Making Peace and Justice a Post-Election Priority

Will the outcome of this year's U.S. presidential elections make a difference for the world's poor, oppressed, and marginalized?

Seven months ago, while the presidential primaries were still underway, Baptist ethicist Miguel De La Torre argued that:

So far in this campaign, all three (Clinton, Obama, and McCain) have ignored the fact that the gap between the rich and poor has more than doubled between 1980 and 2005. All three candidates will defend free-market policies and none will seriously address the undemocratic distribution of wealth, resources and privileges in this country.

Noting that "all three (of the candidates) are ontologically white males," De La Torre went on to explain that:

It does not matter if a black man or a white woman is elected president. If the national politics and economics of the captains of industry were to be threatened with a reversal caused by the needs of U.S. marginalized communities--be they blacks, women, or poor whites--the future president would rally all the forces at his or her disposal to maintain the prevailing economic power structures that exist, even if those structures are detrimental to communities that share their gender or skin pigmentation.

On the international scene, whoever the future president may be, it will be her or his job to protect the interests of the empire abroad. Therefore, in terms of U.S. global economic policies, it really doesn't matter if we elect a black man, a white woman or conclude that all the change we really need is another white man.

Ultimately, De La Torre concludes that regardless of who wins the White House in November, that person will simply be the new "face of a global neoliberalism that continues to privilege the few at the expense of the vast majority of the world's population."

Sadly, this year's elections are turning out just as De La Torre has predicted. Even though economic justice for the poor is one of the central themes of both the Old and New Testaments, neither of the two major party candidates, both of whom claim to adhere to the Christian faith, have addressed this concern in the last three presidential debates. While John McCain tries to dance around the fact that his economic policies favor America's wealthiest citizens, Barack Obama has firmly positioned himself behind American's so-called middle-class, most of whom--while not anywhere near as rich as McCain's constituency--are still amongst the world's wealthiest people.

The good news is that, just a few days ago, the leadership of the National Council of Churches in the USA wrote an open letter to Senators Obama and McCain, calling upon them to make the poor and poverty, both in the U.S. and abroad, a major priority in their campaigns. While it seems unlikely that such a letter will be cause for a major shift in either candidate's campaign at this late date, it is still important because it alerts the candidates, the nation, and the world to the political priorities of the American church. Regardless of who wins the election, the NCC has made clear that it stands on the side of the poor and will seek to hold the occupant of the Oval Office--whomever that may be--accountable to that priority.

Poverty, of course, is just one of many priorities that we as Christians should have when it comes to the struggle for peace and justice. And like poverty, few--if any--of those priorities have been addressed by McCain and Obama. Regardless of the outcome of this year's elections, we will clearly have our work cut out for us.

Race and the (U.S. Presidential) Race

Regardless of which candidate you might favor in this year's U.S. presidential elections, I think it's safe to say that this year's race is turning out to be quite a case study in race and racism that will be analyzed and cited by academics, activists, politicians and pundits for decades to come. Two recent columns in the New York Times help to shed some light on the situation.

Frank Rich focuses on the nature of the increasingly overt racism that has been observed amongst McCain-Palin supporters in recent weeks.

All’s fair in politics. John McCain and Sarah Palin have every right to bring up William Ayers, even if his connection to Obama is minor, even if Ayers’s Weather Underground history dates back to Obama’s childhood, even if establishment Republicans and Democrats alike have collaborated with the present-day Ayers in educational reform. But it’s not just the old Joe McCarthyesque guilt-by-association game, however spurious, that’s going on here. Don’t for an instant believe the many mindlessly “even-handed” journalists who keep saying that the McCain campaign’s use of Ayers is the moral or political equivalent of the Obama campaign’s hammering on Charles Keating.

What makes them different, and what has pumped up the Weimar-like rage at McCain-Palin rallies, is the violent escalation in rhetoric, especially (though not exclusively) by Palin. Obama “launched his political career in the living room of a domestic terrorist.” He is “palling around with terrorists” (note the plural noun). Obama is “not a man who sees America the way you and I see America.” Wielding a wildly out-of-context Obama quote, Palin slurs him as an enemy of American troops.

By the time McCain asks the crowd “Who is the real Barack Obama?” it’s no surprise that someone cries out “Terrorist!” The rhetorical conflation of Obama with terrorism is complete. It is stoked further by the repeated invocation of Obama’s middle name by surrogates introducing McCain and Palin at these rallies. This sleight of hand at once synchronizes with the poisonous Obama-is-a-Muslim e-mail blasts and shifts the brand of terrorism from Ayers’s Vietnam-era variety to the radical Islamic threats of today.

That’s a far cry from simply accusing Obama of being a guilty-by-association radical leftist. Obama is being branded as a potential killer and an accessory to past attempts at murder.

