By
Atta Rasool Malik
United
States is fast losing its credibility and moral authority in the ‘free world’ under its current President, Mr.
Donald J Trump. A few years earlier the
US championed and lectured to other nations the ideas like liberty, freedom and
human rights, is now found separating children of immigrants from their parents
and putting them in cages. The US has
also joined the list of defiant nations like of North Korea, Myanmar and Iran
by withdrawing from the human right council of Unit Nation. The mass influx of ‘murderers and rapists’
that Trump about, and the ‘wave of crimes, committed by immigrants in the US,
are vastly exaggerated stories. These are fantasies being fed to media to
justify real atrocities. The truth is immigrants are not ‘overrunning big
cities’ they are also immensely contributing.
This is a technical debate among economists whether low-education
immigrants exert a depressing effect on the wages of local workers. Most researchers find that they don’t, but
there is some disagreement.
There
does this fear and hatred of immigrants come from? A lot of it seems to be
xenophobia and fear of the unknown: The most anti-immigrant states seem to be a
place, like West Virginia, where hardly any immigrants live. The pattern of criminal conviction data in
most countries also show that immigrants, both legal and undocumented, are
significantly less likely to commit crimes than the native-born. However, this is a serious public policy
debate and such discussions are not playing any role in Trump’s whimsical
policies. The Trump administration has been terrorizing families and children,
abandoning all forms of human decency, in response to the crisis that does not
even exist. For example, the presence of
Afghan refugees in Pakistan was not all negative. The refugees, to great extent, mobilized
Pakistan economy and set a new trend in labour market and massively contributed
to national development. I often found
hard and demanding jobs being done by brave Afghans during peak summer hours on
roads and mowing most difficult patches of land in southern Punjab.
American
first Policy and anti-immigrant campaigns in the US or Hindutva in India; this
all remind us of the history of anti-Semitism.
The tale of prejudice fueled by myths and fables which then ended in
genocide. The fear is being purposely implanted among people, like for the
citizens of Nazi Germany. The elite knows that the people, even those who claim
to be caring for others behave in opposition to their core values and interests
when they are afraid.
The
extreme fear kills freedom and consequently, people quite willingly submit to
government’s unpopular and irrational decisions. Therefore, I guess something similar is
cooking up for immigrants and Muslims, like the holocaust for Jews. US police have adopted rouge practices in the
handling of immigrant and blacks similar to the police in Afghanistan or
Myanmar. Young people are killed for a minor violation.
The
US has withdrawn from the Human rights council stating it is often resisted due to political biases. Zeid Ra’ad al Hussein, the UN human right
chief, called the US announcement a “disappointing” decision. “Given the state
of human rights in today’s world, the US should be stepping up, not stepping
back”, he said in a statement.
Furthering the same analogy, the United States should withdraw from the
UN Security council when its members, like Russia, oppose the United States on
issues like chemical weapons in Syria or Israel’s disproportionate attacks on
civilians in Gaza!!
It is
reasonable to see Trump foreign policy reflect the attitude of some Americans to the outside world. The US politicians and its establishment –
the former consummated by domestic politics, and the second due to technocratic
concerns – have lost the opportunity to further genuine peace at international
level. In reality, however, on the
domestic front, Trump weakens institutions that do not please him, abandon them
if they do not comply with his demands
and at International forums, he ignores
and sideline his old allies while making dealings with opportunists without
worrying the costs to the American people and the world peace at large. Trump has abdicated leadership and moral
standing. Resultantly, the United States
has been isolated at many occasions like climate change, international trade
and shifting of US embassy to Jerusalem.
Former US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson had decoded Trump’s policy in
his first speech to the employees of State Department that “American values are
now in the background of “US interests”, presumably economic, in the conduct of
foreign policy.
Trump
administration is focused on narrow economic interests not ‘universal values’
(for long America called US Values) of human dignity, free expression,
religious liberty and rule of law. It
may not be the American’s power but US influence is fast shrinking. It is time for the United States to attend to
grievances of old friends and display mature leadership else ‘American Century’
will come to an end much sooner than many expect.
