My Brother's Keeper?

By Budd Friend-Jones
In Syria, Americans seemed to be facing an untenable choice: to keep or to abandon our role to protect a vulnerable minority and maintain a tenuous peace and, in a larger sense, to be or not to be the world's policeman. It didn't have to be this way.

Not so long ago,balancing Turkish security concerns and Kurdish desires for a homeland might have involved a multi-national United Nations peace-keeping force to separate the warring parties. It would not have been a perfect arrangement, but it would have significantly reduced inter group violence, prevented massive human displacement, and reduced the tensions in the area. ISIS/ISIL prisoners might now be under international guard, or even headed to international courts. Highly skilled negotiators from multiple nations would be working to nudge the situation toward resolution.

The failure to utilize the United Nations cannot be laid at the feet of the USA alone. It reflects a widespread ethos of turning away from the costs and challenges of "globalism". Precisely when we most need robust international institutions, they are being weakened by emergent nationalisms, ethnic chauvinism and an ideological commitment to dismantle many of the traditional functions of governments, including collective trade and security arrangements.

On October 24 we will celebrate the 74th Anniversary of the founding of the United Nations. The UN has grown from its original fifty-one member states to193. These include the vast majority of the nations of the world. Its charter calls for it to maintain international peace and security, protect human rights, deliver humanitarian aid, promote sustainable development, and uphold international law. The carnage on the Turkish-Syrian border clearly demonstrates its current ineffectiveness. 

As we deal with planetary issues such as climate change, and the challenges of intractable conflicts such as Syria, we need to revision and revitalize international agencies such as the United Nations for new and larger roles. We should require all candidates for Federal office to tell us how they will do just this,

©Gilbert R. Friend-Jones

buddfj@gmail.com

Start Seeing Motorcycles

"Start Seeing Motorcycles!" the bumper sticker screams from the car in front. No doubt an enthusiast for the open road, I think, or an anxious mom. These words assume (rightly) that most of us don’t see motorcycles. They imply (also rightly) that road running cyclists (and not the rest of us) are most at risk when drivers fail to see them. They remind us of the obvious: bikers are especially vulnerable in accidents. The conclusion surely follows that all of us on the road share a particular responsibility for the safety and well-being of motorcyclists. To “see” them means to respect them, to treat them with common courtesy, to yield rights-of-way and, sometimes, to give them the benefit of a doubt. Not to see them means to violate their space, cut them off, and “marginalize” them as citizens of the highway.

Some people don’t like cyclists. If you are one of these, already you are conjuring rear-view images of leather-clad, motor-gunning, chain-laden, grungy, frowning, freeway marauders who interrupt the serenity of your Sunday drive, who rapidly bear down on you with God knows what intent, who arrogantly weave, pass, and lean recklessly into the ground. You see helmet-less hair trailing in the wind. And you are thinking, “Who do they think they are, anyway? Why should I be responsible for them?”

But you are. And the bumper sticker is right. Whether our vehicles have two wheels or ten, highway travel is a great equalizer. We have responsibility for each other. It behooves us to see everyone on the road we share.

To start “seeing” motorcycles is to discover something important. Bikers are as diverse as shoppers. For every “Hell’s Angel,” there is a college student on a Harley. More than 500,000 bikers will converge in Sturgis, South Dakota, for the 70th Annual Road Rally in August. There may be violent types among them, but there also will be attorneys, doctors, dancers and housewives.  There will be potheads and teetotalers, carnivores and vegetarians. There will be week-end riders and those colorful free-spirits who meander the continent like medieval vagabonds. Some may be living out their wildest machismo fantasies, but most will be plain and friendly folks. They are part-and-parcel of the multi-cultural stew of contemporary America. Not to see them not only endangers them; it impoverishes our own cultural self- understanding. I wonder how many other people I see, but fail to see, because of my fears, prejudices and stereotypes? 

I wonder also how many people fail to see me even when I stand directly in front of them? Do they see only my suit and tie, my white skin and balding pate, but fail to see me? Do our jobs, gender, race, age, physique, accent, religion, or neighborhood get in the way? Do our tattoos and piercings or lack thereof make us 'invisible' to one another?  I’m ready for another bumper sticker: “START SEEING EACH OTHER!” Do you think it will sell?

Photos from Sturgis.Com