Obama Wins Big!
By Dr Ghulam M. Haniff
St Cloud, Minnesota
Tuesday’s victory for Barack Hussein Obama, the Democratic incumbent, was a big win for the President. He gets to be in the White House for yet another four years.
Obama won 50 percent of the votes compared to 48 percent for Romney, the Republican challenger. The Democratic incumbent, Obama, won 60 million of the popular votes whereas Romney procured 57 million.
In the electoral vote picture Obama received 303 votes and Mitt Romney received 206.
The three measures all delivered Obama the victory margin.
It is said that many people around the world cried when they heard that Barack Obama had won another terms of office. Indeed, it is difficult to believe that a nation which was a major holder of slaves until 1865 from Africa made an African to be the Chief Execute Officer of the nation.
In the person of Mitt Romney, the Republican challenger, Obama was hammered repeatedly hoping that some of charges made would stick and damage him politically. But none did.
When the vote count showed that Obama had won Mitt made him wait for more than an hour for the traditional concessionary telephone call. The excuse given was that Romney had written only a victory speech, and not a concessionary one. He was so very sure of winning that he wrote only one speech.
Obama’s victory speech was a short summation of the agenda he had followed since assuming the presidency. It was vintage Obama. Romney could learn a lot about politics from it. As usual, it was one of his better and more thoughtful pieces crafted in a masterly fashion.
Obama’s victory should help the Muslims quite a bit. He certainly will stand up as a bulwark against evils of racism. By gathering the minorities of America into a winning coalition he has shown the world what could be done by the wretched and the down-trodden. Racism could be challenged and defeated. Muslims, wherever they are should applaud Obama and ask for his cooperation in building their nations. He has already volunteered to do some nation-building in Afghanistan. Pakistan is not far-off, that is from the frontier.
Obama’s victory showed that racism or Islamophobia need not be a major impediment. It has, and can be defeated. It is a barrier that can be easily overcome. One only needs to look at South Africa or today the United States of America.
Winning the second term put the fear of God into the demented mind, crude and vulgar diatribes, of the racists’ individuals. More is yet to come as the coming years unfold one after another.
One of the diehard enemies of Islam who was defeated in this election was none other than Rep. Allen West (R-FL), a man who relentlessly the sullied the good name of Islam. He once described Islam as a “totalitarian theocratic political ideology.” He was said to be one of the most obnoxious man in the US Congress.
In Illinois, Rep. Joe Walsh (R-IL) was defeated who at one time claimed that “radical Islam is more than a threat” and it is something to be feared. He also was involved in helping the Chief Minister of Gujrat, Narendra Modi, and was involved with the Indian community in Chicago. His supporters displayed a sign “If you love Narendra Modi send Joe Walsh to Congress.”
In Minnesota Rep. Chip Cravaack (R-MN), who testified against Islam before Rep. King’s (R-NY) House Hearing Committee was also defeated.
For American Muslims the Obama victory underscored that barrier to racism can be lifted as is seen in the current times.
Muslims had no reason to vote for Mitt Romney, he did not reach out to them or solicit their concerns. He did not show any compassion for the Muslims, on the contrary he derided them for not knuckling under the Israelis.
As laid out in my previous two columns published during the last two months, the campaign intensified attention to the seven or ten states at the very tail-end. These were Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, Iowa, Colorado, Florida, North Carolina, Nevada and Virginia. In the parlance of electoral politics these are the so-called swing or tossup states.
Fortunately, Obama won them all except North Carolina. Most of these states carry a large number of electoral votes and winning them helps the total electoral vote count.
Seven to three percent of the population in most of these states is made up of Muslims. If they had chipped-in they could have substantially helped the Obama’s vote count. According to the latest count six of the tossup states have Muslims in the range from 7 to 3 percent.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Back to Pakistanlink Homepage
