I believe the word is “appeasement.”

Obama, after first making an allegedly “bold” stand on the Israeli settlement issue a few months ago (even though his “bold stand” was the same as every other president that came before him…) has caved. Given in. Cried ‘Uncle.’ Bent over.

Appeased.

Except when the U.S. government whimpers and admits defeat to the militant, colonialist, right-wing Israeli party – we don’t call that appeasement.

Hillary Clinton calls it Netanyahu making “an unprecedented step toward peace.”

Someone please remind me again why Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize.

[...in Nairobi, a newspaper billboard knows Obama's policies differ from his character...see the headline on the left...]

East Africa isn’t fooled – they are used to leaders that surrender sovereignty and resources to other countries. Both Kenyans and Ugandans love their guy Obama, but they know there’s a difference between being proud of someone and agreeing with him.

It’s like the rock band from your high school that finally made it out of the local dives and onto the national stage with a record deal. You may be proud and brag about sharing a pizza with them “before they were famous.”

But that doesn’t mean you like their music.

Time and again, world leaders prove they like different music than most of us. They show that they have their own values that usually don’t coincide with ours. It matters little who the president/prime minister/legislator/dictator/Dear Leader is. It always boils down to the fact that elite leaders have more in common with other wealthy, elite leaders than they do with their own people. That means that heads-of-state are naturally willing to cede things to their fellow “elites” that most of us would never give up so easily.

In mid-October, the African Union held a special summit of the continent’s leaders to address refugees and displaced people. Presidents, ministers, ambassadors, and their high-ranking military bodyguards/lapdogs gathered at a luxurious resort on the shores of Lake Victoria in Uganda.

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On the last day, the pomp and circumstance surrounding the signing ceremony couldn’t hide some obvious facts – which one BBC reporter noted during the press conference. The journalist wanted to know why “all week we haven’t seen one refugee here at the conference.”

Good question.

Refugees across Africa, forced out of places like the Congo from decade-long conflicts, are isolated in guarded compounds. They have no source of formal income, are forbidden to leave the camp without government permission, and have no transportation. So I guess the refugees who might have wanted their voice heard at the summit weren’t really given a choice of attending.

And their “leaders” are discussing their future as if the government had nothing to do with the displacement in the first place.

How many people have fled Zimbabwe’s hyper-inflation, floundering economy, and human rights abuses directed against the political opposition?

Yet Robert Mugabe participates in the conference with, apparently, no sense of guilt.

Uganda’s president, Yoweri Museveni, has been head-of-state for 23 years. When Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of Congo) collapsed in 1997, it was partly because Uganda (among other countries) sent in troops to overthrow Mobutu. Over the last 13 years, Museveni, his brother, and his nephew have used their militias to amass private wealth from the abundant resources of the DR Congo.

Yet Museveni acts as a generous host of the summit, as if he has nothing to do with the thousands of Congolese that have fled the killing, abuses, and rape perpetrated by some of these same militias.

Given many of these leaders’ histories of abuse, corruption, exploitation, and roles in conflicts that create refugees, why even bother showing up to such a conference?

Appeasement.

The international community doesn’t like doing business with despots, at least not out in the open. “Free trade” with the U.S. and Europe requires that leaders maintain a certain façade of respectability and humanity, at least for the corporate boardrooms to see.

So quite a few African leaders pretend to care, make statements that they will never act on, and claim to be upholding human rights – if only because they are afraid the U.S. might stop sending the weapons and “foreign aid” if they did otherwise.

They forget the people they are supposed to represent and they cave. They relent. They appease.

But Westerners only use the word “appeasement” for specific circumstances.

When a black African president caves into the demands of the West – whether to governments or to multi-national corporations – we don’t call that “appeasement.” We call it “opening up their country to foreign investment.”

When an American president abandons principles and essentially tells Israel that they can do what they want and we won’t stop the flow of weapons and money – we don’t call that “appeasement.” We call it “showing loyalty to an ally.”

But when an American president thinks about negotiating with Iran (read: brown & Muslim) over nuclear technology – well, that’s “appeasement.”

Because we can’t have an American president (even if he is “brown” himself) stooping to some Islamic Ayatollah.

Having leaders that are disconnected from reality, who don’t accurately represent their own people’s interests, and who are willing to give in to other nations if it means clinging to power themselves is a universal trait – democracy or not.

Until we stop electing presidents like it’s a popularity contest, we will continually be stuck with ineffective leaders that are more worried about their daily poll numbers instead of the world our children will inherit.

When we judge our politicians, we need to start actually listening to the music they play. Because once the rock band from high school breaks up, all that’s left are the records.

And they better be good.