I do not understand the reason for this current state of euphoria that has taken over the world because President George W. Bush is going to leave the White House and because his successor is the polar opposite when it comes to Bush’s policies, domestic and foreign, which have alienated both enemies and friends.
George W. Bush’s ideology, the “great Bushism, has relied on a set of radical and extremist policies, the same extremism adopted by those he tried to fight, albeit in a different direction. Therefore, we must credit him with introducing an unprecedented, crude school of thought to the White House, which we hope no one will adopt later on.
The whole world has paid the price of Bushism for eight lean years, one of the most miserable eras in modern history. But this does not mean we should disregard the great results of Bushism, which will begin to bear fruit in the next four years under US president-elect Barack Obama.
The basic pillar of Bush s glorious policies is the creation of what his aides called “creative chaos, best represented in his foreign policy, as is the case with Iraq. Although this country was living under undemocratic rule, it enjoyed the presence of basic state apparatuses, from military to police, and from the economy to culture and education. Now, the state has been disintegrated, its army demobilized, its police stricken, its schools destroyed and its museums looted. Can there be more chaos? Concerning domestic policies, the most striking example of the Bush-induced chaos is the state of economic crisis currently gripping the United States, whose ripple effects have been felt in economies around the world.
What makes it worse is that when Bush came to power, the US economy was witnessing one of its most robust times. The national budget during president Bill Clinton’s presidency recorded an unprecedented surplus that US hadn’t seen for years. Can there be more chaos?
Surely we do not like chaos, but we forget that Bush has invented something we are not accustomed to. We must not measure it by old, outdated standards. In the traditional sense, chaos can never be creative, but with Bush’s genius, it can be creative. Bush bet on this despite the opposition of all America’s political and economic minds to his new, ingenious principles.
For this he depended on a group of extremists, the so-called neo-conservatives, who during Clinton’s presidency were considered an example of backwardness, segregation and isolation.
However, here we find that Bush has proven the validity of his theory, as chaos ensued in everything the hands of the talented US President touched.
This is true, but this chaos has proven to be creative, exactly as Bush and his aides informed us.
The vast majority that won Barack Obama the presidential elections is a result of the creative chaos left by Bush, from which was born a state of popular discontent that prompted Americans to elect a black president for the first time in the history of the United States.
The popular hatred with which Bush leaves the White House is an example of how the chaos he produced was creative even when it came to the emotions of the people, who are now able to distinguish between right and wrong; who will no longer be misled by his glowing slogans or the lies invented by his aides, which began with Iraq’s supposed possession of weapons of mass destruction, to the exaggerated threats he propagated within the US community to justify his aggressive policies.
We have to thank Bush for his incomprehensible policies and admit that he won the bet; and that the chaos he created all around him has indeed been creative in that it had the exact opposite result, which the whole world has been watching for years in hopes that it would reach without chaos.
Mohamed Salmawy is President of the Arab Writers’ Union and Editor-in-Chief of Al-Ahram Hebdo.
