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Well done, now for the challenges ahead
President-elect Barack Obama won because he lifted America's spirits, but he has inherited an unmitigated disaster, and several international tests lie further on.
- By Joseph A. Kechichian, Special to Gulf News
- Published: 23:32 November 5, 2008
- Image Credit: Illustration: Guillermo Munro/Gulf News
John McCain, a war hero with impeccable credentials lost the American presidency because the former centrist became an extremist.
His choices to believe in the unbelievable (George W. Bush), defend the indefensible (appointing an unqualified Sarah Palin), and dream the unbecoming (relying on a plumber to further divide a largely polarised society), sealed his defeat.
President-Elect Barack Obama, on the other hand, won because he lifted America's spirits. Like John F. Kennedy in 1960, Obama incarnated hope, asked his fellow citizens to dream once again and called on all nations to join in the quest for a better humanity.
Obama has now inherited an unmitigated disaster. Indeed, the past eight years have literally ruined the United States of America, and defaced its cherished human rights record. Several international challenges lie ahead for the president-elect, while the worst of the worst pertained to domestic politics, led by a seriously weakened economy.
Paradoxically, conservative bastions of capitalism, including the Economist and the Financial Times, concluded that Obama was better qualified to address the looming financial crises than McCain.
Right choices
Obama will now re-regulate the financial sector, insist that high-holy robberies stop their dastardly acts and create a working healthcare system worthy of the world's most powerful democracy. All of these will make huge differences.
Obama understands this and will work hard to create the right choices both for Americans and others.
Ironically, and latent racist tendencies notwithstanding, it is worth remembering that White American consumers elected Obama, largely to address this intrinsic economic catastrophe.
If the country was entrusted to a novice and politically illiterate leader in 2000, Americans recognised that championing unlimited financial liberalism, which turned the country over to thieves, was no longer wise.
Most voters thought hard about their pockets, rejected the Republican Party for neglecting its fiduciary trust, and hoped that Obama will rise to the challenge.
Voters further rejected the Bush-induced fear mongering that was transformed into an art form after 9/11. The panic atmosphere that Bush encouraged, and his cavalier trampling on each one of the liberties Thomas Jefferson tirelessly fought to instill on a free people, significantly eroded what Americans lived for and preached everywhere since 1776.
In the name of a false war against terrorism, the damage of the notorious "Patriot Act" diminished intrinsic freedoms. America recorded unprecedented regressions. Basic rights of visitors, permanent residents and citizens were crushed.
Under the circumstances, no one, not even a charismatic leader like Obama, can repair all of them in four or even in eight years. To a large extent, Obama will be measured by his commitment to repeal the more vulgar regulations that mute liberty, although this might take time.
Demographic changes
It must be emphasised that beyond the thirst for change, Obama's election was partly a clear reflection of profound demographic changes that are under way in the US, where 12 per cent of all citizens are naturalised (25 per cent in California and Florida), 10 per cent are African-American and close to 25 per cent are Latinos. Whites are still a demographic majority but that is slated to change in the next 25-35 years.
On November 4, the world witnessed the first American step towards genuine integration. Indeed, a mixed race leader better reflected the changing colour of the country, which resembles and will continue to evolve in the direction of, the developing World.
Remarkably, America wiped out the legacy of slavery by electing a coloured man, as it opened a new page and fulfilled the dream of the Revered Martin Luther King Jr by finally and truly judging a man not by the colour of his skin but by the content of his character.
Needless to say, the contrast between this accomplishment and those fictitious values espoused, as well as defended, in Abu Ghraib and Guantánamo prisons are startling.
Americans came a long way from incarcerating over 110,000 Japanese-Americans at the Manzanar War Relocation Centre (a euphemism for a concentration camp) during Second World War, to encouraging bigotry and violence against foreigners that launched an unprecedented dragnet and held several thousand over long periods of time more recently. With Obama's election, therefore, it represents an understanding that life, liberty and justice must apply to everyone, everywhere.
At 47, this young man is now carrying the burden of the US, which has entrusted him a leadership role because he is both smart and energetic.
Though no president can work miracles, Obama has a unique opportunity to be a great leader, through wisdom, compassion, and dedication. America is once again, ready to live up to its potential, by upholding the Jeffersonian dreams of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness for all.
Dr Joseph A. Kechichian is an author, most recently of 'Power and Succession in Arab Monarchies', Boulder, Colorado: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2008.
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