Calling a spade a spade takes courage too

During Ottoman Empire almost 100 years ago Turkey had wiped out the Armenians. If our congress calls that genocide (obviously it doesn’t necessarily reflect on today’s Turkey), Bush administration doesn’t like it for political reasons, neither does Turkey. The Spaniards had wiped out the natives in Argentina (Argentina is all white today). Japanese did it to the Chinese and finds it hard to accept. Europeans arriving in the New World did it to the native Americans. Yes, we have admitted our mistakes of “how the west was won” or past slavery.

Now when Jimmy Carter states that our country has abandoned the basic principle of human rights under the Bush administration and that our government thinks Geneva Conventions do not apply to the prisoners in Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo and that we can torture prisoners and deprive them of a due process, many including Bush and his cronies get upset.

It takes courage to call a spade a spade, to be able to tell the truth even if it hurts oneself. One cannot solve a problem or be fair in the eyes of the world if one cannot admit a mistake or accept the truth howsoever bitter it may be. This great nation must have the courage to accept the truth (and not redefine human rights violation or torture to justify wrong doing) and demand “fairness and justice for all” as it was envisioned, even if other nations fail to do so.