Prime Minister Zapatero of Spain is proving to be an admirably independent, responsible and compassionate European leader on the world stage. He says 'no' to the White House and 'yes' to the needs of decimated countries like Afghanistan and Haiti. At the NATO conference in Istanbul last week, "calling terror one of the challenges of the 21st century, he said the battle should be prosecuted through greater cross-border collaboration among police and intelligence agencies, and not by military interventions. He said NATO members should be careful not to lose their 'democratic soul' in the war on terror and urged them to strengthen multilateralism."

[I hate that phrase 'war on terror' and wish journalists would drop it from their lexicon except when directly quoting someone.]

Solving the problem of terrorism is going to take a helluva lot more than armaments and a will to destroy; among other things, it's going to take a serious commitment to a new politics of inclusion. We have to bring culturally and linguistically informed intelligence to bear on decisions about giving political support and financial aid to governments whose priorities are the universal education, healthcare and economic fairness that give peoples a will to create and to build.

For all the overwhelmingly generous individual westerner's response to crises, catastrophes and suffering in the world, there are too many episodes in the histories of our governmental and commercial institutions that expose cynical and expedient use of support and aid as no more than masked bribes proffered to greedy and corrupt ruling elites in return for concessions of profits from and power over voiceless peoples' resources and rights.

When did the West buy into the notion that capitalism is democracy? It's O.K. with me that business makes big profits. On the whole, that's a good thing. But business is not life.

So now I look forward to having Zapatero's democratically elected socialist government for a neighbor in Europe and I wish it every success.

That's my rant for the day.

posted by Joanna @ 7/03/2004 02:19:00 PM