US 'exceptionalism' revisited.

by Eze Eluchie

In the wake of the United States seeming preparedness to embark on unilateral military actions against the Al-Assad regime in Syria over the chemical weapon attack in some suburbs of Damascus, when U.S. President Barack Obama had cited 'America’s exceptionalism' as constituting sufficient mandate for such military response, there had been an outcry of sorts from diverse quarters questioning such self-ascribed 'exceptionalism'. Some had argued that under the concept of equality of nations, it was dangerous for any one state to ascribe to itself the toga of 'exceptional', as such may give rise to quite negative and dire consequences for entire humanity. 

Russian President, Vladimir Putin, who was then basking in the euphoria of having proffered a temporary solution to the Syrian chemical weapon attack crisis, a solution which offered the Syrian regime a face-saving exit route from imminent disaster and at the same time portrayed the American regime as uncharacteristically ambivalent, sounded the most potent rebuke to the American claim at 'exceptionalism' by cautioning in an op-ed letter to the American people published in the New York Times, that: "it is extremely dangerous to encourage people to see themselves as exceptional, whatever the motivation."

Quite truly, there could be negative consequences from any people perceiving themselves as exceptional, as illustrated by Adolf Hitler’s portrayal of Aryans as a super-breed of mankind which said categorization served to found efforts at extermination of the Jews and other races deemed to be against the interest of the purported ‘supreme breed’, during the Holocaust. Care must thus be taken in defining 'exceptionalism' to avoid imparting in any population, a negative  feeling of superiority over others, which could be latched upon by warped minds to unleash hurtful acts against the rest of mankind.

When one however adopts the liberal interpretation of 'exceptional' as connoting 'extraordinary', 'uncommon', 'out of the ordinary', 'rare', 'unprecedented', 'unexpected', 'surprising' and 'peculiar', it becomes pertinent, in assessing Barack Obama's claim to 'exceptionalism' of the United States and its peoples, to compare that countries response, conduct and role in contemporary global situations with that of other countries.

In the course of the past decade, the spate and scale of natural disasters, across the globe has been increasing, with mind numbing consequences on the populations where such catastrophes occur. Mankind seems to be under attack from nature. Disasters such as Tsunamis, Hurricanes, Earthquakes, Mudslides, Typhoons, Droughts and a plethora of other natural calamities, have left millions dead in their wake and caused unquantifiable damages and destruction to property and livelihoods.  From Indonesia to Chile, Iran to the United States, Ethiopia to Haiti, Turkey to China and now the Philippines, landscape altering disasters have served to remind man of how susceptible he is to the awesome forces of nature.

In all these disasters, irrespective of the ethnicity, race, religious inclination, official ideological leanings or other peculiarities of the victim-countries, one country has always taken leadership in terms of rendering assistance, providing much needed emergency medical services and supplies and leading in rescue and recovery efforts. At great costs to itself, this same country, though it has its own domestic economic and poverty problems, and while other equally endowed countries tend to ‘look after their own’, goes the extra mile to render a timely helping hand to cushion the devastating effects of natural disasters on the people so affected. That sounds like exceptional to me.

The ongoing massive deployment of United States resources and expertise, inclusive of the Air-craft carrier USS George Washington with its entire fleet of support ships and personnel, hundreds of thousands of relief supplies with accompanying expert volunteers, to assist victims of Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines, during a period when countries which are geographically more contiguous to the disaster area either pretend not to be aware of the scale of the disaster, or take into consideration ideological/ongoing disagreements with the victim-State, or secretly look forward to large scale American intervention again seems indicative of exceptionalism.

Whilst well endowed neighboring countries to the Philippines, particularly China on the one hand, which has notoriously refused to deploy its 14,000 ton, state-of-the-art hospital ship (‘Peace Ark’- which is one of the biggest of its kind in the world) in assistance, and unnecessarily and perhaps childishly appearing to base its miserly, and probably insulting, financial assistance to the victims of Typhoon Haiyan on a preexisting territorial dispute with the Philippines, and good old Russia on the other, slyly looks in the other direction away from the Philippines; a country from across the ocean takes leadership. This again is indicative of exceptionalism.

Some may advance arguments that such ‘exeptionalism’ is undertaken with the thought of long term gain – well, tell that to the people whose lives and being has been saved by the timely arrival of much needed assistance. Of course there should be reward for good deeds. If international relations between States were predicated on doing good with the intention of getting rewards in future, the world would be a far better place than what it is today.

As we commiserate with the victims of Typhoon Haiyan and the entire population of the Philippines, one can only hope that more countries will try to be as exceptional as the United States. 

Picture: Devastation caused by Typhoon Haiyan