November 21, 2008
Obama’s America
200 years after the birth of Abraham Lincoln (the 16th President of the United States), Barack Hussein Obama – on January 20, 2009 – will become the 44th President of America. Lincoln is Obama’s favorite President and, in his words, was always an “extraordinary inspiration”.
Both Lincoln and Obama emerged from Illinois. Significantly, in 2007, Obama announced his candidacy for the White House in Springfield, Illinois, Lincoln’s home town for 17 years.
On April 11, 1865, to a crowd gathered in front of the White House, President Abraham Lincoln gave a speech in which he promoted voting rights for blacks. Three days later, Lincoln was fatally shot. Lincoln’s successor, President Andrew Johnson, did nothing to implement Lincoln’s vision for racial equity. The blacks had to wait another 100 years before President Lyndon Johnson enacted civil rights legislation which gave voting rights to blacks.
This time, Obama picked up the torch lit by Lincoln, ran the race against history, and overcame history. Obama realized that America was not static and that issues changed in the last four years, and so did America and Americans. Obama was supported by blacks, Hispanics, students, single women, the college-educated middle-cum-upper class, and minorities. But, most importantly, Obama could not have won without significant white support. Obama did it by energizing a huge corps of volunteers who made the grassroots field operations into a movement, and connected it effectively with mobile phones and the Internet. In the end, the tidal wave of change created its own unstoppable momentum.
The electorate rebuked the policies of the Bush administration and also sent a message that the issues of governance and economy are more winning than the cheap issues of bigotry, ignorance, hate, and fear.
Bush made a big nation appear small. He made the Land of the Free appear as a “Land of the Fearful”. In doing so, Bush unintentionally created a deep hunger for sensible leadership.
Obama, on the other hand, maintained that the capacity to lead is not the capacity to display power, but the capacity to restrain from the irresponsible use of power. According to a CBS News poll, 71% of the American public feels optimistic about the Obama Presidency.
In Obama, there is no past history of antagonism to Islam. Also, he has no personal family history of slavery and had the added advantage of being raised in a multi-cultural environment.
According to his Kenyan grandmother, Sarah Hussein, Obama’s favorite food is chapatti.
Those who attacked Obama as a Muslim (which he is not) did a favor to the American Muslim community by spotlighting the extent of anti-Muslim bigotry. A realization set in that, if it could happen to Obama, it could happen to anybody. The lesson is to fight for what is right. Flight is not an option.
For too long, attacks against Muslims have gone largely unchallenged, partly because of the inertia within the broader Muslim community. This election, in addition to opening the doors for people of Muslim heritage in America, dealt a blow to the Islam-hating industry and the neo-con lobby which had set out to marginalize Muslims in America. America shall never be the same again.
Obama has shown that barriers of race, religion, class, color, and economic condition can be transcended. His election electrified the electorate by displaying the possibilities in America, particularly to the youth, including Muslim youth.
For Muslims, his election has changed the environment of fear to an environment of hope. However, they – along with American blacks – should not expect any special favors.
By aiming high and dreaming big, Obama undermined the belief that the US Presidency was a white monopoly. It proved what the poet, Robert Browning, had said: “Not failure, but low aim, is crime.” He also undermined a negative mindset and a defeatist mentality that this could never happen. Now there are few excuses for the American Muslims in remaining chronic under-achievers.
Obama’s victory sends a profound message to traditional societies where the doors of opportunity are largely closed to those without money or connections.
Obama’s win will also cool the temperature against Muslims in Europe, where some European bigots took cues from the hate rhetoric emanating from the neo-con lobby as well as from Evangelicals in the US.
Obama will start with a huge plus when he becomes President in that he is not George W. Bush.
Obama exudes leadership earned through striving and not through inheritance or entitlement. He showed the power of education and talent, supplemented by sound character. He has already stressed that he has little patience with yes-men or back-biting. Those who are eye-witnesses to the failings of Pakistani polity will vouch that, instead of debating policy and discussing ideas, much energy is wasted on flattery and intrigue.
Abroad, Obama’s election has evoked congratulations from the Iranian President, sparked celebrations in Besuki Elementary School in Jakarta, Indonesia (where Obama attended school for several years as a boy), and prompted a national holiday to be declared in Kenya, including in the village of Kogelo, Kenya, where Obama’s father came from.
Nation of Islam leader, Minister Louis Farrakhan, the organizer of America’s biggest ever rally – the Million Man March of October 16, 1995 – also welcomed Obama’s victory as “an act of God”. Farrakhan in the past has shunned mainstream politics.
Obama will now have to contend with the pressure of inflated expectations. With the promise of change in the domestic arena also comes the reality of continuity in external relations.
To cite Thomas Friedman from The New York Times, “America is surely the only nation that could – in the same decade – go to war against a president named Hussein (Saddam of Iraq), threaten to use force against a country whose most revered religious martyr is named Hussein (Iran) and then elect its president who’s middle-named Hussein.”
One of the ironies of history is that the man who is the harbinger of hope in post-9/11 America carries the name “Hussein”.
