The United States of America has a tendency to champion the cause of democracy and human rights across the world and does not hesitate in bombing nations, overthrowing regimes and interfering in the internal matters of other countries.
It has often flagged incidents in India and world over, which it perceives as human rights violations.
However, the self-proclaimed guardian of the world does not bother to introspect its own rights violations and lack of respect for its own so-called democratic values.
Campuses have been torn apart since last one week in the US as pro-Palestinian protests rocked the colleges there and escalated over more forceful and violent countermeasures by administrators and police.
Video footages showing police beating protesters, dragging students to the ground and carrying them off in handcuffs flooded social media. Hundreds of students and faculty members were arrested.
Peaceful student demonstrators were framed by armed police and US media as ‘perpetrators’ deserving ‘crackdown’. One wonders, how thrashing and arresting peacefully protesting students qualifies as a symbol of protecting human rights and democracy in the US.
The US wants to impose its own version of human rights protection, which could include indulging in any kind of atrocity. The lawmakers there think they only have the right to interpret terms as democracy and civil rights.
As the world watches in horror at the way US police is viciously suppressing student protests, it becomes painfully evident that America’s claims of being the land of free speech is fake.
This appalling display of State-sponsored violence lays bare the hypocrisy of a nation that prides itself on democracy, while trampling on the very principles it claims to uphold.
The United States is a country defined by extreme violence, where people are threatened by both violent crime and violent law enforcement, and their safety is far from being guaranteed.
International human rights body, Amnesty International, quoting media reports, has stated that police shot and killed 1,153 people in 2023. Black people were disproportionately impacted by the use of lethal force, comprising nearly 18.5% of deaths from police use of firearms, despite representing approximately 13% of the population.
At least 48,000 people were killed by gun violence in 2022, the most recent year for which data exists. Approximately 132 people died each day in 2022 from a firearm-related injury. There were more than 650 incidents where four or more people were shot in 2023.
Sixteen States have introduced bills restricting the right to protest.
Ironically, the First Amendment of the United States Constitution protects the right to freedom of religion and freedom of expression from government interference.
It prohibits any laws that establish a national religion, impede the free exercise of religion, abridge the freedom of speech, infringe upon the freedom of the press, interfere with the right to peaceably assemble, or prohibit citizens from petitioning for a governmental redress of grievances.
Looking at the police brutality in the US against peaceful protests, it seems the federal government has forgotten its own Constitution.
It is often said that those who live in glass houses shouldn’t pelt stones on others. The US lives in a glass palace, which is already cracked.
Already, there is a growing resentment towards its role of being the moral guardian of the world. There will be a time when no country worth its salt will take the US seriously.
The world has changed. As more countries are becoming economically independent, they’re gradually rejecting the existing hegemony.
Therefore it is in the best interests of Uncle Sam that it minds its own business and respects the sovereignty of other nations, if it wants to remain relevant in the world affairs.
