Our lives begin and end the day we become silent about things that matter.
  :: Martin Luther King

On Friday, November 10th I had the priviledge of going to hear Bill Clinton speak. He couldn’t disguise his tiredness, but, like a great heavyweight champion, he answered the bell with a memorable speech. A day earlier it had been confirmed that the Democrats had won a majority, not only in Congress, but also in the Senate. Many of the margins and majorities were razor thin and one couldn’t help but be aware that this man, who had campaigned hard in 27 key states, might single-handedly have prevented a great country going in the wrong direction for at least 2 more years. One passionate person can make a difference.

Clinton admitted his tiredness, saying, “If I should keel over up here, cut me a little slack.”

Mr. Clinton was eloquent and pragmatic on the major topics of poverty, global warming and energy. He pointed out that shortsighted traditional thinking, far from saving money, can be very costly. He spoke of a problem, which began in his own administration and was never handled well or appropriately. Pakistan was a Muslim dominated nuclear power whom the USA supported as a counterbalance to India, another nuclear power, with ties to Russia and the old Soviet Union. USA poured tens of billions of dollars into the Pakistan military, but only paltry amounts to assist social infrastructure, health care and education. As a result, the impoverished rural and poor urban schools had to charge fees for children to attend school, which many families had no way of paying. The only free schools were the Madrassas, set up by Muslim fundamentalists, so millions of children were given an indoctrination instead of an education and the seeds of hatred were sown. Stephen Lewis has pointed out that similar problems are occurring in Africa, where repressive repayment schedules mandated by the World Bank have forced impoverished countries to make people pay for education.

Mr. Clinton has all the numbers, but it is as a storyteller he excels. I’ll share two stories about the importance of not having a closed mind and about maintaining the freedom to make a non-traditional response.

Real Freedom Begins Inside Your Mind

In the late 1990s, Mr. Clinton was making good progress brokering an accord between Israel and Palestine and 1998 was the first year in which not a single Israeli was killed by a Palestinian bomb or rocket. Things looked promising when Ehud Barak became prime minister of Israel and there was ongoing communication with Yasser Arafat.

Then Israeli politics reared its ugly head. The right wing conservative, Netanyahu, felt that Barak was too soft on the Arabs and looked likely to replace him. However, Netanyahu was not a member of the Knesset (Israeli Parliament) and not eligible to run until he obtained a seat. To pre-empt this, Barak dissolved parliament and called an election. In place of Netanyahu, he faced another conservative, the old war hero Ariel Sharon. In a political move, Sharon decided to make a public and provocative visit to the Temple Mount, as it is known to the Jews, and Al-Haram al-Sharif to Muslims. Because of the tensions involved, this disputed area had been avoided by politicians for over 25 years. The move was obviously designed to win votes from conservative Israelis and to provoke Arafat.

Clinton talked to Arafat and told him not to respond aggressively because it was all about internal Israeli politics. Arafat said he had to respond. Then Mr. Clinton suggested Arafat choose a beautiful Palestinian girl and go alone with her to meet Mr. Sharon and present him with a bouquet of flowers. Mr. Sharon would be surrounded by secret service and police and the contrast between the peaceful Arab with flowers and the aggressive Israeli would be a photographic shot seen around the world. But Mr. Arafat was trapped into thinking he had to react. He told Bill Clinton that not to react with force would be “to lose dignity”. Clinton said, with a smile, that he knew plenty about loss of dignity, and that in fact the simple, peaceful response would be more dignified. But Arafat was a prisoner of decades of confrontational thinking and felt that he was not free to choose a path less traveled. Intifada resumed and, many years later, no resolution is in sight.

Nelson Mandela

A huge factor in wellness is the absolute certainty that, whatever the situation, you are free to choose your own response. That is what sets you free and makes you well. This was exemplified by Nelson Mandela. Mr. Clinton talked of watching his release from prison after 27 years of incarceration. There was a long walk to the prison gate on the other side of which he’d be a free man. In a subsequent personal conversation, Mr. Clinton asked Mr. Mandela about his feelings regarding those who imprisoned him. “Tell me honestly, didn’t you hate them.” Mandela’s reply was that thoughts of hatred sometimes occupied his mind, but as he walked towards the prison gate he realized that if he was still filled with hatred outside the prison, he would still not be free. He chose to let go of any feelings of revenge and bitterness. He invited some of his jailers to his inauguration and installed some of his oppressors in his cabinet.

Wellness is a lot more than 10,000 steps, banning transfats and going to the gym, it’s the absolute certainty that you are free to choose your response to any situation.

Be well.

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