Who
is this Condoleezza Rice?
By
Diane
Abbott
Petroleumworld.com 01 08 05
The United States Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has recently
been touring Europe. As a black woman, I can only look in wonderment
at Condi. Not even Martin Luther King in his famous "I
have a dream'' speech could have guessed that a black woman
could reach the heights of United States Secretary of State.
But there she is.
No
mere token!
She
had a stellar academic career, became a concert standard pianist,
is a specialist in the Soviet Union and taught George W Bush
everything he knows about foreign policy (admittedly not hard).
White people are normally happier with black women who are caring,
motherly and unthreatening. Oprah Winfrey is typical of the
type.
But
Condi radiates threat from the top of her beautifully groomed
head to the tip of her designer shoes. She has studiously avoided
the stereotypical concerns of woman in politics. You will not
hear Condi talking about childcare or the family.
And
then there is her hair. Black women (and male admirers of black
women) know that our hair is a particular pre-occupation of
ours. So I am lost in admiration to see her on the television
news after 12-hour flights, which would have left a normal black
woman's hair frizzy or flattened, step confidently down aircraft
steps with hair so well groomed. It could have come out of a
commercial.
I
have my reservations.
Presumably, Condoleezza Rice is a right-winger out of genuine
intellectual conviction. She certainly puts her politics above
loyalty to community. She was eight when her schoolmate was
killed by white supremacists in the notorious bombing of a black
church in Birmingham Alabama, at the height of the civil rights
struggle.
Years
later, asked if it had affected her she said no. She was more
concerned about the Cuban missile crisis at the time. This is
an extra-ordinary thing to say. And I do not actually believe
her. But it is typical of Condi that she was more concerned
with saying what she believed white conservatives wanted her
to say than showing solidarity with her race (or even revealing
her true feelings).
But
as far as her general political outlook is concerned, it is
possible that she genuinely thinks that the true purpose of
politics is to make the rich even richer. And it's also possible
that she truly believes that the main aim of US foreign policy
should be to create a world safe for US oil companies. Certainly
Condi is so close to US oil interests that she even has an oil
tanker named after her.
I
do not mind that she works for George W Bush. We all have to
earn a living. But I am baffled by the undying personal admiration
she has for him. Working for him nine to five is one thing;
spending so much of her spare time socialising with him is inexplicable.
And
she has certainly been a loyal servant to the Bush family. Her
testimony to congressional committees looking into 9/11 was
slick and unshakable. When Bush was in trouble after Hurricane
Katrina she hastened to Alabama to attend a black church. Recently
she has been touring Europe giving a carefully legalistic defence
of the CIA and the alleged torture of terrorist suspects.
In
a right-wing administration dominated by aging white men, Condi
is an outsider. And sensible outsiders never forget they are
just that. Years ago, when I had just come down from Cambridge
University, I had tea with a Rothschild, one of the most famous
and influential Jewish families in Europe.
I sat boggle-eyed in his St James mansion, complete with butler,
and eventually asked him what it felt like to be a member of
the establishment. He gave me a hard look. Then he said something
I have never forgotten. "I am not a member of the establishment.
I have never lost the feeling that one morning I may have to
wake up, pack everything I own into a suitcase and run.''
If
Victor Rothschild never forgot he was Jewish, maybe even Condoleezza
Rice occasionally remembers that she is black. I can empathise
with Condi as a black woman in a white world. But, I cannot
help but speculate as to whether she ever wakes up in the still
of the night and, despite herself, wonder what exactly she is
doing working for one of the most right wing Republican administrations
in American history and what kind of creature she has become.
Courtesy
Jamaica Observer
Trinidad
Express
Monday, January 2nd 2006
Copyright © 2006 Trinidad Express.
All rights reserved
