Celebrating Backwardness

Election of a woman as speaker in Washington, ever, and taking the oath on Koran by a Muslim lawmaker has been discussed all over the press in recent days. The infancy of the American culture is fairly well known. America does not have the long continuity from the past, nor a long history, which European countries can boast of. Even Asian,
Arab, south American and African nations have a long, history of their civilizations,
culture, social structure and the like, which USA lacks. Many things in the USA are
thus for the first time ‘in the last 200 years’, and it generally sounds funny.
The celebrated US democracy runs by a two party system, one more than the one party system of USSR, China, North Korea and what many other dictatorships manage.
There is no scope of a third opinion, but only the bipartisanship of the two. It is impossible to launch a third party, be it green, black or white. In bipartisanship it has to be blue or red, either democrat or republican, or ‘with us or with the enemy’. There is no
independent voice.
The massive drug use, even at the highest rungs of the society, sometimes as painkillers,
rampant Pre- and extra-marital sex, highest number of people inside the prison walls in ‘the land of the free’, scores of hungry and homeless people in ‘the land of the plenty’, evaporation of 50-75% of marriages into divorce, points out to the fact that some of our moral, social and cultural values need to be recalibrated.
We are the best in the world, on every count, compared to any country or any society
existing today, or in the past, may be a fact. But being ‘better’, may still be far from being ‘good’.
Sarojini Naidu, the brilliant woman, was President of Indian National Congress
in 1912, fifty years before Margaret Thatcher became Prime Minister of England.
India, Sri Lanka, many Muslim countries like Pakistan, Bangladesh, others like
Phillipines, Indonesia and Israel, all had their shares of numerous woman heads of state.
India with over 80% of Hindu population had several Muslim, Sikh as its President.
The German chancellor, the African head of state, in addition to those mentioned in Asian countries, prove that the ‘marble ceiling’ does not exist, but in the USA. Hence we still discuss, ‘Is the country ready for a Woman/Black President?’.
It is time to ask God to ‘help’ America, not merely ‘bless’ it.