By  Mowahid Hussain Shah

November 16 , 2012

Obama II

So, it is Obama again. His win reflects the changing demographics of America.

The most intensely contested $6 billion Presidential race has come to an end. It revealed fault lines of race, gender, generation, class, ethnicity, sexual orientation, and educational background.

Hovering over it, in effect, was the racial factor of white tribalism. This led Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, ex-chief of staff to Colin Powell, former US Secretary of State and Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff, to state that the “real reason” a lot of Republicans wanted Obama to lose “has nothing to do with the content of his character, nothing to do with his competence as commander-in-chief and president, and everything to do with the color of his skin, and that’s despicable.” According to the Washington Post of November 2: “Anti-black attitudes have increased among Americans since Obama took over.” Another example is the headline in the Washington Examiner of October 31: “Lack of white support could cost Obama his presidency.”

For the ‘moderates’, the Muslim ancestry of Obama offers a classic lesson. He is a regular church-goer and identifies himself as a Christian, but it still did not immunize him from being constantly vilified.

Slanders did not spare even Obama’s mother, who died in 1995 of cancer – she was apparently not forgiven for having Muslim husbands: one a Kenyan, the other, Indonesian. It confirms what my late mother told me so long ago: that, sometimes, the most prejudiced minds can be those who are formally well-educated. The late black leader Stokely Carmichael had termed America “politically primitive.”

Many voters got to view a DVD called “2016: Obama’s America” that pressed all the Islamophobic buttons. This movie, interestingly, was made by an Indian American with participation of prominent pro-Israel supporters.

What many Americans did not get to see was a new documentary called “The Prosecution of an American President,” which presents the case for a trial of George W. Bush for pursuing an illegal war against Iraq based on the deliberate falsifying of facts. So many knew what he was up to and still went along with him, including Hillary and Kerry.

Many voters confused the concept of political leadership by equating it with business acumen. The noted historian Robert S. McElvaine amply documented in his Washington Post article of October 21 that successful businessmen don’t necessarily make good presidents or good leaders.

Obama’s election win doesn’t signal Western resurgence.

A distinguished Columbia University cultural historian, Jacques Barzun, who recently died at the age of 104, concluded before his death that the West is on a downward slide of decline and decadence. But that doesn’t necessarily mean an upsurge in the fortunes in the Muslim world, which remains mired in its own maladies.

All the defeatist complaining about Western misdoings cannot disguise the fact that the vast 1.5 billion Muslim world has yet to present its case forthrightly on the world stage. The West will not change its course unless pressured to do so. It was the steadfast moral authority of one solitary prisoner, Nelson Mandela, that eventually compelled de Klerk to dismantle the crumbling edifice of apartheid.

 

 

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PREVIOUSLY


Election 2004: Decisive but Divisive

Muslim Youth & Kashmir in America

The Big Picture: Wealth without Vision

Oxygen to Global Unrest

Punishing the Punctual

Change without Change

Don’t Be Weak

Passionate Attachment

The Confidence of Youth

The Other Side of Democracy

Campaign of Defamation

Pakistani Women & the Legal Profession

A Pakistani Journey

Farewell to Fazal

Mukhtaran and Beyond

Revamping the OIC

7/7 & After

Nuclear Double-Standard

Return to Racism

Hollywood – The Unofficial Media

The Sole Superpower

The UN at 60

A Slow Motion World War?

Elite vs. Street

Iqbal Today

Macedonia to Multan

Defending our Own

2006 & Maulana Zafar Ali Khan

Error against Terror

The Limits of Power

Cultural Weaknesses

Aggressive at Home, Submissive Abroad

Global Storm

The Farce of Free Expression

The Changing Mood

Condi & India

Xenophobia

Looking inward

Re-Thinking

A Tale of Two Presidents

Close to Home

Flashpoint Kashmir

The Spreading Rage

Confronting Adversity

The Illusion of International Law

Other Side of Extremism

Five Years after 9/11

The Educated Ignorant

The Decline of Humor

Icons

Six Years of Insanity

The War Not Being Fought

Munir Niazi

Compliance & Defiance

Counter-Message

Miscast

The Goddess of Wealth

The Meaning of Moderation

The Tora Bora of Fear

Clash of Civility

The Early Race

Challenge & Response

Will & Skill

Zealotry

Movie-Media and Pakistan

Hug with a Thug

Quest for Integrity

Unconquered

Vanity

Bringing Back the Past

Stuck in Iraq

Islam, Science and the West

Turmoil over Turkey

Leaders versus Leadership

Might Does Not Make Right

Kursi First

Vision & Will

Battle of the Billionaires

Assassination Alley

Extremism and Change

Rosy Expectations

Short-Term Gain, Long-Term Pain

Not Winning

Beyond Baghdad: Five Years after

The Hijab of Democracy

Hate, Fear & Hope

Weapon of Words

Hide N’ Seek

Yanking in the UN

Obama’s Breakthrough

Let Lahore Be Lahore

National Mood & Sports

Flirting with Fire

Trips Abroad

Georgia on the Mind

Duel for the White House

Zia to Zardari

Palestine: Avoiding the Unavoidable 

Not Working 

In the Ring 

Obama’s America

Smiles & Dreams

Quiet Deeds of Good

Crime and Indifference

Journey of Understanding

VIP-hunting

Terror via Counter-Terrorism

Umpires or Vampires?

The Long Road

Yesterday’s Reminder

Appeasement and the Real Threat

Israel’s Washington Agenda

New Challenges

Cairo and Beyond

Re-fighting Old Battles

America ’s Super Villains

Activism in America

Style without Substance

Overcoming Barriers

Ashes to Afghanistan

The Looming Change

Fear and Possibilities

What Is Not Debated 

Hired Guns

Rampage at Fort Hood

Manmohan in Washington

The Long Duel

Green Nukes

Vision and Division

Avoiding Why

Striving to Matter

Shame-proof

Anxiety and Opportunity

Putting Iraq in America

The Right Strategy

Looking Beyond

Rot at the Top

Strategic Folly

Daring & Caring

Over-Stepping on Turkey

Sudan : Perils of Provincialism

Old Fears, New Target

Europe ’s Stain

The US-Pakistan Enigma

The Status Quo Is Unacceptable

9 Years after 9/11

License to Steal

US Muslims at the Crossroads

Tumor of Terror

An Arab Voice

Disastrous Decisions

Double Game

Sticky Wiki

What Quaid Was Not

Money Conspiracy

Pharaohs & Pirates

Greed and Cricket

Change & Challenge  

Forty Years after 1971

Abandoning Our Own

Rewarding Failure

Osama and Obama

Tsunami of Tolerance

Representation and Presentation

Meek and Weak

Change or the Same?

No Easy Exit

Nation to Non-Nation

10 Years after 9/11

Shining India?

Big Power, Small Politics

Rule of the Gun

Proxy of the Powerful

Fight for Fairness

Republican Race

Actors or Directors

Speaking out

Professional Sycophants

More Provinces?

Too Much Information

Soft Separation

Soft Poison

Unemployment & Over-Population

Seize the Day

The Arab Awakening

Ben Bella

At University of Gujrat

Good People Behaving Badly

Playing Over-Smart

Do Less

Resisting the Resistible

Performance, Not PR

Home-grown Havoc

Salutation to the 65 th Year

Plague of Provincialism

USA Elections 2012

Rage

Fight or Flight

Rift and Drift

 


2001

 

Editor: Akhtar M. Faruqui
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