High Life | 29 August 2009

Gstaad

What I find quite fascinating is how Americans have a blind spot about their own flaws in the area of human rights, and how they feel they have a duty to lecture other countries on the issue. I am, of course, referring to the outrage over the Libyan deal, an outrage shared by most people who have not sold out to Big Oil. But successive United States governments have never had any qualms in maintaining close relationships with dictatorial regimes the world over, so suddenly why the screams? Didn’t the sainted Obama play footsie with Gaddafi in Rome some weeks ago at the G8 summit? And weren’t the first people to be flown safely out of the United States following 9/11 Bin Laden’s relatives? Who do they think they’re kidding?

Let’s face it, money comes first where human rights are concerned, and Big Oil money before any other kind. The Americans recently forced Switzerland to reveal their bank secrets to the IRS or else. The Swiss folded quicker than Saddam’s Republican Guard. Switzerland is my adopted country and the best place in the world to live. It is a real democracy starting at village level. Yet she threw in the towel when faced with sanctions that Uncle Sam refuses to impose on, say, Israel, for its possession of nuclear weapons and illegal occupation of the West Bank. Both Switzerland and Israel are democracies, but not all democracies are the same in Uncle Sam’s eyes. And it gets worse. Last week the Swiss President, Hans-Rudolf Merz, pulled down his lederhosen and humbly apologised to that arch clown and conman Colonel Gaddafi for the brief detention last year of Hannibal Gaddafi, the clown’s son.

Such, however, are the joys of Realpolitik.