Some Thoughts:

...on hubris, humility, and object lessons

Yasser Arafat appears to be seriously ill. There has been much cheering from the peanut gallery over the prospect of his demise. The legacy that he will leave behind when he does finally shuffle off the mortal coil may very well be best said using the now infamous statement that "he never missed an opportunity to miss an opportunity (for peace)." In a time when politics in the US is filled with canards, there is benefit in taking a step back and looking at opportunities both lost and gained.

Arafat had the opportunity to be the father of his country, but instead chose the path that kept the most power concentrated in his hands. This should highlight to us, the citizens of the United States, how incredibly lucky we are. We have our freedoms not through our own merits, not because we deserve them, but instead because there were a group of extraordinary men who did not focus on their own power other than the power expressed through individual votes of which they were few among many. First among these men was the father of our country, George Washington. Although he was not naive and understood the politics and maneuvering for power at the time of the American Revolution and the early decades of the United States (and yes, this cynical maneuvering did exist), he did not try to "win at all costs" as do our current crop of aspirants to the office first held by him. Instead, repeatedly he chose to retire from public life, first after the end of the American Revolution, resigning his commission as Commander-in-Chief of the Army to the Congress in December of 1783. This was key in avoiding what happened a little over a decade later in the wake of the French Revolution, when the successful general Napoléon Bonaparte parlayed his military success into a dictatorship in a pattern that sadly has been repeated all too often in the two centuries since. Washington returned to public life only after being called to preside over the Constitutional Convention in 1787, and he chose to serve only two terms as President, despite knowing full well he could have been re-elected indefinitely. George Washington showed a humility all too rare even in the times he lived, a humility and dedication to public service over personal ambition which has almost vanished today.

Contrast this with the behavior of Yasser Arafat, given a golden opportunity to make peace in 2000, but instead choosing to walk away from it because he knew it would result in ultimately a loss of the power he has concentrated in his hands. He has continually shown the hubris of power, refusing to ever relinquish even a small amount to a Prime Minister to allow real negotiations to occur with the Israeli government, despite the continued suffering of the people he claims to represent.

More history needs to be reviewed to show that this comparison isn't completely disjointed. Recall the tactics used in the American Revolution, notably in the opening Battle of Lexington and Concord. The Minutemen shot at the marching British from behind walls, fences, ravines and any other cover along the road. These were regarded as barbaric and dishonorable tactics by the British, they could almost be called "terrorist" in nature when viewed in the context of the times. After a few pitched battles, General Washington realized he could never directly defeat a British army in the field without external help, help that we eventually received in the form of a French fleet that allowed us to win at Yorktown, years later. He spent the intervening years (yes, years, not months) fading before direct confrontation and holding together an army that was unpaid and unclothed, much less heartened by a victory the likes of which the modern America would demand within weeks if not days. What would the verdict have been on the Palestinian tactics two centuries from now if Arafat had not squandered every opportunity he had to create a Palestinian Arab state?

The object lesson here appears obvious, but there is more to the object lesson than merely "Arafat is an idiot who did his cause far more harm than good." Poor choices between hubris versus humility occur in the lives of everyone, with consequences both large and small. It is even appearing in many weblogs who played a part in exposing the fraudulent memos aired by CBS, where hubris is overcoming common sense and the classic pride which goes before a fall is prompting posting of writing that I suspect the authors will regret a decade from now.

However, the final object lesson to be drawn from this is that we should always remember our nation is a free and democratic nation in large part because of the choices made by this one man, not because we are "deserving" or "good" or through any effort of our own. As a nation, we should be proud of our history, but we should practice the same humility that was exemplified by the man we have honored deservedly with the title of "father of the country" and recall that it is only by good fortune that we have the gifts of freedom and democracy rather than the legacy that will be left from the hubris of a man like Yasser Arafat.