Barack Obama pulls down the dividing walls in America
Friday, 7 November 2008
Syed Fattahul Alim
Barack Hussein Obama, the US senator from Illinois, who promised change to America during his entire electioneering campaign for the US presidency, in his victory speech addressing an adoring and emotional 125, 000-strong crowd on Tuesday finally announced from the Grant Park in downtown Chicago that the " change has come to America'.
The 47-year-old Obama is the first black person of African-American descent to become the president of world's mightiest nation, the United States of America.
Barack Obama's rise to the highest political office of America is simply mind-boggling. This is probably for the first time that the American presidential election created such excitement not only in the country where it was being held, but also all across the globe.
No doubt the previous US elections also did draw attention of the world. But that was simply because America is the most powerful as well as the richest nation on earth. So, who is going to dictate the course of events in America for at least the next four years, was of great strategic interest for the politicians, strategists, business houses, job and immigration-seekers in the rest of the world. But this time the US presidential polls held quite a different kind of interest, an interest with a deep emotional significance, for the common people of countries far away from America. In fact, the entire population in many such countries was watching the US election with a kind of emotional attachment that they usually show during their own elections or political changes at home. With Barack Obama becoming victorious in the US presidential election, people in many African and Asian countries cried and hugged one another and celebrated it as if the election was one of their own. Why is this strange emotional interest of the common people of other countries in the US election? Consider the African nation Kenya. The government of that country even declared public holiday on Thursday to celebrate the victory of Barack Obama as US president. Why is this apparent madness? For this is for the first time in history that the voters in US, a country where racism, religious orthodoxy and colour barrier is still rife, chose to place a non-white president in the White House.
The New York Times described Obama victory as "sweeping away the last racial barrier in American politics with ease..".
Barack Obama has swept into the highest political office of America with mainly the support of the younger voters below 45. The rainbow coalition that backed him comprised the young, the black, the independents, moderates, the women and the voters from the upwardly mobile middle class, the blue-collar workers and those who wanted a change from the runaway unfettered free market capitalism where the winner takes it all.
But an African-American running for the top office of the US political-administrative hierarchy did also expose the fault-lines of electoral landscape and the paradigm shift the just-held election implied. The polls result has shown that 55 per cent of the white male voters were still behind Obama's Republican opponent Arizona senator John McCain. Of the Electoral College votes, Obama has bagged 349 with his rival Republican trailing far behind at 162. But so far as the national popular votes were concerned, Democrat Obama enjoys the support of the 52 per cent of the Americans, whereas his opponent is following him at 47 per cent. Strangely though, he is ahead of his opponent by only a five per cent lead, which flies in the face of the prediction made by national tracking and opinion polls that said Obama will enjoy a lead ranging between eight to nine per cent over his opponent McCain. Some suspect it is due to the so-called Bradley effect that is demonstrated through the behaviour of the racially prejudiced voters, who hide their actual choice of candidate while responding to the interviewing pollsters.
Obviously the 2008's US presidential polls had its racial, religio-cultural, ethnic, gender-related, national and even trans-national dimensions. In this just-held US presidential polls 41 per cent of the white men and around 50 per cent of the white women and the independents cast their lot with first-ever black president of America. Most importantly, two-thirds of the young voters who were all for change voted for Obama irrespective of their faith, colour or racial background.
Obama's Republican opponent, on the other hand, was backed by the rather older citizens, the highly orthodox evangelical Christians and the Conservatives. It can be said that the Republican wave that started with Ronald Reagan in 1980 has finally been tamed with Democratic Obama voted into White House with a thumping victory.
The Obama phenomenon had also shattered the old straitjackets of the electoral demography of America which was apportioned between the Red and the Blue states. The so-called swing states or the dedicated Republican states, etc also behaved quite differently this year. For Obama's appeal cut across all these artificial dividing lines. By winning the staunchly Republican states like Virginia, Florida, Pennsylvania and Ohio, Obama just convincingly demonstrated that his call for change has touched the chord of real America that cannot be divided between the Blue and the Red, white and the black, the evangelical and so on. That is why US president-elect in his victory speech in Chicago could so confidently declare that the American people were one.
This cross-electoral-demographic appeal of Obama dealt the telling blow to the Arizona Senator McCain's hope for taking advantage of the various dividing lines in the US electoral landscape. So the Republic bastions like Virginia and India fell to the Obama onslaught.
There were doubts cast mainly by his opponent McCain that Obama was less experienced in the affairs of running the White House. His contender in Democratic Party Hilary Clinton did also speak in a similar vein during the fight for presidential nomination from the party. In truth, inexperience in statecraft is itself a term in contradiction in the present context, because none of the candidates who contested the US presidential polls this time, nor any one before them had any experience in presidency before they were really elected for the job, especially for the first time.
