|
|
By Jamila Aisha Brown | with thanks to NewBlackMan
Sunday, August 12, 2012.
One
of my most vivid memories of childhood was explaining to the St. Louis
suburbanites in my sixth grade class that I visited Panamá the country
and not Panama City, Florida over summer vacation.
“You
know, we have a canal there…we just invaded it…” I said sheepishly to a
room full of blank stares and quizzical looks (even though about thirty
percent of the children in my school were military brats).
My
guess is that because I'm Black and darker skinned it was then natural
for them to conclude that Panamá must be located in Africa... but that's
another article.
What
that moment and countless others before and after taught me is that
although the United States of America is a self-proclaimed beacon of
freedom throughout the world, Americans have never proclaimed to be the
best at really understanding the world outside itself. After all when
you’re the best, who cares about the rest, right?
One
need only look to the evening news to see lack of reporting on global
affairs. Rarely does world news consist of current events abroad, but
rather selective stories on international issues that coincidentally
directly impact the security, economy, and/or political position of the
United States.
The
feature on Grenadian 400 meter track and field phenom Kirani James,
which aired Monday night during NBC’s primetime Olympic coverage,
reinforced the narrative that this American exceptionalism proves no exception.
Many
of us race bloggers, activists, and academics have kept a critical eye
on the dynamics of race, sports, and gender these Olympics. Cringing
when Bob Costas mentioned former dictator Idi Amin as Uganda joined the
opening ceremony’s parade of nations, petitioning
when an advertisement featuring a monkey aired after Gabrielle Douglas’
historical all-around gymnastics victory, and questioning the
International Olympic Committee (IOC) who cautioned Australian boxer Damien Hooper
against making a geopolitical statement after he wore the Aboriginal
flag on his t-shirt in his first match. Yet despite the IOC’s wishes,
race and politics cannot be separated from the sporting that brings the
diversity of the world and its athletes to center stage.
Monday
night’s not so subtle portrayal of how Grenada was “saved” from
communism and born into democracy (thanks to President Ronald Reagan),
represents a glimpse into the American ideological imagination that
began with the Monroe Doctrine and continues on through the War on
Terror today. In a twist of John Quincy Adams’ axiom that effectuated
the United States as the watchdog of the Americas, the Reagan Doctrine
sought to spread democracy, stamp out communism globally, and defeat
Cuban-Soviet influence throughout Latin America and the Caribbean.
“We
must stand by our democratic allies. And we must not break faith with
those who are risking their live—on every continent, from Afghanistan to
Nicaragua—to defy Soviet-supported aggression and secure rights which
have been ours from birth,” he declared during the State of the Union Address on February 6, 1985.
Under the Reagan administration the CIA trained Afghan fighters to overthrow Soviet rule, Osama bin Laden
among them, and it illegally supplied guns to Nicaragua who used drugs
consumed in urban American cities to fund the conflict. Why? For the
belief that it was the United States’ “mission” to “nourish and defend
freedom and democracy.”
The
Reagan Doctrine penned the Grenada incursion as its prologue; it
concluded with Panama’s invasion (continued by his predecessor President
George H.W. Bush); and identified the Iran-Contra affair as its climax.
Operation
Urgent Fury launched its invasion of 7,500 troops on to an island of
91,000 people in the twilight hour of October 25,1983. The headlines did
not show the devastation the onslaught brought to the Island of Spice
as journalist were held on the island of Barbados, sequestered from
reporting the military offensive live.
Outnumbered,
outmanned, outgunned, the United States’ forces overpowered the leftist
regime, which fell that same day. Nonetheless the armed strike lasted
for one week and Grenada remained under U.S. occupation for nearly two
months. Leaving the island of nutmeg and mace with a bitter taste.
Having
grown up with the dichotomous images of the American media’s coverage
of the Panamanian invasion juxtaposed with my family’s personal accounts
of the tumultuous era, in NBC’s glossy portrayal of the happy island
nation whose salvation was owed to it by the United States I felt a
synergy.
The
price nations pay for being saved from a tyrant—whether it is a
Grenadian coup regime, Manuel Noriega of Panama, or Iraqi Saddam
Hussein—often escapes the American media lens. It breezes over the
collateral damage of war, invasion, and occupation through erasure of
the lives, economies, and infrastructures that lay in ruin after its
wake. Spoon-feeding the American public a perennially reinforced
self-image of democratic hero.
While
the geopolitics of the Olympic games are oft unspoken but
unquestionably heard, NBC’s spotlight on Grenada proves how the United
States sees its influence abroad. We haven’t gotten over our savior
complex, we haven’t gotten over our penchant for spreading democracy
through war, and we haven’t gotten over controlling our media to make
you believe that these nations in turn thank us for it.
***
Jamila Aisha Brown
is a freelance writer, political commentator, and social entrepreneur.
Her entrepreneurship, HUE, provides consulting solutions for
development projects throughout the African diaspora. You can follow
her onTwitter and engage with HUE, LLC
*Quote from Ambrose Bierce
Send to a friend |
View/Hide Comments (0) |
Print
|