Who's the 'Mother Crab' of the world?

The commentary – and CNN deserves credit for giving it such prominence (in other words, better late than never) – was by a respected black academic, who detailed what he and his peers have had to suffer in the “land of the free”. Now, if a foreigner were to criticise America over Ferguson, the headline might go something like “America, your problem is thinking we have a problem that only you have the answer to”. Too long, I know, but “Mind your own business” sounds a bit rude.

We outsiders shouldn’t be judgmental about the Ferguson affair. The most important “witness” was killed and we only have his friend’s testimony against the words of the officer who pulled the trigger. In addition, the case involves a culture, ethics, racial sensitivity, legal complications and history that we probably know little or nothing about. (That Barack Obama commands the highest office is another intriguing fact amid all the charges of racial bias in the United States.)

So, we won’t be presumptuous here, and instead treat America just as we want its leaders to treat the rest of the world. If Officer Darren Wilson had good reasons for firing at unarmed black teenager Michael Brown, perhaps Washington should consider that those countries pilloried by American politicians, diplomats and media have their own reasons, too. 

It used to be too much to ask. (Imagine the American perspective had a Thai patrolman killed an unarmed protester in a scuffle here and proclaimed he did it in “self-defence”.) But here’s hoping it will now be easier to get America’s precious understanding.

Wishful thinking, some might say. When the fires are all put out and the rioting stops, it will likely go back to business as usual. The “world’s police” is a powerful name, equipped with a powerful licence and wielding a powerful badge. Unlike the rest of us, they are accorded the right to make mistakes, be paranoid or commit an oversight.

In my opinion, that is not even a problem. Let’s scale it down. There are cops guarding our neighbourhood. They are a bit trigger happy, always paranoid and anything but honest, yet they keep the community relatively safe. We certainly can live with that.

It only becomes a problem when those cops start telling us not to do this or that, yet freely do those things themselves or find excuses for doing them. It’s a problem because we are confused. We are the young crabs in the “Mother Crab and her children” tale, in which she always scolds them for not walking straight. Confusion is definitely a problem.

No, we are not judging America. We are only saying “Stop confusing us”, and that’s a pretty fair statement. We just want to know if it’s permissible for a Thai officer enforcing a curfew to repeat Wilson’s actions in a scuffle with a few violators. And now that we are at it, which is worse: imposing martial law under which nobody has been killed, or killing a wayward but unarmed youth whose initial “crime” was refusing to use the footpath in a “free” land?

We are asking because we don’t know the answers. We know martial law is not good, but we don’t know if America looked through a microscope to find its reasons before coming at us with all guns blazing. The case of Wilson and Brown deserves microscopic scrutiny, but so do countries condemned or reprimanded or sanctioned by America.

Why this beating around the bush, you wonder. Why not go ahead and call America a big, fat hypocrite? Well, the aim here is to promote sympathy and avoid being judgmental. Everybody you ever meet is fighting a battle you know nothing about, so always be kind, goes one maxim. That is a precious piece of wisdom we should keep in mind. We are here to try to “understand” America, and would we like to be accorded the same courtesy in return.

So, instead of using “hypocrite” to describe America, “Mother Crab” sounds more reasonable, sympathetic and non-judgmental. We are not calling on her to walk straight; we are just asking her to understand why her children can’t either.