Dear Candidates

My contribution to Washington Posts Postglobal site

http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/postglobal/anwer_sher/2008/01/dear_candidates_equal_attentio_1.html



Dear Candidates: Equal Attention to the World’s Problems
The Question: The U.S. starts to choose a president this week. If you could send the candidates one message, what would it be?

What the world today needs, more than ever, is a world statesman: someone who can guide the world with empathy and compassion, not guns and missiles. The world has been brought to the brink of massive destruction, and while one cannot blame American leadership for all of the problems, America must take responsibility for what it has done wrong.

The demands on your attention will be many, some born out of a moral prerogative, others born from the pressures of the commercial world and leading the world’s largest military power. While I do not expect leaders to be perfect, I do expect them to be fair on the issues of world politics.


We wish to see an American president who is willing to be brave and balanced on the issue of Palestine and Israel, to condemn the Israeli aggression with the same tone as Palestinian suicide bombers are condemned. We wish for someone who will act on world affairs based on reason and fact, not emotion and conjecture, to bring to the forefront the values of fairness that are expected within American societies. There is no doubt that America is a great nation, with some of the finest values of freedom of speech and the rule of law, but its leadership seems to have forgotten these values and these need to be rekindled into the body politic of the nation. It is this that will win the hearts and minds of the people around the world. Asking for democracy in Iraq and and Pakistan is indeed a bold statement, but to ignore China's violations of human rights especially with respect to Tibet, or to take the pressure off of Burma, all show that its current leadership seeks selective democracy.

The world ahead of us needs understanding, not an ‘us and them’ approach. American leaders need to become the 'we', with a true worldly view. At the start of this long road to the White House, which of you will embrace this vision, and more importantly which will carry it into your term of office? The world is watching.