The politics of regret

[Wounded Healer]

SPEAKING FREELY

The politics of regret

By Beverly Darling

It is only human and natural to feel regret. That is why I was surprised to learn what US First Lady Laura Bush said when asked how her husband had dealt with the tragedy of September 11, 2001. Bush claimed that neither she nor her husband "has any regrets about their response to the attacks ... It's a philosophy of no regrets; in one sense, whatever happens happens, and you have to keep moving on and do the best you can with whatever it is."

After reading what Bush said next, "He [President George W Bush] never looks back because he is a realist," I decided to find out how Webster's Dictionary defines "regret". It is the ability to feel sorry or distressed about something or someone, to mourn for having done the wrong thing. It includes wishing things could be different and the ability to remember with a feeling of loss or sorrow. Such qualities as humility, sympathy and introspection are also associated with regret.

It is no surprise, then, that US history is filled with individuals and presidents who had private and public regrets. Theodore Roosevelt regretted making a statement that he would not run for office in 1908. Woodrow Wilson was disappointed that the US Senate did not pass the League of Nations Treaty. Herbert Hoover had misgivings about not responding adequately to the Great Depression. Franklin D Roosevelt, Harry S Truman and Dwight Eisenhower regretted the loss of lives during World War II and the Korean War. John F Kennedy regretted ordering the failed Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba and even appeared on national television apologizing to the American people.

Lyndon B Johnson deeply agonized over the Vietnam conflict. His wife, Lady Bird Johnson, later said that seeing young Americans return in body bags deeply affected and troubled him. Richard M Nixon regretted the Watergate scandal and for "giving his enemies a sword to fall upon". Jimmy Carter felt distress each day the US/Iran hostage crisis was prolonged. Ronald Reagan was sorrowful over Contragate, while George H W Bush regretted having to raise taxes after he promised he would not. Even Nathan Hale, the Revolutionary War patriot and hanged spy, said before his death, "I regret that I have but one life to lose for my country."

Psychologist Jeanna Bryner claims researchers have located an area in the brain that immediately alerts us of an impending mistake so we do not repeat it. In fact, the brain reacts to mistakes even before they get processed consciously. Roy Baumeister, a sociologist, has completed an interesting study and has discovered that when a person is the victim of a wrongful act, he or she describes it as inexplicable, senseless and immoral, and causing lasting damage. However, if the same person is a perpetrator of similar acts, he or she views it as causing only brief pain and justifiable or something that could not be avoided.

In saying all of this, can regret be a positive virtue, and is it needful in relating to others and making correct decisions? Regret reminds us that we are human and our decisions finite and sometimes incorrect. Regret enables us to adjust to tragedy and change course when mistakes have occurred. It is the opposite of self-righteousness and moral superiority, which prevents us from sympathizing with others. It can also help us make meaning out of the present and identify past mistakes so we do not repeat them in the future. I sometimes wonder if our narcissistic and highly self-centered collective political culture has diminished or can make someone unlearn a virtue like regret.

Remember when a reporter asked President Bush to recall his biggest mistake? He replied, "I hope I - I don't want to sound like I've made no mistakes. I'm confident I have. I just haven't - you just put me under the spot here, and maybe I'm not as quick on my feet as I should be in coming up with one." Later when asked about mistakes over weapons of mass destruction, postwar planning in Iraq, and warding off September 11, he blamed the country for not being on a war footing and him listening to General Tommy Franks.

If regret is a learned behavior, here are some events that Bush may want to reflect upon:

Ordering the US invasion and occupation of Iraq before United Nations weapons inspectors could complete their job, and then calling the war a "crusade", which was offensive to most Muslims. The thousands of Iraqis who have been killed and the 2 million Iraqi refugees. Saying "mission accomplished", and then watching 3,600 US troops die. Saying that 30,000 Iraqis, more or less, had been killed and then calling on Iraq - a Muslim country - to pattern its government after Israel - a Jewish nation. After six years, finally trying to resolve the Palestinian/Israeli issue.

Being at a Republican fundraiser while dead bodies were floating in New Orleans. Saying that health insurance is no big deal and people have health care in the US by just going to an emergency room. An endless amount of troop surges, the increase in civilian casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the strengthening of al-Qaeda and Taliban fighters. Failing to capture Osama bin Laden.

But unfortunately, Mr and Mrs Bush are not alone in saying they have no regrets. The United States, with its preoccupation of self and overly narcissistic culture, has created an entire government and society that appear to be suffering from a lack of remorse. Just as some believe they are above the rule of law, others feel they are beyond regret. They know no boundaries to, nor have any regrets about, their dominant ideologies and their effects. Maybe this explains the inability of us Americans to deal with and work with other nations and cultures in bringing about peace with justice.

