The allegation of racism seems to many to be baseless. People who have made that claim about Elvis- and there aren’t many of them- have never produced anywhere near a shred of credible evidence to prove that he was. In fact, many of Elvis’s black friends rallied to his side and dismissed that allegation out of hand. When questioned further about his claim, Public Enemy himself climbed down, stating that he did not mean that Elvis personally was racist, but that he simply chose to attack a white idol. What about the accusation that Elvis stole black music? Well, there doesn’t seem to be much evidence of that, either. When we accuse someone of theft, we mean that he took somebody else’s property without his permission or knowledge. There is no evidence that Elvis ever did that. Quite the contrary, Elvis always did cover versions of other people’s songs with their full knowledge and consent. Both parties benefitted: He and they became bigger and richer. A songwriter like Otis Blackwell, for example, would probably have been obscure and poor had Elvis not done cover versions of his All Shook Up and Don’t Be Cruel. This very point was once made by B.B. King when he said, “I don’t think he [Elvis] ripped’em off. I think once something has been exposed, anyone can add or take from it if they like. He was just so popular, so great, and so hot- and so anything he played became a hit. To me, they didn’t make a mistake when they called him The King.” For his part, Jackie Wilson denied that Elvis copied his physical moves from black American singers. As Jackie pointed out, “A lot of people have accused Elvis of stealing the black man’s music when, in fact, almost every black solo entertainer copied his stage mannerisms from Elvis.”
To this day, there is no consensus as to who actually invented rock and roll. Some claim it was Elvis, others claim it was Bill Haley & His Comets, and still others claim it was one black singer or another. Those who do not believe that Elvis invented rock and roll have often wondered aloud why he should be called the king of rock and roll when it was not clear that it was he who had invented it. On the face of it, this argument seems to be reasonable. However, when thinking a bit more about this matter, one finds that one does not need to have invented something for him to be called the king of such and such. Let’s take football, for instance: England reportedly invented football. Does that make the English the kings of football? Far from it; historically, the Brazilians have been. Likewise, Elvis was not called The King simply because he invented rock and roll, but because he combined rhythm and blues music (black) with western music (white) and hillbilly music (white) to produce an explosive mixture that far surpassed anything before him. That is probably why Chuck Berry once said, “Describe Elvis Presley? He was the greatest who ever was, is, or ever will be.” John Lennon himself once stated, “Before Elvis, there was nothing”, meaning, in terms of rock and roll. That also seems to be the reason why Little Richard referred to Elvis as “an integrator”, i.e., of black and white music. Not only that, but Little Richard actually went so far as to credit Elvis with the success of black music in the US in the 1950s and beyond when he said, “He was an integrator. Elvis was a blessing. They wouldn’t let black music through. He opened the door for black music.” One then cannot escape the impression that Elvis’s greatest achievement in music was in fact his integration of black and white music to produce something that was greater than either. In the process, he contributed to the advance of the cause of black Americans through his humanization of a race that had for so long been dehumanized. Consequently, he gave an impetus to the view that our world was not designed for the benefit of one group of people at the expense of another, but that it was rather made for all of us to share and enjoy with fairness and mutual respect. This, in fact, is the great lesson that has been entirely lost on America’s foreign policy makers who have, since World War II, been exclusively pursuing the furtherance and fulfillment of what they see as the interests of the US, without paying the slightest attention to, or feeling the least compassion for, the interests, welfare, or fate of numerous other nations who paid a very high price- and some still do- for America’s insular, self-centred, and vainglorious obsession with its own welfare.
Since it replaced the UK, France, and Germany as the foremost global power in the aftermath of the Second World War, the US has consistently shied away from supporting constitutional governments in various parts of the world and- at times- gone to the extent of conspiring to destabilize and overthrow them. In MENA (the Middle East and North Africa), the US in the 1950s and 1960s played a very active role in the overthrow of constitutional governments and their replacement by dictatorships: Iran (with British assistance) in 1953, Libya in 1969, Egypt in 1952, Syria in 1949, and Iraq in 1958. In the 1980s, the US promoted jihadism in MENA as a way of fighting the Soviets in Afghanistan where it supplied the mujaheddin with much military, political, and financial support throughout the 1980s. Those mujaheddin were consistently lionized as heroes by the US at that time. It is ironic that many of those mujaheddin went on to form Al-Qaeda and Taliban. Having been stung by jihadism, especially on 9/11, the US then switched its support to the Muslim Brotherhood which it initially regarded as a moderate religious organization. The Muslim Brotherhood later turned out to be not anywhere near as moderate as the US had assumed, causing the Trump administration to refer to it as a terrorist organization. It is very striking indeed that in spite of all its rhetoric, the US has never seriously supported constitutional governments in MENA; quite the contrary, it has mainly supported military dictatorships, authoritarian regimes, and despots of various sorts. No major attempt at the fulfillment of shared interests or the realization of a shared prosperous future for all has ever been made by the US in MENA. Self-indulgence, self-absorption, and narcissism have by and large been the hallmarks of US foreign policy not just in MENA, but also in sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America, and much of Asia.
