The US is right to feel offended at the remarks made by President Duterte of the Philippines about President Obama. The indefensible comments have been roundly condemned. What sparked them were indications that the US president would lecture Duterte about human rights.

Now, the choice of words was unfortunate. But stop for a moment and wonder at what triggered the outrage. It is that the US has no business lecturing another sovereign nation about human rights when its own record in such matters is nothing much to shout about. In the US, racial prejudice and the most appalling acts of crime have marked the treatment of coloured citizens, ethnic minorities or even those imprisoned in Guantanamo Bay, for instance. Or simply take the US’ behaviour when it comes to supporting and propping up an assorted range of third rate dictatorships and human rights abusers all the way from Latin America to West Asia, Africa, Asia and, closer home, Pakistan. As long as those dictators served the purpose of being helpful allies — providing markets, contracts, military bases, resources, oil or intelligence (serving US’s national interests), their many crimes and human rights abuses were forgotten. The US’s claim to being the defender of democracy, civil liberties and human rights seem like a lot of hot air.

No leader of any country was unaware of this hypocrisy. It was deference to the economic and military might of the US that compelled them to listen to these ‘lectures’ and swallow the homilies. The caustic response from an ally is a wake-up call for the US that the situation may be changing. That’s why the rest of the world may just be getting more assertive. Minus the expletives, they are just telling the US: “Mind your own business.”

Associate Editor

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