The Wondering Mind

So after what feels like years of controversy, Oscar Pistorius won’t be in the Olympics after all.

I can’t say I have strong feelings about this one way or the other, except to note that his agent is clearly doing his best to make excuses for Pistorius not making the cut. What he says may all be true; I can’t tell. But if the agent had merely said something like the following, it wouldn’t sound so much like excuses.

“The important battle for Oscar this year was to win the right to compete in the regular games. Now that he has done that, he can concentrate in the future on devoting all his efforts into qualifying for the London Olympics. It’s disappointing that Oscar won’t be in Beijing, but he is confident he will make it to London in 2012.”

What’s more intriguing is what might happen in the intervening 4 years. Technology waits for no man and it is perfectly conceivable that the science of prosthetics will advance in the next 4 years. Does that mean that for the current year’s legal ruling to have effect for the London Olympics Pistorius must only use his current prosthetics?

It’s not an unreasonable question to ask. Pistorius was permitted to take part in the regular Olympics on the basis that his current prosthetics do not confer an unfair advantage. But it is quite possible that in the next 4 years they may develop prosthetics which would confer such an advantage. It’s also possible that you couldn’t judge this unless you have another court case involving the new prosthetics, especially since this case ruling explicitly stated that it is not intended to set a precedence on principle and that any similar cases in the future must be judged on their own merits.

So if technology advances, as it probably will, unless Pistorius refuses to advance with it, he may find himself in court again in 4 years time.

It’s not health care. It’s not the war in Iraq. It’s not even how to fix the economy. No. It’s being a Muslim.

Or that is what you might think from the vehement reaction of his campaign to this week’s New Yorker cover. This isn’t helped by what happened at a rally not so long ago. In addition to the campaign denials and apologies, Obama later personally apologised to the women involved. But it seems inconceivable to imagine that such a finely controlled campaign would have had volunteers taking it upon themselves to act in such a way unless they were given cause by the campaign itself. It may not have been explicit policies, but a pervasive atmosphere and culture will inevitably lead to a group-think mode, and lead people to act in a uniform pattern. In this case, one can only surmise that the “Muslim question” was of prime concern to this campaign. So much so that volunteers took it upon themselves to act in this clearly foolish manner.

When seen together with the campaign’s reaction to the New Yorker this week, this theory doesn’t seem that far fetched, and it’s easy to understand how the campaign would react in such an intemperate manner.

We also know that Obama is struggling to contain the Republican elements spreading lies and disinformation about Obama, especially his religion. Before we lay further into Obama and his campaign, let’s get the Republicans and the American people out of the way first. It is reprehensible for the baser elements of the Republican party to use racism, religious discrimination, and outright lies to slander a political opponent. That Senator McCain fails to firmly and definitively condemn and repudiate these people, as well as actively seeking to discourage such disinformation says much about his character as a human being about which he should be deeply embarrassed. And the American people should be ashamed that they are stupid and ignorant enough for such tactics to work. Before anyone makes the argument, I realise that not all Americans would fall for such tricks, but they cannot conveniently divorce themselves from the ignorance of their compatriots; America is a democracy and everyone, ignorant or not, gets to vote.

Unfortunately, these are simply the facts of modern politics in many countries and similar charges could be leveled at parties and people of many democracies. What is so disappointing is the Obama campaign’s reaction to these tactics.

Based simply on what I’ve observed about political realities in the previous paragraphs, you would expect the Obama campaign to be rightly concerned about the toxic effect of false and negative associations with Muslims. But if Obama is the sort of man that many think he is, and even more want and hope he is, this is not how he should react. This is not the same man who condemned the idiotic idea of a “gas-tax holiday”, even as many political pundits predicted it would cause Obama trouble. Obama instead courageously stood up in front of the American people and told them honestly that such measures are nothing more than snake-oil and people promising miracle cures were nothing more than charlatans.

Now, as many odious pretenders at journalism insinuate links to Islam, Obama should be standing in front of the American people and telling them the truth again. That Islam is no more violent or bloody than Christianity, or people who profess Christian inspiration for their criminal acts. That Muslims have no more violent elements among their ranks than the Christian family does. It wasn’t Muslims who sent anthrax in the mail. It wasn’t Muslims who murdered doctors who performed abortions. It also wasn’t Muslims who found justification for slavery in the Bible. None of these acts make Christianity or Christians in general bad, so why should a few criminals who happen to be Muslim tar the entire religion of Islam?

The women who were denied seats were law-abiding American citizens, as are many Muslims in this country. There are many more who are here legally from foreign lands and who practice Islam in a peaceful manner, and who abhor the violence the criminals perpetrate in the name of their religion. As someone aspiring to a position of leadership in the so-called “free world”, Obama should be giving his voice in support of Muslims and Islam. Muslims are Americans too, and Islam is a great religion. We should not be afraid of either, but embrace them and learn from them.

That is the sort of thing we would, and should, expect to hear from the person aspiring to the highest office in the land.