We have over the past quarter of a century or so been witnessing that same old blinkered attitude in America’s foreign policy, only towards Russia this time. Instead of embracing a post-communist Russia and welcoming it into the world community by promoting collaboration, cooperation, and mutual respect, the US in the 1990s disgracefully reneged on the earlier promises that had been made to the Soviet leadership by the George H W Bush administration to the effect that in deference to genuine Soviet security concerns and in return for Soviet acceptance of Germany’s reunification, NATO would not expand to the east. It was during Bill Clinton’s administration that that pledge was broken when Clinton invited Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic to join NATO, which they did in 1999. That NATO expansion was continued by George W. Bush, Obama, and even Trump, in an act of blatant disregard for Russia’s legitimate security concerns. The breaking of America’s promise turned out to be a fateful error, as the American veteran diplomat and scholar George Kennan had once warned. Not only did the US miserably fail to appreciate Russia’s history and its substantial security concerns, but it also seemed to have forgotten an important episode in its own recent history when JFK nearly started a nuclear war because the Soviets had placed ballistic missiles in Cuba back in 1962, something which the US considered to be too close for comfort.
America’s crass incomprehension of Russia’s overriding security concerns was shown most recently in NATO’s Madrid Declaration when it was stated that, “NATO is a defensive Alliance and poses no threat to any country.” Really? Whoever said that those words were particularly sincere or credible? Are we supposed to take NATO’s word for it? Are we to understand that the Soviets’ placement of ballistic missiles in Cuba in 1962 was a threat to the US, but that expanding NATO to countries located next door to Russia is not a threat to that country? If NATO is purely defensive, what then was the wisdom behind its expansion to include European former communist countries in the post-Cold-War-era? If NATO’s leader- the US- had been serious about world peace, security, and prosperity, surely it would have refrained from expanding NATO membership to countries far too close for Russia’s comfort. Instead of NATO’s expansion, the US should have sat down with Russia and explored the possibility of making European ex-communist countries neutral, and then provided air-tight security guarantees to those countries based on inviolable agreements between the US, Russia, China, and the EU.
It is remarkable that in some ways, modern US history eerily parallels the fortunes and misfortunes of Elvis Presley’s musical career. Elvis had his most exciting period in the second half of the 1950s. The US had its most impressive years in the 1950s and the first half of the 1960s. Elvis’s career then suffered and he became lost, largely because of his heavy involvement in movies at the expense of his musical career. The US, too, became lost as a result of the Vietnam War. Elvis made a great comeback in 1968 and flourished until 1973. Th US expunged the incubus of Vietnam as a result of its victory over Iraq in the Gulf War of 1991 and the ensuing economic prosperity in the 1990s under the Clinton administration. From 1974 until his death in 1977, Elvis’s career declined. In the 21st century, the US has deteriorated politically, militarily, economically, socially, and culturally to such an extent that nowadays many people- including numerous Americans themselves- compare the present state of America to that of chronic malaise. Yet, despite the similarities, there are some considerable differences between Elvis and the successive US administrations since the Second World War, especially when it comes to dealing with the Other: If the US in the conduct of its foreign policy since Truman had adopted the political equivalent of Elvis Presley’s approach to the integration, harmonization, and inclusiveness of discordant, inimical, and mutually distrustful white and black communities, the world as a whole would have been a far better place to live. This is the truly outstanding lesson that the US and its seemingly subservient allies ought to have learned from one of America’s most famous sons. After all, the world was not designed exclusively for the benefit of (to quote Spitting Image) Mr. Big Mac and his Chicken Nuggets.
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Husam Dughman is a Libyan Canadian political scientist, religious thinker, linguist, and an expert on immigrants and refugees. He received his formal education in Libya and the UK. Mr. Dughman later worked as a university professor of political science in Libya. Due to confrontations with the Qaddafi regime, he resigned from his university position and subsequently worked in legal translation. Mr. Dughman has been working with new immigrant and refugee services in both Canada and the US since 2006.
Husam Dughman has published a book entitled Tête-à-tête with Muhammad. He has also written numerous articles on politics and religion. He has just completed the full manuscript of a book which he hopes to have published in the near future. The new book is an in-depth examination of Islam, Christianity, Judaism, and the non-religious school of thought.
