Austin Bay (Guest Post): “Embedded Bitterness Stalls Change”

My newspaper column last week featured a paragraph of advice to Barack Obama:

“Obama has his own problems with truth in packaging. We have learned the electrifying candidate of “hope” has a political debt to “hate” – and Chicago’s sleazy political machine. Excusing the videotaped anti-American hate speech of Reverend Jeremiah Wright as hot rhetoric reflecting deep historical suffering may pass muster in the Democratic primaries, but should Obama obtain the nomination, come November he will be running for president of the nation Wright insistently damned. If he really wants to become leader of the Free World he will dump Wright sometime in September and acknowledge embedded bitterness stalls change.”

That column began with a remembrance of campaigns past --specifically John Kerry’s “Christmas in Cambodia” tale and his scrap with the Swiftboat Veterans For Truth. The column then moved on to discuss Hillary Clinton’s “Bosnian sniper’s tale” – a whopper that Hillary had to retract, though instead of owning up she claimed she merely “mis-spoke.” I note my host for this post, Bruce Kesler, also connected the Clinton and Kerry war stories.

This morning while running weekend errands my thoughts returned to Jeremiah Wright and the last phrase in that graf: “..embedded bitterness stalls change.”

Perhaps I should have written “stalls productive change.” Embedded grievance and bitterness can certainly promote “change” in the form of war and terrorism. Dictators and terrorists constantly leverage “embedded bitterness.”

Since early December, when I went on a “blogging hiatus” in order to research and write a new edition of A Quick and Dirty Guide to War (co-authored with James F. Dunnigan, editor of www.strategypage.com ), I’ve spent a lot of time examining the political consequences of politically-leveraged historical grievance and bitterness.

Consider the “historical grievances” of former Yugoslav republics and Albania. The following short survey of border issues is drawn from the draft of the Balkans chapter in the upcoming edition of “A Quick and Dirty Guide to War”:

Serbia: Kosovo is the "old core" of Serbia and must remain so; the Vojvodina belongs to Serbia and possibly the old "Baranya" county around the city of Pecs in Hungary (an area of heterogeneous population occupied by Serbia at the end of World War I). Slices of Romania are inhabited by Serbs. Bosnia, because of "geopolitical realities," is Serbian; if pressed, Serbian nationalists believe Macedonia (including the part currently "occupied" by Bulgaria) should be "Yugoslavian" (Serbian). Finally, those troublesome Croats tend to oppress Serbs. Parts of Croatia are more properly Serbian

Albania: Albanian ethnic extremists claim all ethnic Albanian areas adjacent to Albania (Kosovo, parts of Montenegro, parts of Macedonia, Serbia, etc.) are part of Albania.

Bosnia: Sandzak area of Montenegro (inhabited by Muslims) should not be part of either Serbia or Montenegro

Slovenia: "Segments of the Istrian coast" should belong to Slovenia. There's always the subject of Carinthia, the region around Klagenfurt in Austria. That was a big issue at the Paris Peace Conference in 1919. Slovenes believe Italy's control of Trieste is not quite proper. US forces had to keep the Yugoslavs and Italians apart after World War II in this area.

Croatia: Bosnia is Croatian. The Montenegrin coastline more properly belongs to Croatia. Slovenes are wrong, actually, Trieste belongs to Croatia.

Macedonia: When Macedonia was part of Yugoslavia, Macedonia claimed "parts of Macedonia now in Bulgaria."

This list is not meant to be complete, just indicative. Greece, for example, worries that the Republic of Macedonia will lay claim to the Greek province of Macedonia, which is why Greece wages a “name war” with Macedonia. Greece insists on calling the Republic of Macedonia the FYROM (Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia). We should note that many leaders and a number of people in each of these countries would just as soon forget the old land claims and ethnic hatreds; don’t mock the European Union, for to future-oriented Balkanites it offers economic liberalization and a mediating political identity.

However, ethnic and ultra-nationalist (fascist) radicals in these countries still benefit politically from stoking the old wounds and igniting violent passions. Serbia’s Slobodan Milosevic used those evil tricks in the late 1980s when he “moved from Red to Brown” (from Communist leader to fascist politician). He initially pushed two major “hot button” political issues: (1) assuring Serb domination of Kosovo; and (2) ending the “threat” posed by ethnic Albanians.

The Balkans aren’t quite the ultimate Hell of identity politics; “balkanization” producing bloodshed afflicts hard corners on every continent. Belgium’s language fracas is the farce exception to the usual hideous tragedy.

Which leads back to Reverend Wright. Stipulate that slavery and segregation are deep historical wrongs; their de jure existence in a nation whose founding principles extolled individual liberty is a bitter irony and horrid travesty. Stipulate that significant social dysfunction in some (I stress “some”) contemporary Afro-American communities have roots in the crime of segregated society. I do not think you will find many thoughtful Americans who would disagree with either stipulation – and this agreement precedes the alleged emergence of Barack Obama as great healer and mediator.

I feel very sorry for Obama – I know, a known Republican says that, but I believe at some level Obama is sincere about moving to “post-racial” politics. Unfortunately, Obama is a victim of his own political calculations. As he worked his way through the morass of Illinois Democratic Party politics he yoked himself to a decayed and deeply-racialist spiritual adviser – and benefited politically from that connection.

Wright’s pulpit pounding fits of sustaining anger and embedded bitterness frustrate healing and mediation. If we’re going to criticize the US for the historical irony and travesty of permitting slavery and segregation while exalting freedom, then let’s skewer Jeremiah Wright for the personal, contemporary travesty of promoting racist hooey in the name of civil rights. His slur that the US government created AIDS in order to attack ethnic minorities to a vicious, inexcusable, and racist falsehood. It follows the conspiratorial and ethnic-charged motif of Slobodan Milosevic’s anti-Albanian and anti-Bosniak Muslim rants. No – I am not saying it is the same thing. Wright is no Milosevic. He doesn’t command an army and he is no murderer. As Obama has said when defending him, Wright has a legacy of positive community development and he is a complex, multi-dimensional man. He has, however, danced in the same dangerous rhetorical flames and spit –in calculated fashion-- the venom of relentless bitterness.

Which is why –if he wants to be president-- Obama must dump Wright, without qualification. I’ll conclude with this: Obama has remarkable personal and political gifts and our nation needs political talent. I heard Obama speak in Chicago in September 2004 and he knows how “to work a room.” The only other national politician I’ve ever seen do a better job of close-up, at ease personal politicking is Joe Lieberman. Obama still comes off as just a bit slick; Lieberman is so slick he leaves no perceptible trace. Give Obama time and he’ll master the technique. It has something to do with a twinkling sense of humor.