A New Perspective
Willson Grandin M'07
This summer I spent two months working in public health for a children's hospital in Cape Town, South Africa. It was an incredible experience and one that I can't hope to summarize in the small space allotted here. Below is a political commentary stimulated by some of the amazing people that I was fortunate to meet in South Africa.
Living and working in another country really opened my eyes to the current international opinion of the United States, and, believe me, it's not good. While living in Cape Town, I met many wonderful South Africans, and I often found myself in the midst of intense political discussions with them. The age, race, socioeconomic status, and political leanings of the South Africans were quite heterogeneous, but their opinion of the current American political leadership was strikingly consistent - total disgust. They were very critical of our unilateral decision to attack Iraq and our manipulation of the September 11th atrocity to cull support for an extensive military campaign abroad. They were aghast that President Bush even has a chance of being reelected … a sort of "fool me once, shame on you … fool me twice, shame on me" sentiment. Being driven more and more to the warmer, fuzzier, Democratic side of the pillow myself, it was difficult for me to disagree.
I often felt like Nick (my American friend who lived in Cape Town with me) and I were on a diplomatic mission to restore international faith in Americans. It was not uncommon for me to hear something to the extent of "Wow, you are surprisingly informed for an American. We assumed that all of you must be totally ignorant about affairs outside of your own country." It was discouraging and disappointing to realize that Americans are held in such low regard. I don't think many Americans, especially those who don't travel outside of the country, fully appreciate the animosity that our current political regime has generated around the world. Many people have fooled themselves into thinking that the rest of the world will "come around" or that they will "thank us someday" for the war on terrorism that we are leading without concern for consensus from the United Nations or the international community. We need to realize that we are burning bridges now that will come back to haunt us in the future.
In an interview with Time Magazine about his recently published memoirs, Bill Clinton remarked that the United States will not remain the only superpower indefinitely. Other nations, such as China and India, will undoubtedly rise and become equally powerful and influential over the next several decades. He urged American leaders to start making international policy decisions with that foresight or else run the dire risk of alienating the rest of the world. There will come a time when the United States is not the only big kid on the block, so we need to start preparing for that day now by making decisions together as a united world community.
Sometimes it feels impossible to influence the massive political forces at work in this county, but in South Africa I realized that one individual can make a difference by changing attitudes and opinions one person at a time. As I talked to people, they realized that not all Americans are ignorant of international affairs and that we are not blindly supporting the political whims of President Bush. Having lived through the legacy of apartheid, South Africans are generally sympathetic to the predicament of living with a leader whose views are not espoused by a significant proportion of the population. One president does not make a country and one president does not ruin a country. There is still time to repair our relations with the world, but in the upcoming election we need to send a message to the world that we will not tolerate the wayward leadership of the last four years.
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