DAMASCUS, 28 May 2004 — Sonia Gandhi’s decision to decline the post of prime minister of India came in response to the uproar among radical Hindus over her Italian origin. This remarkable political and humanitarian response has earned her the respect of the whole world. It has also proved to her political adversaries that Sonia isn’t just Indian she is also, as my colleague Samir Attallah called her, “Gandhian”.
Remarkably, her refusal to take up the post overrode the wishes of thousands. She said that she was following her “inner voice” despite the popular pleas.
Sonia Gandhi’s decline of the post profited the Congress party and the country’s unity and added shine to its international image. On top of all this, she achieved a magnificent political victory over her adversaries who thereby lost their only trump card. She also proved, in a time when a sense of honor has become rarer than hen’s teeth, that politics can have a moral dimension, that politicians can have a real sense of their responsibility; her decision, in other words, showed that individuals are capable of rising to the occasion and can prove deserving of the title of leaders of their people.
It appears that Gandhi’s decision arose from a simple basis: The interest of the country. Is that not what every politician in the world should do? Isn’t that ostensibly the reason they are in power in the first place? Shouldn’t the country’s interest be their sole concern? India is re-educating the rest of the world on what it takes to be political leader.
Hopefully the lesson that Sonia Gandhi presented with such modesty and solemnity will not go unnoticed. We in the Arab world today need to put the issue of morality back onto the agenda and start to place the interest of the nation before all others. The wars in the region — in Iraq and the Occupied Territories — cry out for Arab leaders to take a strong position. Now more than ever, their priority must be the country, its people, its identity and its future.
No doubt the Ummah is under attack from outside. But there is no doubt either that its leaders must look to the interests of their people rather than position and gain for themselves. Unless they strengthen their belief in the unity of our destiny, unless they become more open and less narcissistic, they must bear some of the blame for the dire situation we are in.
Are there any leading politicians among Arabs who will put public interest above positions, who will stand united and demand that the world put an end to the massacres being committed against them and at least boycott Israel as the world boycotted apartheid South Africa? Until American and Israeli policy in the region changes and the world beings to punish Israel’s leaders for the ugly crimes against the Palestinian people, there can be no lasting peace. What are our leader doing to achieve that peace?
Sonia Gandhi proved that some issues are greater than individuals and their hunger for position, and that by giving priority to one’s country one gains pride, honor and respect as well as achieving important political goals that years of political action may not. The very existence of the Arab world is under threat. Learning from Sonia Gandhi is not a luxury — it is the only choice if we want to improve our position in the world. What we must learn above all is that our national and regional potential is properly harnessed, rather than being at the mercy of narrow selfishness.
— Buthaina Shaaban is director of External Information, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Syria.
