Sunday, December 02, 2007
Opinion, Stephanie Ramage

Condi’s slow waltz

Last week’s Middle East conference at Annapolis was proof of many things...

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice arrives for a press conference in Annapolis last week.
CREDIT: SAUL LOEB/AFP/Getty Images

By Stephanie Ramage

Last week’s Middle East conference at Annapolis was proof of many things that pundits from all points on the political spectrum don’t want to admit. For me, it was proof of something astonishing I glimpsed in Paris last spring.

One evening in my hotel room, flipping through television channels, I viewed a veritable montage of Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice: Here she was waving around her flawless French at an earlier interview; here, Muammar Qaddafi—arch-villain of my American childhood—waved around his flawlessly manicured fingers as he described her as his “beautiful African sister” and went on like a lover about her charm and intelligence; here, a French commentator wondered aloud if the Americans were aware of what a scholar Rice is; on the BBC, as was so often the case on American channels, she was dismissed like a very well-dressed hired hostess.

I switched back to Qaddafi on Al-Jazeera. Resplendent in a white suit of dictatorial proportions, haute de rigueur epaulets crouching on his shoulders, an emerald green appliqué of the continent of Africa sewn over his heart, he waxed poetic about his beloved Condoleezza. I looked at the bottle on the room service tray. It was water. I wasn’t hallucinating. A global pariah who ranted against America for most of the past three decades was clearly in love with our secretary of state. He went on in a way that was disconcertingly sane about how she is patient, principled and unwaveringly respectful. These are the hallmarks of a great diplomat.

The dichotomy—the American press’ studied indifference toward Condi and the Arab world’s admiration of her—smacks of America’s racism and most especially of the peculiar prejudice that many leaders of the black community reserve for those who don’t toe the liberal Democrat line. Make no mistake, in their eyes the equality toward which blacks should strive should be limited only to a liberal Democrat equality. They seem to believe that blacks should never achieve real equality—the full independence that allows one to choose one’s own ideology and role without regard for the opinion of the leadership of one’s race.

We white people take that independence for granted every day of our lives. I never have to worry that an Al Sharpton or Jesse Jackson will denounce me as a race traitor. I have the most precious freedom of all—intellectual freedom, unfettered from any racial expectations—which are, in and of themselves, a racist shackle.

Condi’s loneliness among the people of her own nation is proof of the tyranny of such racial expectations. Oh, yes, we all know about the rumors regarding Condi and President Bush. If they’re true, then one can’t help but note that W. has certainly gotten more use out of the affair than Bill Clinton ever got out of poor little Monica Lewinsky. A Middle East peace initiative is worth a thousand under-the-desk pleasures.

In Annapolis, Condi got an early buy-in from the Arab world, an unheard-of feat prompted in part by the Arabs’ very real fear that extremist Islamists are gaining a dangerous foothold in the next generation of leaders worldwide. Witness the riots of young Islamic immigrant descendants in France. Behold the ever-growing crowds of fully veiled women in North African nations. The warnings from the right regarding Islamic extremism are valid, though their demonizing of Muslims in general is not.

Obviously, the demonizing of Israel from the left is equally specious. At Annapolis, the Israelis quite admirably showed up once again to give peace yet another chance. They have done so tirelessly for the entire history of their always-imperiled country. Even Syria, as unexpected as a belly dancer at a bar mitzvah, attended. That, too, is because of the dual factors of fear regarding Iran’s atomically empowered Shiites and Condi’s patient, respectful, scholarly diplomacy.

The summit was Condi’s accomplishment, really, as well as being a remarkable first step by Arabs and Israelis toward Palestinian statehood. Perhaps she and W. ought to take a celebratory twirl around the diplomatic dance floor, like Fred and Ginger with an unmistakably African rhythm. SP