Blair Can Still Say ‘Sorry, I Was Wrong’
Feb 18, 2004
THE late Mwalimu Julius Nyerere was a truly loved leader in whose shadows his successors in Tanzania and other leaders in Africa at large will continuously be judged poorly.
THE late Mwalimu Julius Nyerere was a truly loved leader in whose shadows his successors in Tanzania and other leaders in Africa at large will continuously be judged poorly. This is not because Nyerere was a saint without any human foibles but because he was a leader who tried his best to humanise power, exercised it with great restraint but above all tried throughout his life to remain as ‘ordinary’ as possible. But above all
he was one of few leaders not just in Africa but internationally who was
honest enough to say sorry in public, admit mistakes, without feeling less of a leader.
I recollect how as a school kid during the very bitter civil war in Nigeria (1967-1970) Nyerere was vilified in the Nigerian media as one of few African leaders who supported Biafra. Some of them were manipulated by the pseudo religious colouration that Biafra’s propagandists gave to the war. They portrayed the war as a battle between a modernising Christian eastern Nigeria against a backward, feudalist Muslim Hausa-Fulani north. This was part of the propaganda coup of the Biafra partisans internationally too. So successful was the manipulation that everybody forgot that General Yakubu Gowon the military head of the Federal Republic of Nigeria was a practicing Christian son of a missionary priest!
Soon after the war in 1970 Nyerere was one of the first visitors to Nigeria. And the media was ready to mob him on arrival but Nyerere took wind out of their sails by stating openly that he was wrong and added that he was happy that he had been proven wrong because if he had been right Nigeria would not have remained one and its great potential would have been lost to Africa. What could any hack have said after that? In another context, Nyerere declared that honesty is not the best policy but should be the only policy. If only many leaders would borrow a leaf from Nyerere’s book and learn the humility to say sorry and trust their citizens enough to accept unpalatable truths.
The shenanigan of the Bush and Blair governments on their invented weapons of mass deception in Iraq is the background to my nostalgia about Nyerere. If only Blair and Bush who claim to be committed Christians could heed the biblical truth in order to set themselves free from the empty shrines of lies and more lies that they continue to weave about their reasons for going
to war.
After destroying Iraq Bush now says he wants ‘the facts’ and has set up a Commission of Enquiry for that purpose. His loyal British poodle, Blair, who had resisted country, party and government to stand shoulder to shoulder with the Texan cowboy and refused to accept any inquiry immediately, changed position as soon as Bush set up his panel. So Blair now has a panel to look into the failure of intelligence prior to the illegal attack on Iraq.
If any African, Asian or Latin American leader did these western governments and their embedded media will be shouting ‘foul’ and white wash and even threaten sanctions and demand ‘independent’ and ‘international’ enquiry.
It is really ridiculous that Bush and Blair want their peoples and the rest of the world to believe that they went to war without knowing the facts or in Blair’s case not even knowing and refusing to ask which weapons Iraq had and was able to deploy in 45 minutes!
The more explanation they try to give the worse their case becomes and the angrier even their staunchest defenders become.
And this is the problem with telling lies. It may begin small but each time you have to protect it you need even bigger lies to do so. From setting out to convince others with your lies you then become the believer of your own lies. This is what has happened to Blair in particular since he is supposed to be the smarter of the duopoly of global super liars. Bush knows how to cut and run since his presidency is renowned for not caring about details and finer points of law. So his government shrugs its shoulders that ‘Yes, we were not really sure of this WMD but we know that’s the only thing that will frighten the world to tolerate our militarism’. They have thus left Blair in the deserts of Iraq still hoping that ‘the weapons will be found’. It is not too late for Blair to learn from Nyerere and say : ‘Sorry I goofed’. As a Christian, he must know that there cannot be forgiveness without confession and remorse.
I hope that both the British and American voters will show the maturity of their allegedly advanced democratic freedoms to shove these liars aside and make the world safer. For the Americans they have up to November and that of Britain could take shorter time if only the Labour party in Parliament has the will and by next year
if the country has to decide it.
Is it hoping against hope?
Maybe and may be not.
Ends
Tajudeen28@yahoo.com
he was one of few leaders not just in Africa but internationally who was
honest enough to say sorry in public, admit mistakes, without feeling less of a leader.
I recollect how as a school kid during the very bitter civil war in Nigeria (1967-1970) Nyerere was vilified in the Nigerian media as one of few African leaders who supported Biafra. Some of them were manipulated by the pseudo religious colouration that Biafra’s propagandists gave to the war. They portrayed the war as a battle between a modernising Christian eastern Nigeria against a backward, feudalist Muslim Hausa-Fulani north. This was part of the propaganda coup of the Biafra partisans internationally too. So successful was the manipulation that everybody forgot that General Yakubu Gowon the military head of the Federal Republic of Nigeria was a practicing Christian son of a missionary priest!
Soon after the war in 1970 Nyerere was one of the first visitors to Nigeria. And the media was ready to mob him on arrival but Nyerere took wind out of their sails by stating openly that he was wrong and added that he was happy that he had been proven wrong because if he had been right Nigeria would not have remained one and its great potential would have been lost to Africa. What could any hack have said after that? In another context, Nyerere declared that honesty is not the best policy but should be the only policy. If only many leaders would borrow a leaf from Nyerere’s book and learn the humility to say sorry and trust their citizens enough to accept unpalatable truths.
The shenanigan of the Bush and Blair governments on their invented weapons of mass deception in Iraq is the background to my nostalgia about Nyerere. If only Blair and Bush who claim to be committed Christians could heed the biblical truth in order to set themselves free from the empty shrines of lies and more lies that they continue to weave about their reasons for going
to war.
After destroying Iraq Bush now says he wants ‘the facts’ and has set up a Commission of Enquiry for that purpose. His loyal British poodle, Blair, who had resisted country, party and government to stand shoulder to shoulder with the Texan cowboy and refused to accept any inquiry immediately, changed position as soon as Bush set up his panel. So Blair now has a panel to look into the failure of intelligence prior to the illegal attack on Iraq.
If any African, Asian or Latin American leader did these western governments and their embedded media will be shouting ‘foul’ and white wash and even threaten sanctions and demand ‘independent’ and ‘international’ enquiry.
It is really ridiculous that Bush and Blair want their peoples and the rest of the world to believe that they went to war without knowing the facts or in Blair’s case not even knowing and refusing to ask which weapons Iraq had and was able to deploy in 45 minutes!
The more explanation they try to give the worse their case becomes and the angrier even their staunchest defenders become.
And this is the problem with telling lies. It may begin small but each time you have to protect it you need even bigger lies to do so. From setting out to convince others with your lies you then become the believer of your own lies. This is what has happened to Blair in particular since he is supposed to be the smarter of the duopoly of global super liars. Bush knows how to cut and run since his presidency is renowned for not caring about details and finer points of law. So his government shrugs its shoulders that ‘Yes, we were not really sure of this WMD but we know that’s the only thing that will frighten the world to tolerate our militarism’. They have thus left Blair in the deserts of Iraq still hoping that ‘the weapons will be found’. It is not too late for Blair to learn from Nyerere and say : ‘Sorry I goofed’. As a Christian, he must know that there cannot be forgiveness without confession and remorse.
I hope that both the British and American voters will show the maturity of their allegedly advanced democratic freedoms to shove these liars aside and make the world safer. For the Americans they have up to November and that of Britain could take shorter time if only the Labour party in Parliament has the will and by next year
if the country has to decide it.
Is it hoping against hope?
Maybe and may be not.
Ends
Tajudeen28@yahoo.com