Calling for societal renewal through cross-cultural and interfaith research, education, dialogue and understanding and upholding the universal values of freedom, justice, peace, democracy and prosperity for all in the 21st Century.
Syria, How to end Tyranny once and for all: Leading from the Front
or Business as Usual?
Peaceful mass movements and revolutions of liberation for societal transformation from tyranny, religious extremism and dictatorship are the best way to serve the cause of freedom, democracy, human dignity and peace in the 21st century. Tyranny should be outlawed by the United Nations and the international community. Tyranny is obsolete and tyrants and dictators are on the wrong side of history.
Instead of conducting international
relations, like George W. Bush, by reaction and military force, President Obama should continue to practice
thoughtfulness, despite the peril of appearing weak for people on the right. In so doing, President Obama can avoid rushing into the trap of being drawn into, what might turn out to be, yet another “dumb war” that no one wants.
As a peace candidate who rightly called the Iraq war a "dumb" war, many people want Obama to take
the moral high ground on Syria. They want him to initiate a new path where the
United Nations, and especially the United States, Russia and China dare to
think and act out of the (business as usual) box. They should seize this
opportunity and harness the consensus against tyranny and the use of chemical weapons to propose an alternative vision for world peace.
Anger, revenge and demonization of the different other can only lead to more fear, violence and war. Dialogue alone can bring all the protagonists to the negotiating table; help them
learn the virtue of democratic deliberation and respect of
differences of opinion, seek common ground and be transformed if they are to arrive at a politically
negotiated settlement.
This is how the world can finally move away
from the zero sum small politics and cultures of violence and war to a more
mature politics and cultures of peace. By taking Gandhi’s, Martin Luther King’s
and Mandela’s legacy to the next level, humanity can finally realize the hope
and change people are yearning for and that eluded us for millennia.
We can finally
see the sunrise of a more just and dignified world in the 21st
century; a World of Justice, Peace and Dignity, which we the people, and the
whole world know you are capable of and do expect of you. Now that is leading
from the front, Mr. President.
Public opinion and the growing impact of the social media nowadays play an important role in shaping perceptions, feeding human awareness and deepening human awakening. In so doing they tacitly run the world. Many people, although they have reservations about some of President Obama's policies, do admire his life story and meteoric ascension to the White House.
They acknowledge his talents as a gifted speaker, a dedicated community organizer in Chicago, and his building Organizing for
America (OFA) and Organizing for Action (OFA), the best grass roots political
organizations the world has ever known, as his great assets.
In addition, many also
recognize his Harvard Law School education, his authenticity, his compassion, his presidential experience, his amazing gifts and his progressive and evolving world view. They believe that if he dares to dig deeper in his soul and aim higher to realize the
Dream, he would prove himself to be all that people hoped he would be.
Beyond
America and Africa Obama has indeed a global constituency. He represents both
the chasm in our broken human family as well as the promise of its reunion; a
reunion that a global process of truth and reconciliation leading to a creative
synthesis of our hybrid human reality could bring about. Will Obama deliver?
Will Obama seize the moment? I certainly hope so and so are the billions of people Obama inspired in America and across the world.
Finally, Candidly! Really! Honestly!
If not Obama, who?
And if not now, when?
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