Daily Times

Is it finally time to take a stance, have a stance, build a stance or make a stance on urgent questions pertaining to stances? Being a wishy-washy old-fashioned liberal I was always quite content to live a stance-less life. Moral relativity I was accused of. No spine, no guts, no nothing. There were people I detested, politicians I hated, and politics I abhorred, and yes, the opposites were equally true. So what then is this all about? Here, at a time in my life fast approaching dotage I am being seduced into ‘stancing’. But before I embark on the details of my present predicament, or should I call it being on the horns of a dilemma I must defend my past lack of stances.

The major reason why I never thought about taking or having a stance was simply because for me a stance was a particular posture taken up by an athlete in preparation for a physical confrontation. And, sadly, I never was athletic enough to adopt any particular stance in any particular athletic endeavour. So for me whenever the word stance comes up, the first thing that comes to mind is the movie Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. And, of course, the person that for me personifies stance is the immortal Bruce Lee standing in his typical martial arts pose and emitting that particularly bloodcurdling yell. Now that is a stance. For me the idea that a stance was much of anything else was hard to swallow. Frankly, today the word stance is used almost interchangeably for stand, especially a political stand. Interestingly, or perhaps, most fortunately, even the best politician in the world can only have one stance at one time. That, of course, suggests that if our prime minister (PM) has a particular stance at any given time then that is the only stance he is capable of at that time. And for that we must be thankful. Anyway, it is difficult to imagine our PM standing there, looking like Bruce Lee. However, as a Punjabi he could probably come up, at least, with an appropriately bloodcurdling yell.

This particular train of thought started with a recent question put to me by a friend at a suburban New Jersey dinner. He asked me what my ‘stance’ was about Donald Trump. My first impression was of standing there like Bruce Lee and challenging Trump to a physical contest. Of course, being quite unlike Bruce lee and with Trump having secret service protection any such activity was entirely out of question. But then I realised that what my friend wanted to know was where I stood on the possibility of Trump becoming the president of the United States of America. Stance, in my opinion, was incorrectly used for ‘stand’, and here I must aver that I have rarely taken a rigid political stand about much of anything. As a political and social liberal I support many different ideas and oppose many others. Rarely do I think in black or white terms, and I do try to find something even a little bit nice about most politicians. But about Trump there is little that seemed nice. Perhaps if there is a redeeming aspect to his politics is that he does not really have any politics. As such if ever elected president he could well depend on advisers to help him out. And we saw the disaster that was the inexperienced Bush the younger who was led into a disastrous war by his advisers. That possibility then does not seem to be very encouraging at all.

Now that I am on the topic of Trump and US presidential politics I must admit that on the Democratic side I could not muster even the slightest sympathy for Senator Bernie Sanders. Much of what he said was quite attractive for young people, while old pinko types were only too happy to have reason to trash Hillary Clinton. For me there are two problems with Sanders. First, he was never a member of the Democratic Party until he declared his candidacy for president. As such I am not too convinced that he has any desire to support Clinton even if she wins the Democratic nomination. The second thing I have against Sanders is that he promises stuff that he cannot possibly deliver if he becomes president. He essentially reminds me of contestants in a beauty contest who all when asked say that they want world peace, and will spread love and joy once they win the pageant. Or as they say in our part of the world, under a president Sanders the lion and the lamb will drink from the same water fountain.

Now to Hillary Clinton. She is not a perfect human being by far. She is a politician, and like all politicians she has said things or taken stands (not stances) that she now regrets. As US senator from New York she supported the US invasion of Iraq, but that was before most of Bernie’s supporters even hit high school. And as the US secretary of state she also supported the anti-Gaddafi policy that essentially led to the end of Libya as a coherent country. But over the years she has accumulated enough political and diplomatic experience to serve as US president. Most importantly, from my perspective, Clinton if elected president will assure that Obama’s ‘accomplishments’ will survive. As far as the questions about Clinton’s honesty are concerned, she is probably the most investigated human being in the history of the US. And after all these years of intense and often openly partisan investigations there is not a single shred of evidence that proves any wrongdoing on her part. Ethical lapses definitely but then she is a politician and in my opinion, the term ‘honest politician’ is an oxymoron. And yes, Sanders is also a politician.

If I ever decide to go into the world of stances, I will probably take up yoga.

The author is a former editor of the Journal of Association of Pakistani descent Physicians of North America (APPNA)