I was stunned into disbelief at first as I saw the electoral vote count pass the 270 mark for Obama. I was half expecting a "hanging chad" fiasco, an attempted assassination or Bristol Palin to go into labour. CNN cut to the screaming crowds of people in Chicago and New York and then back to their studio where some of their pundits made teary-eyed concluding statements. Obama had won.
It is Reverend Jesse Jackson's face that stays with me, when the crowd of a million people in Grant Park went crazy and celebrated all around him and a 3 second clip showed him in his stillness with tears on his cheeks as he came to terms with what had actually happened in America on 4 November 2008.
It is Obama's following words which are simple and few but felt like a personal shout-out, knowing full well that we were desperate for an Obama victory: "To all those watching tonight from beyond our shores from Parliaments and Palaces and those huddled around the radio, our stories are singular but our destiny is shared, a new dawn of American leadership is at hand."
It is the promise of something new not just in America, but in the world.
I think that Obama's popularity outside the US is linked to the following 3 general reasons:
1) Despite independence and despite the end of the Cold War, leaders of Western countries have continued to look at the global South through an imperialistic lens. Obama, as an American of Kenyan descent and having spent his childhood in Indonesia, does not seem to be like those other old, angry, white men who can't pronounce "Pakistan" properly and consider the will of other countries to be secondary to their own. I think we look to him as our ally in the White House, someone who will treat us with the respect and the dignity we deserve and have failed to recieve. Someone who actually understand the issues we face with much more nuanced insight.
2) He has managed to mobilised the marginalised, the young, the disenchanted to vote in large numbers, many for the first time. It is this very dynamism that is lacking in much of the rest of the world, the youth especially are alienated from and apathetic towards their political system. I think we all look at America with a huge amount of jealousy because of the way the campaign turned into a youth movement of sorts. We are awed and we wish we were part of it.
3) He looks like us. We feel like we stuck it to Whitey.
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1 comment:
We'll see.
There are still 100 days before he takes over office.
He is still the candidate with the most corporate sponsorship of all the candidates.
I certainly hope he is more radical than he lets on. You see his AIPAC speech? Have you seen his voting record?
It is wonderful that it gives a sense of achievement and hope for literally billions(myself included). But the American (and i have no reason to believe it isn't everyone elses also) election process is still woefully flawed. The world population is still little more than indentured servants to the banks. If you get bored, try checking out ron paul.
Have a look at www.shadowstats.com.
Watch the third party pressconference on cspan.
Obama voted for the 700 billion (and counting) bailout with nary a comment. So far the Change has been pocketed.
Happy Guy Fawkes.
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