While such instances of overt racism as described by Rich are no doubt having an influence on the election, Nicholas Kristof argues that the type of racism that is really driving this election is much more subtle and, typically, unconscious on the part of the persons who wield it.

The racism is difficult to measure, but a careful survey completed last month by Stanford University, with The Associated Press and Yahoo, suggested that Mr. Obama’s support would be about six percentage points higher if he were white. That’s significant but surmountable.

Most of the lost votes aren’t those of dyed-in-the-wool racists. Such racists account for perhaps 10 percent of the electorate and, polling suggests, are mostly conservatives who would not vote for any Democratic presidential candidate.

Rather, most of the votes that Mr. Obama actually loses belong to well-meaning whites who believe in racial equality and have no objection to electing a black person as president — yet who discriminate unconsciously.

The bottom line is that Barack Obama--America's first black presidential contender--is plagued by race on both sides of the aisle. On one hand, he must confront the shameless racial and ethnic slurs from overzealous McCain supporters. And on the other, he must overcome the invisible, unconscious racism that is deeply rooted in the hearts and minds of those who sincerely believe that they support racial equality. No doubt, the barriers posed by the latter group will me much more difficult to overcome.

UPDATE:Michael Westmoreland-White over at Levellers identifies some additional resources on race and the Bradley effect (or lack thereof) in this year's election.

What's wrong with this picture?

Up until now, I have refrained from blogging on U.S. presidential politics because . . . well . . . it doesn't really have much to do with the Caribbean. This week, however, the campaign has taken a bizarre twist as Hillary Clinton has come to Puerto Rico to do what no one else has probably ever done before in a U.S. presidential campaign: aggressively campaign for the island's fifty-five delegates to the Democratic National Convention. This is even more bizarre given that Puerto Rico is a U.S. colony whose residents have no vote in the upcoming general election.

That being said, Clinton's three-day jaunt across Puerto Rico has provided some entertaining news coverage. Some news outlets, for example, have made much of Clinton's efforts to impress prospective Puerto Rican voters by "swigging from a bottle of Presidente beer" (see photo above). Apparently, nobody noticed that cerveza Presidente is a product of Puerto Rico's neighbor, the Dominican Republic. If Clinton really wanted to score points with voters, she should have tried drinking a locally brewed Medalla.

While some pundits questioned the wisdom of Clinton's Sunday morning visit to the Pabellon de la Victoria (a Pentecostal megachurch that I routinely drove by several times per week when I lived in Puerto Rico) in a country that is predominately Roman Catholic, this was probably a strategically smart move given that Pentecostalism is, after all, one of the fastest growing segments of Christianity in Latin America.

Not quite so entertaining, however, were Clinton's remarks in a Memorial Day speech that “I believe it is long past time that we give the people of Puerto Rico--United States citizens all--an equal voice in the vote for the commander-in-chief who sends young Puerto Ricans to war.” While I suspect that many Puerto Ricans wholeheartedly agree with those comments (keeping in mind that many others would argue that an independent Puerto Rico would not have to send young Puerto Ricans to fight in American wars at all), her words rang hollow.

Having lived in Puerto Rico for three-and-a-half years during Bill Clinton's presidency, I observed first hand as Governor Pedro Rosselló--a strong Clinton supporter--practically bent over backwards trying to obtain Puerto Rican statehood (holding two island-wide referendums on the issue during his eight years in office) while the Clinton administration basically ignored him. So unless Mrs. Clinton has chosen to stake out a radically different position on this issue, my guess is that this is nothing more than an empty campaign promise which she has no intention of delivering.

The Bahamas in the News

Having survived the turbulent transition period between semesters, I will briefly summarize some of the major issues and events that have taken place in the Bahamas that I've not had time to blog on during the past several weeks.

First and foremost in the news has been last week's elections. This years election was notable for a number of reasons including: (1) the ruling PLP party was defeated after only one term in office, making it the first political party in Bahamian history to NOT be reelected for at least one additional term of office. (2) The newly elected prime minister Hubert Ingraham previously served in that position from 1992-2002, making him the first Bahamian to serve non-consecutive terms as PM. (3) This is the first election in which the winning party achieved victory by a narrow margin rather than a landslide. Click here and here to read what Bahamian commentators are saying about the this year's elections.

One of the criticisms in the run-up to the elections was that there was too much negative campaigning and no substantive discussion of the issues of the day. Nevertheless, at least some groups of private citizens attempted to introduce discussion of key issues into the public debate. The Bahamas Human Rights Network, for example, ran a full-page ad in all three of Nassau's major dailies, exhorting voters to ask their candidates where they stood on a variety of human rights issues. Another group, the Coalition of Pastors for Transparency, attempted to conduct a survey of each candidate's position on a variety of moral issues and then publish the results in the local newspapers as a resource for voters.

