[Dialogue] {Disarmed} Re: The Theology of American Empire

[Wayne Ellsworth]

Dear Harry,

Thanks for this article.  It focuses the future for many in the whole  
world, not only USA.

What do you think should be one of the 2008 Global Conference on  
Human Development's "working groups", related to this article's  
imperative?  And for other working groups also?

Wayne Ellsworth

The Institute of Cultural Affairs Japan,   Soshigaya 5-17-33,   Tokyo  
157-0072,   Japan
phone: 81-3-3484-4449,  fax:81-3-3484-1909  mobile: 81-080-3443-1915   
Skype:icajapan
homepages: http:/www.icajapan.org/  &
                         http:/www.japan2008.org/
                         http:/www.millennium-ftc.com
- - - - -


> A Different Narrative
>
> With King as our guide, we could have a distinctly American foreign  
> policy based on the conviction of absolute moral certainty we find  
> in the Social Gospel and nonviolence traditions.. Our goal would  
> always be to move the world one step closer to becoming a universal  
> beloved community. We would no longer act out the myth of good  
> versus evil. We would not demonize a bin Laden or Saddam -- or a  
> Bush or Cheney. We would recognize that when people do bad things,  
> their actions grow out of a global network of forces that we  
> ourselves have helped to create. King said it most eloquently: "We  
> are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single  
> garment of destiny."
>
> We can never stand outside the network of mutuality, as if we were  
> the Lone Ranger arriving on the scene to destroy an evil we played  
> no part in creating. Just as Bush is tied to Osama, so each of us  
> is tied to all those who do things that outrage us. We cannot  
> simply destroy them and think that the outrages have been erased.  
> To right the wrongs of the world, we must start by recognizing our  
> own responsibility for helping to spawn those wrongs. Indeed,  
> fixing our own part in the wrongs we see all over the world may be  
> all that we can do.
>
> But in the case of the United States in 2007, that alone would be  
> more than a full time job for our foreign policy. We would have to,  
> among other things:
>
> end the occupation that creates a breeding ground for violent  
> jihadis in Iraq and Afghanistan;
> reverse the policy of supporting authoritarian regimes in the  
> Middle East;
> stop participating in the mad rush for power and resources in  
> Africa, which breeds disasters like Rwanda and Darfur;
> withdraw support for the corporations and financiers who would  
> strangle the emerging popular democracies in Latin America;
> and treat everyone as our brothers and sisters, even the leaders of  
> North Korea and Cuba and Iran.
> In short, we would have to create a new notion of "national  
> interest" based on the moral certainty that we are all threads in a  
> network of mutuality that is the foundation of our national as well  
> as individual life. Since our foundation is infinite and eternal,  
> no one can threaten to destroy it, or us. Embracing that principle  
> as the basis of foreign policy could set us on the road to a  
> radically new way of thinking about genuine national security.
>
> If that's not something all Americans can agree on, at least it's a  
> program that gets the debate down to our most basic assumptions.  
> This is a democracy. If the people want a religion-laden foreign  
> policy based on the doctrine of original sin and the myth of good  
> against evil, it's what we should have. But at least we should all  
> talk about it together, openly and honestly.
>
> Ira Chernus is a professor of religious studies at the University  
> of Colorado (Boulder), the author of Monsters to Destroy, and a  
> contributor to Foreign Policy In Focus.
>
> © 2007 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved.
> View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/63785/
>
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