When Lyndon B Johnson was sworn into office aboard Air Force One en route to Washington, DC, from Dallas after John F Kennedy's assassination, he said, "Our institutions cannot be interrupted by an assassin's bullet." No, but they can be interrupted and destroyed by a president, a congress, and a nation that has not learned the politics of regret. Perhaps this is the kind of reality we desperately need.

Beverly Darling received her master's degree in theology and her bachelor's degree in history and philosophy. She currently teaches US and world history and works with at-risk youth. She also served in a Guatemalan refugee camp and has traveled throughout Mexico, Panama and Canada. For several years she ministered to the urban poor and rural populations of the US.

(Copyright 2007 WorldNews.com.)


http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/IG26Ak01.html

[mtgondal]

Income equity & politics

By Shahid Javed Burki

Tuesday,August 21,2007

POLITICS is mostly about economics. Different groups in society and various regions in a country compete with one another to maximise their share in the wealth that an economy has accumulated over time and the income that the accumulated wealth generates every year. For countries that have widening income disparities, public policy must be directed towards narrowing them.

A recent report published by the Asian Development Bank places Pakistan among the countries in Asia with a relatively balanced distribution of income. This is a surprising conclusion; it goes against the belief of several well-informed analysts according to whom there has been a significant deterioration in income distribution at least in recent years.

While this is not the place to discuss in any detail the findings of the ADB report, the fact remains that income distribution — both personal and regional — have become political issues and will need to be addressed by the political parties that hope to compete in meaningful ways in the promised elections.

It is usually difficult to redistribute wealth unless a revolution occurs and the groups that had a relatively smaller share in the economy gain political ascendancy. This is what happened in the Soviet Union, China and Vietnam after successful revolutions in those countries.

Redistribution of wealth was also promised by the Pakistan People’s Party in the election manifesto of 1970. That did not happen for the simple reason that those who made the promise were themselves not committed to carrying it out.

In a developing country such as Pakistan, a great amount of wealth is accumulated in the form of land, the distribution of which is highly skewed. A very large number of people who work on the land do not own it and draw only the amount of income which provides subsistence living. Land distribution, therefore, is the best way of introducing some equality in the distribution of income.

However, it is also the most difficult measure to adopt since large land owners also wield a great deal of political power. Even the military government of President Ayub Khan which, at least initially, was not beholden to the landed aristocracy, was able to introduce only marginal land reforms. The government of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, having promised much more, was able to deliver even less.

What had made it possible for India to work its democracy was its ability to undertake serious land reforms soon after the country achieved independence. It was able to do that since the landed class wielded relatively little political power in the Congress party compared to the urban middle class professionals.

The Indian land reforms touched the countryside as well as the country’s urban areas. India was thus able to create a political field that was considerably more level than the one ploughed by Pakistan’s politicians.

The approach towards wealth distribution on which Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s PPP spent a great deal of political and bureaucratic energy was in the sectors of industry, commerce and finance. Large-scale enterprises in these areas of economic activity were placed under government ownership on the assumption that the state would be able to distribute the incomes produced by these assets much more equitably than their private owners.

That, of course, did not happen. In fact, as has been demonstrated over and over again in many parts of the world, nationalisation of private assets hardly ever leads to better income distribution. The outcome is usually economic inefficiency. That is precisely what happened in Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s Pakistan.

It is easier to change the pattern of income an economy produces rather than the wealth it has accumulated. In mature economies and political systems, it is the battle over the distribution of current incomes that produces political competition. Income redistribution can be done in a number of different ways that produce political competition.

The two most obvious ones are the use of tax policies and the reshaping of government expenditures. As Pakistan’s politicians were to discover, increasing the share of taxes in gross domestic product was as difficult as undertaking land reforms.

The resistance comes from both rural and urban areas. It is a good indication of the amount of political influence the landed aristocracy wielded in the councils of the PPP that, under the Constitution of 1973, income from land was exempted from income tax. In fact, agricultural taxes were made a provincial subject in the knowledge that the large landlords would have even greater power in the provincial assemblies than in the national legislature.

During my brief tenure as a member of the interim government in 1996-97, with responsibility for the portfolios of finance, planning and development, I had to work hard to introduce a small tax on agricultural incomes. In getting the proposal through, I ran into stiff opposition from the chief ministers of Sindh and Balochistan who were both large landlords.

Since it is normally the national and provincial legislatures that are responsible for tax policies and for determining how governments would spend the revenues they generate from taxes, various groups operating within a society try to gain as much power as they can in the legislative branch. This is best done during elections.

Politics, therefore, is not only about economics. It is also about conflict among groups, regions and other divisions that define societies. In mature systems, this conflict is played out during elections and also on the floors of various legislatures that constitute a society’s political system.

Underdeveloped and backward societies go through armed conflicts for as long as they don’t develop the mechanisms for resolving the differences among different segments of society.

