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Lincoln has Important Lessons for Today's Leaders

TONY BURMAN

 

 

 

What would Abraham Lincoln do about nearly a million citizens in 50 American states who have signed petitions seeking permission to secede from the United States?

What would he say about the potential unravelling of Europe from secession movements in Spain, Scotland and Belgium?

If only for a moment, Abraham Lincoln seems to be living among us again.

The brilliant Steven Spielberg film Lincoln opened in Washington and other North American cities last weekend. It has triggered an avalanche of soul-searching among the American political and media class about what lessons from Lincoln in the mid-19th century can be applied to the divisions and acrimony of the early 21st century, both in the U.S. and worldwide.

The film portrays Lincoln’s determined efforts to abolish slavery and bring America together after its brutal civil war and in the face of enormous political challenge. Not only does it describe the grubby core of realpolitik -- it shows you can achieve great things only “if you are willing to bamboozle, trim, compromise and be slippery and hypocritical,” wrote David Brooks in The New York Times. It reminds its audience that even the worst divisions in society can be turned around.

That is a very timely reminder for us all.

With much of the world still experiencing genuine economic recession, the pie is shrinking and the screws are gradually being tightened on people everywhere. But the pain is not being equally felt and, as a consequence, the angry backlash to these divisions is growing worldwide. Whether it is the increasing gap between rich and poor, or the ragged tensions between regions, religions, ideologies and generations, our fabled post-World War II notion of a stable, consensual nation-state is under considerable stress.

The recent U.S. election certainly revealed that country to be severely divided. One of the dominant debates in the campaign was the battle between the “makers” and the “takers.” Since the election, in what would likely appall Republican Abraham Lincoln if he were alive to see it, petitions have come from every state seeking secession from the United States. Although the top seven states were all once part of the Old Confederacy, there is no legal status to these petitions and no serious chance of success.

Division and acrimony are not unique to the United States.

In Europe, several secession movements are gaining strength, including this past week in Catalonia, one of Spain’s wealthiest regions. This is creating fear that the European Union, rather than pulling together, is gradually splitting apart. Some regions feel unfairly targeted as government-imposed austerity increases their pain, and they want out.

In Catalonian elections last weekend, political parties in favour of a referendum on Catalonian independence won a clear majority. The political road to that referendum is still uncertain. But the election did confirm that separatist sentiment in Catalonia, including in its largest city, Barcelona, is surging. However, most observers believe the motivation for this is not romantic nationalism -- focused on a distinctive history, culture and language -- but more on hard-headed economics: as a wealthy region, many in Catalonia feel its “deal” within Spain no longer makes economic sense.

Separatists in Europe are also gaining ground in Belgium and Scotland. In Belgium, French-speaking Walloons and Dutch-speaking Flemings have been hostile toward each other since the creation of the country in the 19th century. But in October, Flemish nationalists scored sweeping gains in local elections in Belgium. In Scotland, a deal was signed with the British government to hold an official referendum on independence in 2014.

There was a hope after the chaos of World War II that borders in the new world would be sacrosanct, but that really hasn’t happened.

The collapse of the Soviet empire, the dissolution of Yugoslavia and the breakup of Czechoslovakia are evidence of that.

With today’s economic pressures, creating so many divisions, this pattern will only increase.

A question coming out of the film Lincoln is whether today’s governments -- overseeing such large and diverse societies -- are capable of the compromise that America’s remarkable 16th president was able to extract from the battered political system he inherited in the mid-19th century.

 

Tony Burman, former head of Al Jazeera English and CBC News, teaches journalism at Ryerson University, Toronto, Canada. 

[Courtesy: Toronto Star]

December 6, 2012 

Conversation about this article

1: Dr Birinder Singh Ahluwalia (Toronto, Ontario, Canada), December 06, 2012, 7:28 AM.

When one studies the common underpinnings of all the rifts that afflict today's nations, peoples and societies, it becomes abundantly clear that it is the economic and financial factors - fed by individual greed and monetary interests - that have taken over hitherto decent beliefs entrenched in the common good. It appears to me that Lincoln's art was in his ability to put aside those narrow and short-sighted interests and zero in on what was the common good and in addressing it with pointed determination. What we need today is a leader who understands the truth, speaks the truth and has the intelligence and vision to chart a course for his/her nation, no, the entire humanity, towards the common good and global prosperity. I think President Obama has some of these traits. However, here in my own homeland, I'm afraid I'm not so sure about our PM Stephen Harper and his team.

2: H. Kaur (Canada), December 06, 2012, 10:17 PM.

There are financial components to rifts certainly. However, there can also be racial or other kinds of discrimination against various groups. South Africa was willing to put up with financial sanctions for quite a while rather than give up apartheid. One good thing about Abe Lincoln was that he ended up freeing the slaves. However, some people say that was just a byproduct of the war. The slaves who were freed had a lot of economic troubles for a long time. They could have been freed earlier without it having been so hard for them to share in the economic life of the nation. To be sure, humans are greedy and tribal creatures at their worst.

3: Sangat Singh (Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia), December 07, 2012, 4:37 AM.

My first serious exposure to Abraham Lincoln came in 1949 when I entered Government College, Ludhiana. For the first time I had access to the College's library. For us newbies we could draw just two books once a week. It was then I spotted the book "Lincoln The Unknown", By Dale Carnegie. What a delight it was that led me to read each and every book written by Dale Carnegie. Years later, in the mid 70s, I happened to be in Washington DC which had a bigger than life-size statue of a seated Lincoln in the memorial in his honour. There was a group of school children flocking around their teacher talking about Lincoln. What she was telling them had a lot missing. I gently chipped in and started to talk about Lincoln. She felt somewhat relieved and asked me if I could continue talking about him. As a reward a child came up to me and handed me a half chewed chocolate which I graciously saved for another time.

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