000 new volunteer-based schools in rural communities and urban centres and has eliminated fees for public school attendance. He has increased funding for education with the codification of the right to learn under the nation's new constitution. Since Chavez came to office more than 1.2 million adults have learned to read and the nation now boasts a literacy rate of 93.4 per cent.
There is considerable support for small business and agriculture. Some $3.7 billion was spent on domestic and agricultural support programmes last year.
Says the Washington-based Council on Hemispheric Affairs in a report on Wednesday condemning the Robertson statement: "Chavez has accurately perceived and responded to Latin America's discontent, providing the region with a bold alternative to the stale and clumsy U.S. impositions distilled to their antagonistic essence by Robertson's contemptible petition. The U.S. administration would be wise to acknowledge the critically explosive nature of his heedless language; at stake an even further isolation of the U.S. from Latin American affairs over the next decade."
The U.S. stoutly opposes Chavez not because he poses a threat to U.S. or regional security, but because he poses an ideological threat to its right-wing ideology, hegemony and neo-liberal economic prescriptions. Ironically, the Bush administration, which has always talked about the "Muslims hating us for what we stand for; the very idea of America," now finds itself opposing Chavez for his ideas which, significantly, he has the wealth to support without any dependence on U.S. largesse.
BAD IMAGE
But the U.S. as the only superpower must be more confident and secure ideologically than that. The people in the White House and the State Department need to read carefully and heed the advice of that outstanding Harvard scholar Joseph Nye who in his 2004 book, Soft Power: The means to Succeed in World Politics shows why the U.S. must use soft power rather than hard power to get its way in the world and to be truly competitive to adversaries.
The Bush administration should also be bothered by the just-released and first-ever Public Agenda Confidence in U.S. Foreign Policy Index issued by Foreign Affairs journal with support from the Ford Foundation. Chaired by the famed pollster and scholar Daniel Yankelovich, it finds, disturbingly, that some 65 per cent of the American public believes the criticism that the U.S. has been 'too quick to resort to war' is at least 'partly justified', with 35 per cent saying it is 'totally justified', and only 37 per cent saying it is not justified at all.
"Contrary to conventional wisdom that the American public doesn't know and doesn't care how it is seen abroad, strong majorities of the public believe the view that the United States is suffering abroad, and large majorities are worried about it," says the report.
The report says half of the American public is dissatisfied with America's global position. Only 40 per cent believe that the U.S. is 'generally doing the right things' globally. This is extremely damning to the Bush administration, and this is not a poll released by Al Qaeda, but by the journal rated as the most influential in America, Foreign Affairs.
Hugo Chavez is no Saddam Hussein, 'comparable dictator in our own hemisphere' to Saddam Hussein, as Pat Robertson said Monday night. (I hope knows more about the Bible than he does politics). The Venezuelan press is vigorous and virulently anti-Chavez, controlled by big business interests opposed to popular power. There is no dictatorship there. But there is in Saudi Arabia and Pakistan.
The superpower America fears that its ideological legitimacy is being undermined right in its own backyard, its traditional sphere of influence. Chavez must be punished for daring to defy the mighty United States, City upon a Hill, established by Jehovah. It's the same old story: The enemies of the Lord must be blotted out.
Ian Boyne is a veteran journalist. You can send your comments to ianboyne1@yahoo.com