Pakistan has already been through one civil war when the political system that existed then failed to accommodate the very sharp differences that had surfaced between two competing forces. The elections of 1970 produced a very strong mandate for East Pakistan’s Awami League to work for provincial autonomy.

The same elections also gave the mandate in the country’s western wing to a new political force to work towards greater social justice, economic equality and the political empowerment of the poor.

That force was the Pakistan People’s Party led by Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. These two mandates could not be reconciled within the existing political framework. The result was civil war.

As societies develop, politics goes beyond economics and resolution of conflict. It begins to deal with the people’s expectation about good governance. People vote in the elections, watch the proceedings in the various legislatures, and watch also the way the executive behaves in order to obtain good governance from the leaders that occupy positions of power.

When the leaders fail this test, the citizens react in three different ways. These were elaborated upon by the economist Albert O. Hirschman many years ago when he came up with the phrase “exit, voice and loyalty” to encapsulate the spectrum of citizens’ reactions to their disappointment with the conduct of their leaders.

In spite of disappointment, they may remain loyal to the leaders and the party they support. This happened in the case of the constituency that produced electoral success for the PPP and its first leader, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, in the elections of 1970. People in Pakistan refer to the loyal supporters of a political party or a leader as a “vote bank” — this is the group of constituents who can be expected to continue to give their support no matter how the leaders conduct themselves.

The Americans call the same set of loyal supporters, “the base”. Working the vote bank or the base becomes a major preoccupation of some leaders, in particular those who don’t recognise that producing majorities requires a broader appeal.Hirschman’s second response was labelled as “vote,” when citizens shift their vote to a different set of leaders in the expectation of producing change. This reaction produces “swings”. Pakistan saw a great deal of these in the 1990s when the electorate moved their support from one party to the other in the hope that good governance would result from the messages they were sending to those who had wielded power.

The two mainstream political parties — the Pakistan People’s Party and the Pakistan Muslim League — were given two opportunities within the space of a decade to redeem themselves in the eyes of the voters. Both failed, making way for yet another intervention by the military.

“Exit” results from extreme frustration with the political and administrative structures that are unable to provide the quality of governance demanded by the populace, and may take several forms.

Voters may simply stay away from the polling booth. Or they may leave the system altogether. In extreme cases, they may choose to migrate or support those who would like to completely restructure the political system. It is the latter response that leads to revolutions and armed conflict.

To Hirschman’s scheme, we should add another, relatively recent phenomenon. This is the withdrawal into stateless structures by those who are terribly frustrated with the system as it currently operates.

This is happening in a number of Muslim societies in which the political field has been captured by a few groups more interested in preserving their own power, position and privilege than working for the common citizen. This withdrawal has taken a small number of people to stateless groups that are advancing their agendas by creating chaos in the societies from which they have been alienated.

In a recent book, the economist Alan Krueger of Princeton, has argued that it is not the poor who have turned to groups such as Al Qaeda but the relatively more educated young who feel politically disadvantaged.

In other words, dealing with the rise of religious extremism occurring in many Muslim societies, including Pakistan, requires not only a well thought-out response to the needs of those who are poor and economically disadvantaged. There is an equally urgent need to bring into the political domain those who feel that they have been abandoned by the systems against which they eventually rebel.

Krueger’s careful analysis of the socio-economic background of scores of recent suicide bombers reveals that a vast majority were not poor and desolate but educated and reasonably well-to-do. Can Pakistan contain these frustrations? There is, in other words, a great deal at stake for Pakistan as it approaches another set of elections within the next few months.

Given the way economists have begun to look at politics and elections, what conclusion would I draw from the current situation in Pakistan? To do that it would be appropriate to continue with the story I began to tell in the first two articles of this series.

In those I discussed the way the PPP, one of the two mainstream parties, gained power in the 1970s but failed to deliver on what it had promised. Next week I will look at the changes that the PML tried to institute when it came to power in 1997, for the second time in the 1990s, and how that party is currently structured.

http://www.dawn.com/2007/08/21/op.htm

[mansoor alam]

Originally Posted by Wounded Healer

SPEAKING FREELY

The politics of regret

By Beverly Darling

It is only human and natural to feel regret. That is why I was surprised to learn what US First Lady Laura Bush said when asked how her husband had dealt with the tragedy of September 11, 2001. Bush claimed that neither she nor her husband "has any regrets about their response to the attacks ... It's a philosophy of no regrets; in one sense, whatever happens happens, and you have to keep moving on and do the best you can with whatever it is."

After reading what Bush said next, "He [President George W Bush] never looks back because he is a realist," I decided to find out how Webster's Dictionary defines "regret". It is the ability to feel sorry or distressed about something or someone, to mourn for having done the wrong thing. It includes wishing things could be different and the ability to remember with a feeling of loss or sorrow. Such qualities as humility, sympathy and introspection are also associated with regret.

