Can Change Go on Vacation?
By Shakeel Syed
Culver City, CA
I wonder if ‘change’ could ever rest. I however wish President-elect Obama a relaxing break in Hawaii before he has to make his way to the haunted house climbing over world’s corpses, left behind by his predecessor.
I applauded the President-elect when he quickly intervened to fix the economic carnage by convening his economic experts while taking to task the other economic experts. That’s leadership.
I am now bewildered to find President-elect AWOL and instead his Axelrod doing the reckless driving; “President-elect Obama is closely monitoring global events, including the situation in Gaza, but there is one president at a time,” he said on your behalf. And, I ask where is the leadership?
What is worse, I ask, the economic crisis or the human carnage? And what is better - to lead for the sake of getting a car loan or saving a human life?
I recall the then Presidential candidate Obama preaching humility while campaigning in Israel for American Jewish votes. Here is how the macho mutt expressed his humility during his visit to Sderot in August of 2008: “If somebody was sending rockets into my house, where my two daughters sleep at night, I’m going to do everything in my power to stop that,” he told reporters in Sderot, a small city on the edge of Gaza that has been hit repeatedly by rocket fire. “And I would expect Israelis to do the same thing,” said the humble-to-be-commander-in-chief.
Had the Presidential candidate crossed the border into Erez or any other city in Gaza after visiting Sderot, he could have related the lives of Malia and Sasha of South Chicago with Maryam and Fatima of North Gaza. It really is not rocket science to understand the reasons for rockets.
Malia and Sasha are worried about their dog while Maryam and Fatima are worried about their next meal. Malia and Sasha will drive (with a secret service escort) most likely to a private elite school while Maryam and Fatima will walk to a school without desks and books. Maryam and Fatima will play with pebbles as marbles and Malia and Sasha will be listening to Hannah Montana on their iPods.
Yes, Mr. President-elect, you have every reason to watch your daughters sleep and defend them while sleeping under down comforters. And just so the parents of Maryam and Fatima in Erez and million other parents in Gaza, wish to do - watch them sleep and defend them while they are sleeping. But those parents watch something else. Each night, they watch their equally lovely daughters - turning and twisting (on a hard floor) without down comforters and with hungry stomachs.
The change that you often refer to, Mr. President-elect, must be measured not only in how well your daughters can enjoy the slumber but why others’ daughters are unable to merely nap.
Unless you worry about and work for changing the lives of Maryam and Fatima to become just as good, if not as better, from the lives of Malia and Sasha, you did not really change anything. And, unless these contradictory and painful truths are reconciled, change cannot go vacation.
(Shakeel Syed is Executive Director of the Islamic Shura Council of Southern California and can be reached at ssshakeel@gmail.com)
