My Tribute to Sen. John McCain
By Dr Basheer Ahmed Khan
Garden Grove, CA
Senator John McCain was a politician and a patriot. He could not become a statesman because of the constraints which history and polity put on leaders. Nonetheless, he was one of those national leaders who contributed greatly to the American philosophy of a nation that was dreamed and built by the founding fathers.
The tenure of service and imprisonment in Vietnam, I think is the one single influencing factor in the life of McCain which shaped his philosophy to life and its application in politics. He did not come out of the prison from torture as an angry warrior ready to blow his tormentors in another war, but with an understanding of the reasons of the failure of his country and to advance the ideals of freedom and free markets politically which the army could not advance. He advanced the cause of friendship with Vietnam so much so that both Vietnam and China, which were friends in the Vietnam War, are now adversaries and yet the protagonists of free market economy. McCain did not do it single handedly. He built friends in the Congress and in the successive administrations by trying to achieve the possible, which is the sum and substance of politics.
Dr Radha Krishnan has said: We read history in terms of a struggle between Good and Bad and adore the one who is successful in this struggle as victor and demonize the one who loses as vanquished creating more fuel for future wars. But the fact is that this is a struggle between competing ideas and to label one as good and the other as bad based upon success or failure is incorrect. Unfortunately, we have inherited a world that is divided on these lines. Attempt of the founding fathers of this nation to create a new nation away from the history of Europe, Middle East, Africa and Far East is also plagued by these problems brought on its shore by the people who have migrated to it from these places.
McCain was frank to accept his political mistake in confronting the racial divide with candor. He admitted to Mr Wallace in one of his shows that in order to win a certain section of voters in his Presidential bid he heeded to his local advisors and avoided visiting a certain area which neither helped him in winning that State or the Presidency. The greatest example of his humility in accepting his political mistake comes in his death.
McCain was aware of the horse trading that went on while crafting Affordable Care Act that added trillions of dollars in debt to the national exchequer to benefit the industry in the name of offering medical care to those who can’t afford. He refused to repeal Obama Care in one of his last votes as a cancer patient, because he wanted to help Americans to get affordable health care. By asking for discontinuation of treatment days before his death Sen McCain sent a message to the nation silently but boldly: Medicine has a place but not by bankrupting the nation. He has sent a silent message to the doctors and to the industry to understand this limitation and to devise a healthcare program which both the patients and the nation can afford. Dr Christian Bernard, the pioneer heart transplant surgeon of South Africa stopped performing these surgeries lamenting this fact thus: What use is my saving one life at great cost when hundreds of thousands of lives are lost in famine and wars? Will the doctors and the industry heed?
One of the greatest qualities which he had was that he had the humility to accept mistake and to move on. This was vital for him to make friends and to retain them. He promoted lot of young talent to be the future leaders to fill in the shoes of the departing one. This in itself is a great contribution of Sen McCain. May his soul rest in peace.
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