Over Easter weekend, the newly formed Bahamas Human Rights Network held a candlelight vigil to remember the lives of Haitian migrants who drowned off of Exuma in March and Eight Mile Rock in early April. Amongst other things, the vigil generated some positive publicity for the group's efforts as well drawing criticism from a Bahamian government official for calling on the international community to cancel Haiti's debt instead of seeking international assistance for Bahamian efforts to repatriate undocumented Haitian immigrants.

A large Haitian squatter settlement near Marsh Harbour, Abaco was ravaged by a major fire in late March. The government's Urban Renewal program, the Red Cross, and other humanitarian organizations have been attempting to provide assistance to the Haitians who lost their homes and belongings in the fire.

Last week, in two separate incidents, unarmed civilians were shot by police. One was a man who was accused of stealing a small amount of candy and money from a vendor on Arawak Cay. He was shot in the back while trying to escape from the police. The second was a Haitian immigrant who was shot by a Defense Force officer during a routine apprehension of undocumented immigrants. The Bahamas Human Rights Network, the Grand Bahama Human Rights Association, and Amnesty International have spoken out against these incidents and raised questions about the lack of transparency and failure to rely on independent review boards when investigating such incidents of police misconduct.

Election Fever

[Updated as of May 3rd; see item #6 below.]

Ever since I first began living abroad, I have always made it a habit to remain neutral on questions of local politics and elections. Today's election here in the Bahamas is no exception. With that in mind, the photos below have been included for illustrative purposes only and appear in alphabetical order. The photo of the FNM or opposition party is placed first and the photo of the PLP or ruling party is underneath. Readers who are interested in news, updates, and political commentary on this year's elections are encouraged to check here, here, here, and here.



As an outsider looking in at the world of Bahamian politics, I would like to share some of my non-partisan observations on what I believe to be the POSITIVE aspects of the elections.

1. Short Campaign Cycle -- On April 4th--exactly four weeks ago today--parliament was dissolved and the election was called for May 2nd. Obviously, everyone knew before that there was going to be an election this year and even as early as last summer campaign literature was left on our door and we were receiving door-to-door visits from prospective candidates. But overall, this feels short and much less intense compared to the permanent, year-round U.S. campaign cycle where candidacies for upcoming elections are sometimes declared as early as the day after the previous election. My guess is that, on a per capita basis, Bahamian elections are a whole lot cheaper too. Another plus is that most of the campaigning has taken place during the past four weeks and NOT while parliament was in session, so the incumbents are not forced to neglect their official duties while they're out on the campaign trail.

2. High voter turnout -- I have been told that elections in the Bahamas typically have 95% or better turnout of all eligible voters. Regardless of whatever other criticisms might be made of the elections, this is commendable. In the U.S., we barely manage to get a 50% voter turnout for presidential elections and, much less, for mid-term and local elections.

3. Quick Results -- Unlike many of the Bahamas' neighboring countries (including, on occasion, the United States), we don't have to wait for months following election day to find out who the winners are.

4. Short Lame Duck Period -- During the week of the 2002 elections, my wife and I were in the States for a wedding. When we came back, much to our surprise, the new government had already been installed! Given the sheer size of the United States, I doubt we'll ever see a new president taking office during the same week as the election. The lame duck period--at least in the States--is necessary in order for the president-elect to assemble a new cabinet (which is made up of presidential appointees and not elected members of parliament) and make the transition from one administration to another. So the short lame duck period is something that we can clearly chalk up as one of the perks of living in a small country and, to a certain extent, the nature of parliamentary government.

5. Potential for Inclusiveness -- In theory, the parliamentary system is more flexible when it comes to accommodating multiple parties. Though some tiny third-party and independent candidates are represented in this year's election, Bahamian politics is basically dominated by two major parties as is the case in the U.S. Nevertheless, in at least one instance in Bahamian political history, a third-party has been known to make a difference in the outcome of the election. In 1967, Randol Fawkes--the lone Labour Party candidate to get elected--chose to join the PLP in forming a coalition government which led to the ouster of the UBP and the white ruling class that it represented, thus ushering in a new era of Black Majority Rule. Conceivably, if a third-party were to ever gain traction in the future, it could alter the outcome of an election and challenge the "business as usual" monopoly of the two major parties. In the United States, our political system is less inclusive of third-parties and so it is much more difficult for them to ever have a real impact on American politics.

6. The Results are Not Predicted by Pre-Election Polls -- In the U.S., pre-election polling eliminates the element of surprise in all but the closest races. Not so here in the Bahamas where one can never really be sure who the next ruling party will be until all of the votes have been counted.