Justice can be slow in arriving
Americans have been astonished and dismayed in recent weeks by the avalanche of stories about sexual misconduct in high places.
One of the more recent concerned the once highly respected television journalist Charlie Rose. He was promptly fired by CBS and PBS for his alleged misbehavior with young women who worked for him.
U.S. Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., the longest-serving member of Congress, also has been accused of misconduct. Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi has called for an ethics investigation.
If Conyers and Rose could fall, who is next?
A sea change is underway in American culture as American women assert their right to go about their business in safety, the same as any man. One can only imagine Abigail Adams, the outspoken wife of the second president, saying, “and about time, too.”
America is not the only place where justice is sometimes slow in coming. Africa, Europe and Canada also flashed onto our radar screens this week as Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe was forced from office after 37 years of often brutal misrule, while a United Nations court in The Hague found Ratko Mladic, former Bosnian Serb military commander, guilty of crimes against humanity for the execution of more than 7,000 men and boys in Srebrenica, Bosnia, among other crimes during the war in Yugoslavia in the 1990s. It took the court more than 20 years to reach its verdict, handed down in a 700 page document.
Finally, in Canada, the government is getting ready to officially apologize to thousands of gay men and women who were forced out of the government and the military in the 1950s through the 1980s because of their sexual orientation. The terms of the apology are not yet known, including compensation, as so many careers were destroyed and lives ruined in actions strongly supported by the United States government.
In Zimbabwe, Mugabe, 93, was the oldest head of state in the world, and one of the longest-serving in Africa before his forced resignation.
Mugabe came to power in 1980 after long and protracted negotiations with the white government of Southern Rhodesia, a former British colony led by Ian Smith, who had declared independence from Great Britain in the 1960s.
After independence, when Southern Rhodesia became Zimbabwe, Mugabe subsequently declared that only God could or would remove him from office. An avowed Marxist, Mugabe then instituted a number of Marxist economic policies that virtually ruined Zimbabwe’s economy and left many Zimbabweans on the point of starvation. He cracked down on his political opponents and became a virtual dictator.
Lately, Mugabe’s wife, 52-year-old Grace, announced her desire to become Zimbabwe’s next president, a move bitterly resisted by ordinary Zimbabweans who deeply dislike her and her high-living ways. She is reported to be under house arrest along with her husband.
Mugabe retains a certain amount of national respect as the country’s most important founder. He has been succeeded by former Vice President Emmerson Mnangagwa, who had earlier fled the country. But real power remains with the army that forced out Mugabe.
In the Netherlands, the long trial of Bosnian Serb Mladic, accused of war crimes, has finally come to an end, with Mladic sentenced to life in prison. The execution of more than 7,000 Muslim Bosnian men and boys is considered to be the worst atrocity committed in Europe since the end of World War II. Mladic also helped to lead the merciless bombardment of Sarajevo, the Bosnian capital, as part of the Serb attempt to drive out the Muslim population in what is generally regarded as a failed ethnic cleansing. The bombardment lasted more than two years.
In Canada, the government of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau finally is acknowledging a terrible wrong committed from the 1950s through the 1980s. During this period, thousands of gay Canadians working in the armed forces and the security services, including the famed Royal Canadian Mounted Police, were hounded from their jobs as security risks and sometimes sent to jail, their careers ruined, their lives in tatters.
There was never any proof that these people were Soviet spies or were in anyway a danger to their country. In this respect, Canada was just as bad as the United States.
The proposed apology is part of Trudeau’s mission to come to terms with Canada’s flawed past when it comes to its indigenous peoples and former social outcasts. An apology to all those whose lives were so deeply impacted is a good start. His father, Pierre Trudeau, would be proud. Justice may have a slow arc, but progress is being made in all corners of the world — would that it could be achieved more quickly.