Substantive and Meaningful

The last seven days have been witness to two striking events.

President Barack Obama‘s historic and landmark speech in Cairo on June 4 through which he sought to reach out to the Islamic world was indeed refreshingly new from the side of the United States and marked, at least in the sphere of rhetoric and at the conceptual level, a radical departure from George W. Bush’s prenicious course in both Iraq and Afghanistan. The contentious issues he dwelt in his speech included the Israeli-Palestinian dispute wherein he promised to fulfil the legitimate aspirations of both sides.

Too many tears have flowed. Too much blood has been shed. All of us have a responsibility to work for the day when the mothers of Israelis and Palestinians can see their children grow up without fear...

On Iraq he was quite explicit: “Leave Iraq to the Iraqis.” By way of clarification he added:

I have made it clear to the Iraqi people that we pursue no bases, and no claim on their territory or resources.

On Afghanistan he was equally candid:

Make no mistake: we do not want to keep our troops in Afghanistan. We seek no military bases there. It is agonising for America to lose our young men and women. It is costly and politically difficult to continue this conflict. We would gladly bring every single one of our troops home if we could be confident that there were no violent extremists in Afghanistan and Pakistan determined to kill as many Americans as they possibly can. But that is not yet the case.

What a contrast from George W.’s nonsensical ‘join-us-or-you-are-our-enemy’ kind of partisanship! Of course the proof of the pudding is in the eating and, as Muslims in the Arab world have clearly indicated, rhetoric minus action is of little value after all. Yet one cannot deny that Obama’s utterances as such were of inestimable significance.

On June 10 more than a hundred Members of Parliament (118 to be precise—56 from the Lok Sabha and 62 from the Rajya Sabha) issued a statement calling for the immediate and unconditional release of Burma’s pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi and decrying the military junta’s vengeful attitude towards her by moving her to the “notorious Insein Prison from her house to face trial on trumped-up charges”. It further underscored that the “people in Burma believe that there will be no inclusive political process and free and fair elections in 2010 if she and more than 2100 political prisoners are still detained”, urged the just elected Government of India “to review its soft approach to the military regime” and maintained that South Block’s “silence to the sufferings of the Burmese people....have made the regime tougher in its repressiveness”. The MPs thus exhorted New Delhi “to intervene in the current situation to urge upon the Burmese Generals to release Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and to impress upon the Burmese regime in respecting democratic principles”, adding:

As the largest democracy and a good neighbour, we have the moral obligation to rescue her and the country from devastation.

The statement, issued under the aegis of the Indian Parliamentarians’ Forum for Democracy in Burma (IPFDB), merits whole-hearted endorsement of demcorats of every shade of opinion across the country.

Both Obama’s speech in Cairo and this statement by Indian MPs, being substantive and meaningful, must be accorded exceptional importance at this critical juncture in the global and regional scenario.

June 11 S.C.