It is no surprise, then, that US history is filled with individuals and presidents who had private and public regrets. Theodore Roosevelt regretted making a statement that he would not run for office in 1908. Woodrow Wilson was disappointed that the US Senate did not pass the League of Nations Treaty. Herbert Hoover had misgivings about not responding adequately to the Great Depression. Franklin D Roosevelt, Harry S Truman and Dwight Eisenhower regretted the loss of lives during World War II and the Korean War. John F Kennedy regretted ordering the failed Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba and even appeared on national television apologizing to the American people.

Lyndon B Johnson deeply agonized over the Vietnam conflict. His wife, Lady Bird Johnson, later said that seeing young Americans return in body bags deeply affected and troubled him. Richard M Nixon regretted the Watergate scandal and for "giving his enemies a sword to fall upon". Jimmy Carter felt distress each day the US/Iran hostage crisis was prolonged. Ronald Reagan was sorrowful over Contragate, while George H W Bush regretted having to raise taxes after he promised he would not. Even Nathan Hale, the Revolutionary War patriot and hanged spy, said before his death, "I regret that I have but one life to lose for my country."

Psychologist Jeanna Bryner claims researchers have located an area in the brain that immediately alerts us of an impending mistake so we do not repeat it. In fact, the brain reacts to mistakes even before they get processed consciously. Roy Baumeister, a sociologist, has completed an interesting study and has discovered that when a person is the victim of a wrongful act, he or she describes it as inexplicable, senseless and immoral, and causing lasting damage. However, if the same person is a perpetrator of similar acts, he or she views it as causing only brief pain and justifiable or something that could not be avoided.

In saying all of this, can regret be a positive virtue, and is it needful in relating to others and making correct decisions? Regret reminds us that we are human and our decisions finite and sometimes incorrect. Regret enables us to adjust to tragedy and change course when mistakes have occurred. It is the opposite of self-righteousness and moral superiority, which prevents us from sympathizing with others. It can also help us make meaning out of the present and identify past mistakes so we do not repeat them in the future. I sometimes wonder if our narcissistic and highly self-centered collective political culture has diminished or can make someone unlearn a virtue like regret.

Remember when a reporter asked President Bush to recall his biggest mistake? He replied, "I hope I - I don't want to sound like I've made no mistakes. I'm confident I have. I just haven't - you just put me under the spot here, and maybe I'm not as quick on my feet as I should be in coming up with one." Later when asked about mistakes over weapons of mass destruction, postwar planning in Iraq, and warding off September 11, he blamed the country for not being on a war footing and him listening to General Tommy Franks.

If regret is a learned behavior, here are some events that Bush may want to reflect upon:

Ordering the US invasion and occupation of Iraq before United Nations weapons inspectors could complete their job, and then calling the war a "crusade", which was offensive to most Muslims. The thousands of Iraqis who have been killed and the 2 million Iraqi refugees. Saying "mission accomplished", and then watching 3,600 US troops die. Saying that 30,000 Iraqis, more or less, had been killed and then calling on Iraq - a Muslim country - to pattern its government after Israel - a Jewish nation. After six years, finally trying to resolve the Palestinian/Israeli issue.

Being at a Republican fundraiser while dead bodies were floating in New Orleans. Saying that health insurance is no big deal and people have health care in the US by just going to an emergency room. An endless amount of troop surges, the increase in civilian casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the strengthening of al-Qaeda and Taliban fighters. Failing to capture Osama bin Laden.

But unfortunately, Mr and Mrs Bush are not alone in saying they have no regrets. The United States, with its preoccupation of self and overly narcissistic culture, has created an entire government and society that appear to be suffering from a lack of remorse. Just as some believe they are above the rule of law, others feel they are beyond regret. They know no boundaries to, nor have any regrets about, their dominant ideologies and their effects. Maybe this explains the inability of us Americans to deal with and work with other nations and cultures in bringing about peace with justice.

When Lyndon B Johnson was sworn into office aboard Air Force One en route to Washington, DC, from Dallas after John F Kennedy's assassination, he said, "Our institutions cannot be interrupted by an assassin's bullet." No, but they can be interrupted and destroyed by a president, a congress, and a nation that has not learned the politics of regret. Perhaps this is the kind of reality we desperately need.

Beverly Darling received her master's degree in theology and her bachelor's degree in history and philosophy. She currently teaches US and world history and works with at-risk youth. She also served in a Guatemalan refugee camp and has traveled throughout Mexico, Panama and Canada. For several years she ministered to the urban poor and rural populations of the US.

(Copyright 2007 WorldNews.com.)


http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/IG26Ak01.html

An excellent article.Previously i didn't expect such sort of feelings from an american.