Obama's lessons for Hollande on Rwanda

If you can’t recall any bully from your primary school chances are you were the one. And if you still have vivid memories of bullying from that time chances are you were the scrawny kid who was teased and beaten by the overgrown kids in your class, kids who should have been at least two or three classes ahead of you. Bullies are mean-spirited. They project their insecurities on those they consider weak and seek to prey upon them. In school, for instance, they copy from these kids during exams, force them to do homework for them, and eat two or more lunches: theirs and that of their victims. Which is why how one responds to bullies matters a lot. It can be the difference between life and death because there are cases where a victim decides to commit suicide in order to put an end to the misery; others have been seriously injured – physically and psychologically –by violence of the bullies. Once a bully has identified his target, he is unlikely to stop. Consequently, you can allow yourself to be bullied into a lifetime of trauma that often affects your self-esteem and ultimately has a negative effect on your life-chances. Or, you can build-up resilience to take a stand against the bully once and for all. You tell the bully that ‘it ends now’ and never look back. Obviously the second approach requires the ability to muster enough courage to confront your nightmare. It’s not easy. However, it is the only antidote that has proven effective against bullies. It may involve having to put your scrawny body on the line in a stare-off where the first person to blink loses. Outgrown kids aren’t the only bullies. You probably have bullies at your workplace. Interestingly, even countries can be bullies. They, too, are capable of acquiring the syndrome symptomatic of projecting internal insecurities. France is a bully. But not the normal kind. Instead of being an overgrown body, this is a little man with an overgrown ego that overcompensates for inadequacies in size. For more than a decade and a half France sought to bully its way around its legacy in Rwanda. In 2009 Rwanda said enough is enough and it never looked back. Then there’s Cuba. With a population that is identical to Rwanda’s, Cuba is a small island nation whose capital Havana is separated from the United States (Miami, Florida) by 180 kilometres of ocean water, a distance that 64 year old Diana Nyad was able to swim in 2013. It is a distance that is a short by proximity but distant by affinity. For fifty-some years, Cuba stared in the eyes of the leopard that remained as the sole super power after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1989. The USSR folded; Cuba stood firm. Think of France, not in Europe, but right here in, say, the physical space that is the DR Congo. Breathing down Rwanda’s throat. Year-in and year-out nefariously plotting for “regime change” in Kigali. It’s that bad. But at least France only imagines itself as a superpower, an imagination whose value is nostalgic, without a real life basis. However, the U.S is the real deal. At least Rwanda accuses France of genocide. But what is Cuba’s crime? It is this: It dared to forge a path that was separate from the dreams that America had in store for it. The Castro revolution declared that Cuba would cease to act as the playground of America’s cigar-smoking elite and its college spring-breakers. In short, it refused to be America’s beach (pun intended). America blinks And here we are. Last week Obama became the first American president to visit Cuba in 88 years. Consider this: Rwanda was still a Belgian colony 88 years ago. Conservative media-houses were quick to portray him as a weak man who, by visiting Cuba, had helped to project the image of a weakening America. That his visit means that America had blinked first. The contrary is true. First, there should never have been a stare-off in the first place. Second, Obama’s rapprochement portrays him, as well as the country he leads, as strong, confident, and powerful. The reason is simple. Real power is secure. It is moderated by reason, humility. It is empathic. It persuades. It projects confidence. Cosmetic power, however, is pretentious. It is paranoid. It is egocentric. It seeks to bulldoze. It is moderated by arrogance. It promotes cowardice. It is the dangerous kind to wield because it sustains itself through underhanded methods of intrigue and backstabbing. Moreover, it takes courage to seek to persuade. Obama, therefore, demonstrates that power is most effective when moderated by reason, humility, and persuasion, and shows that true leadership is the ability to project confidence in self and country. It is a win-win. Cuba gets to deal with America on its terms without having to compromise the direction that it believes to be in the interest of its people. America gets its mojo back as a responsible leader. It is able to somewhat repair the damage caused by decades of gamesmanship; and sets itself on a path to undo a foreign policy based on the politics of sabre-rattling, to rethink its Wild Wild West Cowboy Diplomacy that ruled the roost over the past half-century, and perfected during the ‘W’ era. Finally, “The Reconciler” emerges out of the shadows of “The Decider.” Which is why Obama’s America offers lessons for Hollande’s France to learn. Does it not?

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Obama's lessons for Hollande on Rwanda