UNITED States President Joe Biden is all set to host the first-ever US Democracy Summit on Thursday. And to mark the historic occasion, the US Treasury Department is planning to impose sanctions on "people engaged in corruption, serious human rights abuse and who undermine democracy", reports Reuters.
Not in the US, but elsewhere. And elsewhere is, unsurprisingly, anywhere but in the land of US allies. Now this is how democracy — by that, we mean government of the people, by the people, for the people — dies before it is even born.
Little wonder, the US took 245 years to organise the first democracy summit. Even then, it is still too early. Yes, too early even by the standards of its own late president, Abraham Lincoln, who gave a common man's definition of the idea of democracy in his Gettysburg Address in 1863.
America isn't a democracy yet in the strict sense. Do not get us wrong. We aren't echoing the words of China that the US Democracy Summit is a joke, though it must be said Beijing has a point.
Isn't it funny for a country to preach what it doesn't practise? Biden needs to do three things to avoid this democracy "thingy" becoming a complete farce.
Firstly, he must start at home and then convince his allies to do the same before he hawks democracy to others. Take America and its record on human rights, a critical component of any democracy.
As this Leader goes to press, America's lawmakers are trafficking in anti-Black, anti-Muslim and xenophobic hatred. The latest offender is Congresswoman Lauren Boebert, who referred to fellow Congresswoman Ilham Omar as a member of a "jihad" group.
Previously, Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene was quoted by the Middle East Eye as saying Muslims did not belong in government and referred to the elections of Omar and Rashida Tlaib, another Muslim woman member of Congress, as "an Islamic invasion of our government".
More than 40 Democrat lawmakers have written a letter calling for Boebert to be stripped of her committee assignments, reports the Middle East Eye. If human rights abuse can have a place in such an august house, is it any surprise if America is home to "othering"? If Biden is serious about making the US a promoter of human rights, Greene and Boebert must be the first two Americans that the US Treasury Department should impose sanctions on.
Secondly, Biden must allow the International Criminal Court to investigate war crimes allegedly committed by American soldiers and civilians in Afghanistan and Iraq.
This must include the investigation of former president George Bush and his living cabinet members. Biden must show the same enthusiasm to try American war criminals that he displays to get Africans tried by the ICC for war crimes.
If Biden fails here, he loses the licence to peddle democracy to others. China is watching. So is Russia.
Finally, should Biden succeed in making America a respecter of human rights, he can work on his "elsewhere". The first place for him to begin outside of the US must be in Palestine. There, war crimes are being committed by occupier Israel, an American ally, right under Biden's very eyes. By continuing to fund and arm Israel, he is being complicit in the war crimes of Israel. Being thus complicit, Biden loses the licence to speak on behalf of human rights or democracy.