By Tunde Asaju
I am unlike other people who want to take away the rights of independent nations to conduct their diplomacy as they deem fit or those closing their eyes to the Trumpnami that’s sweeping through our world. The Donald did not hide his unconventionality when it comes to the way he intended to conduct the affairs of America state even as an unlikely Republican aspirant. Majority of American voters were scared to their wits listening to the Trump rhetoric that they kept their fingerprints far from the star-spangled elephant symbol of the Republican Party. But the American constitution does not give full power to the electorate; it vests more determining clout on the Electoral College and those who hold that power consciously gave it to Trump. They knew what it means to make America great again and were unfazed about what the rest of the globe thought. As President Jones would’ve put it, they didn’t give a damn.
Trump did his homework, making political capital of Obama’s filling of the Supreme Court slot. He didn’t want a judicial coup to torpedo his executive orders. Executive orders would look like something that the framers of the constitution inserted for periods of emergencies but if you look at America through Trumpnoculars, this is a period of emergency.
It’s just one week and at no time since Adolf Hitler has the world’s extreme rights been united against every rationale opposition. You could cut the tension in the air and that is good for the arms race and don’t deceive yourself, it’s all about the arms dollars. Trump is a maverick businessman with eyes on the big bucks. He has said that he turned down a $2billion contract from an influential friend in Bahrain and unlike other conscientious presidents before him; Trump has refused to put his shares in a blind trust. Although not a constitutional requirement, it is a moral issue because absolute political power and business acumen should not be constituted in the hands of one demagogue. Well, if Obama thought that withdrawing troops and unsuccessfully trying to close down Guatanamo Bay and end wars was good for global peace, Trump thinks that the arms race is good for business and what a better way to spark off the embers of global disintegration than start a religious war?
Trump is good at masking his real intentions. The ban on seven ‘Islamic nations’ is a good one. After all, goes the argument, some Islamic countries already ban Christians from their countries and block entry to those who are either friendly with Israel or have ties with that nation. The Islamic world is already seething with rage. With radical ideologists already troubling the world, Trump is on his way to achieving his aim.
As it were Trump fired the most significant shot to start a religious war, he wants to move the American embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. The status of Jerusalem as capital of either of the two-states contending states of Palestine and Israel is at the head of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict or if you like, the Arab-Israeli imbroglio. Most countries, including developed ones have shied away from giving recognition either way knowing how volatile that could be. Past American governments including war-mongering regimes of the republican establishments have done this, perhaps conscious that it is better to jaw-jaw than to war-war. To see the world’s greatest superpower lead the onslaught without even the prodding of the Israeli government is to say the least vexatious.
Why this moment? In the past, even mundane issues such as cartoons or pageants have incised so-called Mujahideens to take up arms and fight for God. Those doing these were usually not the liberal or closet zealots that Trump’s new entry visa policy targets from his new republic, they are the hoi-polloi, abandoned by rogue and quasi-legitimate states whose daily survival depends on miracles. These people are bolstered by the literal translation of religious tenets that offer the pie-in-the sky of being ‘martyred’ on earth in order to inherit the rosy hereafter.
The Trump regime, and it’s extreme right allies mushrooming across the globe would be buoyed into action in ways that would jeopardize the fragile peace that engenders the minimum peace needed for progress and peaceful human co-existence. By placing a blanket ban on Muslims and Muslim states with the exclusion of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Trump is not only endangering global safety for all, he is setting the globe up for a global arms race and war that could only benefit himself and investors in the arms business. His mission is killing peace for corporate greed.
Already, the Saudis are unpopular with extremists groups such as al Qaeda, the Taliban and members of al-Baghdadi’s Islamic State, and by extension the Shia-dominated Iran. Average extremists would not see beyond the ephemeral. Trump’s policy thrusts may make America Trump-great but it sure puts Americans outside America in a permanent state of paranoia. What more, it puts citizens of secular states in serious jeopardy.
A global religious war puts Christians in jeopardy everywhere they are in minority; sets up Muslims in line for extermination anywhere they are in minority; it endangers Jews and other minorities everywhere.
This rabid dog that America has unleashed on the world should be put back on leash or it’s bye-bye to civilization, peace and progress as we know it. In the meantime, all men and women of goodwill should plant the seed of peace in the gardens of their hearts and water it daily with the dew of prayers and entente cordiale. The future looks very bleak indeed, but maybe something would nudge what is left in the conscience of the American checks and balances to look beyond the dollars and cents and help preserve what is left of humanity.