Leaders can't say: 'Sorry, I screwedup'

The misfortune of the world

By Gamini Weerakoon

(February 15, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) In just 14 days in office Barack Obama demonstrated his outstanding and rare political values by simply admitting to the world that he had made a mistake. It can be projected as a mere triviality but we cannot recall any politician, anywhere, openly admitting a major political blunder in contemporary times.

'I screwed up,' the new American President admitted in very unpresidential language when admitting his fault in nominating some of his key officials who had committed various tax misdemeanours before being nominated to office.

The usual reaction of some Sri Lankans who look to the West as the standard bearer of world political morality to Obama's mea culpa would be to ask: Could our politicians ever make such an admission?

The inability of leaders to admit one's mistakes in these times, it has to be pointed out, is not confined to Third World countries likes ours. It is universal.

Universal inclination

The world would remember President Bill Clinton's denial of a different kind of 'screw up' in the Oval Office in the teeth of overwhelming evidence. The 'screwing' done by our own politicians in their pious, white national garb is public knowledge but not spoken of. What is important to Americans as well as citizens of the world is that Obama has set a rare - if not unique - standard of public morality.

In making his admission, Barack Obama said that when he ran for presidency, he really meant everything of what he said. In this era, responsibility was 'never making mistakes; it is owning up' and 'trying to make sure, you don't repeat them.' He pointed out that he had promised to change 'Washington and bottom up politics.

'I don't want to send the message to the American people that there are two sets of standards, one for powerful people and one for ordinary folks who are working everyday and paying taxes.'

Obama's comments were made on TV when there were rumblings in the Washington establishment about his nominees such as Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Dashcle who had problems in his tax declarations before he was nominated to office. Dashcle withdrew his nomination.

Earlier Obama's nominee as Commerce Secretary, the new Mexico Governor Bill Richardson following investigations of alleged 'pay-to play' contracting in his state too withdrew from his nomination. Obama's nominee for Chief Performance Officer Nancy Killerfer too stepped down on non payment of some taxes.

Haste in nomination

Critics however say that Obama had been somewhat ambiguous about the belated tax payment of $ 35,000 by his Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner. Obama's lapse apparently had been his haste in naming his nominees before the complete process of vetting was over. Whether the new American President can keep to the high moral grounds he has occupied so soon is to be seen in the future

Despite all the highfalutin declarations of moral standards by politicians round the world, a regrettably notable trait has been their inability to admit their personal mistakes and those of their political organisations and some mistakes of previous governments.

Leaders of powerful democracies may publicly flaunt the mistakes of their predecessors but some of the basic policies of government which have been passed down from administration to administration remain sacrosanct.

Western bias

An example that most Sri Lankans are familiar with is the belief of Western nations that the LTTE was and still is a party that would be amenable to a peaceful resolution of the Sri Lankan problem. How this belief came about needs much deeper analysis than this column would permit, but it has to be pointed out till a few days ago and perhaps even now some Western governments think that a negotiated settlement with the LTTE is possible.

This is not because Sri Lankan terrorists have bought over American and British politicians as some firebrands with exotic conspiracy theories propound but the sheer inability to admit their mistakes and those of their governments.

In 1987 when New Delhi twisted the arm of President J.R. Jayewardene and forced on us their political resolution to be enacted, these Western powers declared that the problem by that very move was resolved. At that time envoys of the powerful West maintained that 'if the two superpowers, America and the Soviet Union agreed with the solution and the Regional Power (whom they identified as India) did so, the solution could not fail.' A quarter century later, we can witness how far that resolution has been successful.

During Ranil Wickremesinghe's premiership the four Co-Chairs - Norway, US, EU and Japan - after involving themselves in the peace process through many rounds of negotiations, finally arrived at a consensus of a 'federal solution.'

All agreed but after a few weeks Pirapaharan asked the Western do gooders to hang themselves on the tallest Kadju Puhulang tree. He threw back the four billion dollar peace offer in the faces of the Co-Chairs and demanded an Interim Self Governing Authority (ISGA) that went against all what was discussed in 'peace negotiations' from Thailand to Oslo and back and also at Tokyo. Even now he is not negotiating but fighting while we still hear feeble cries for negotiations by beneficiaries of the West, some of our NGOs.

Sure-cure

Will the West even now say that they were wrong in believing that the LTTE was a party that was capable of arriving at a negotiated settlement, other than a separate state?

The West's flawed belief in the LTTE does not mean that the hot heads and fire eaters of the Sinhala south are right. Will the military solution end the quarter century old conflict?

The appearance of suicide bombers in refugee camps is ominous. Will we be back at square one as in 1983 when it all began with a guerrilla movement with cadres numbering less than 250?

The West has a sure-cure for problems like ours: break up a nation into two nations. When the Indian sub-continent was rumbling at the time of Independence, the British masters decided to tear up India into a Muslim Pakistan and Hindu India. Sixty one years later we see how much of a success it has been!

Also about 61 years ago, after World War II the much embarrassed British and Americans were looking out for a homeland for the wandering Jews. They certainly did not want them in Britain or America and instead planted them in Palestine. When the Arabs picked up their cudgels, the Anglo-Americans who ruled the world once again tried out their formula: tear up Palestine into two nations - Israel and Palestine. They are still working hard on this two nation proposal.

Is there no alternative to tearing up nations into two or more parts when problems like ours arise? Why not attempt to emulate America or even Britain: Integration into one nation with irreversible equal rights for all?

For all that to happen let political leaders of nations big like America and small like Sri Lanka begin to say: Sorry we have screwed up so far.

-Sri Lanka Guardian