And, the secret of leadership is seldom measured by experience. Of course, experience is the vital ingredient for success in the fulfilment of any task, but experience alone does not make a leader. Holding the highest office of a country does not hinge only on experience. For it is useful after becoming what one has aimed to. But to become a president one has to have the dream, the will, the charm to sway the public and above all the quality of having the courage of one's conviction. Obama has proved that he has all these essential elements of leadership.
The patriotic issues like the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the war on terrorism, about which Obama has made his strong commitment, while his Republic opponent was so uncompromising, did not really play any deciding role on the psychology of the voters, who turned out in record numbers with 95 per cent of the black voters joining the queues at the polling booths.
On the economic front Obama's message is simple: he will fix the economy, create jobs for the people and increase tax to some of the attention of the economy from pandering to the rich speculators of the Wall Street to the other Americans who also have a legitimate claim to the opportunities that their great country holds out.
And, as the president-elect Barack Obama admitted in his victory speech the challenges his presidency will be facing some 75 days latter when he will be formally inaugurated as the president of the USA cannot be hoped to be solved in a single stroke.
In fact, Obama's test as the president will be far harder than most of his predecessors. For he will have to grapple with a devastated economy spiralling inexorably downwards under the weight of recession. Though it is not a problem of his own creation, but he will have to own it all the same. So, his will not be a run-of-the-mill one, doing only the routine tasks of presiding over an economy already running smoothly on its own. Now, he will have also to prove himself up to the task as did President Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR) during the Great Depression of 1930s or President Abraham Lincoln during the Civil War of the !860s. Leading a nation through a great crisis needs the qualities of statesmanship and wisdom.
It is hoped that Barack Obama as the 44th president of the United States of America will successfully pass the acid tests of leadership and under his captaincy his country will again restore its lost image and turn it again into a land of great opportunity and prosperity.
Barack Hussein Obama, the US senator from Illinois, who promised change to America during his entire electioneering campaign for the US presidency, in his victory speech addressing an adoring and emotional 125, 000-strong crowd on Tuesday finally announced from the Grant Park in downtown Chicago that the " change has come to America'.
The 47-year-old Obama is the first black person of African-American descent to become the president of world's mightiest nation, the United States of America.
Barack Obama's rise to the highest political office of America is simply mind-boggling. This is probably for the first time that the American presidential election created such excitement not only in the country where it was being held, but also all across the globe.
No doubt the previous US elections also did draw attention of the world. But that was simply because America is the most powerful as well as the richest nation on earth. So, who is going to dictate the course of events in America for at least the next four years, was of great strategic interest for the politicians, strategists, business houses, job and immigration-seekers in the rest of the world. But this time the US presidential polls held quite a different kind of interest, an interest with a deep emotional significance, for the common people of countries far away from America. In fact, the entire population in many such countries was watching the US election with a kind of emotional attachment that they usually show during their own elections or political changes at home. With Barack Obama becoming victorious in the US presidential election, people in many African and Asian countries cried and hugged one another and celebrated it as if the election was one of their own. Why is this strange emotional interest of the common people of other countries in the US election? Consider the African nation Kenya. The government of that country even declared public holiday on Thursday to celebrate the victory of Barack Obama as US president. Why is this apparent madness? For this is for the first time in history that the voters in US, a country where racism, religious orthodoxy and colour barrier is still rife, chose to place a non-white president in the White House.
The New York Times described Obama victory as "sweeping away the last racial barrier in American politics with ease..".
Barack Obama has swept into the highest political office of America with mainly the support of the younger voters below 45. The rainbow coalition that backed him comprised the young, the black, the independents, moderates, the women and the voters from the upwardly mobile middle class, the blue-collar workers and those who wanted a change from the runaway unfettered free market capitalism where the winner takes it all.
But an African-American running for the top office of the US political-administrative hierarchy did also expose the fault-lines of electoral landscape and the paradigm shift the just-held election implied. The polls result has shown that 55 per cent of the white male voters were still behind Obama's Republican opponent Arizona senator John McCain. Of the Electoral College votes, Obama has bagged 349 with his rival Republican trailing far behind at 162. But so far as the national popular votes were concerned, Democrat Obama enjoys the support of the 52 per cent of the Americans, whereas his opponent is following him at 47 per cent. Strangely though, he is ahead of his opponent by only a five per cent lead, which flies in the face of the prediction made by national tracking and opinion polls that said Obama will enjoy a lead ranging between eight to nine per cent over his opponent McCain. Some suspect it is due to the so-called Bradley effect that is demonstrated through the behaviour of the racially prejudiced voters, who hide their actual choice of candidate while responding to the interviewing pollsters.
Obviously the 2008's US presidential polls had its racial, religio-cultural, ethnic, gender-related, national and even trans-national dimensions. In this just-held US presidential polls 41 per cent of the white men and around 50 per cent of the white women and the independents cast their lot with first-ever black president of America. Most importantly, two-thirds of the young voters who were all for change voted for Obama irrespective of their faith, colour or racial background.
Obama's Republican opponent, on the other hand, was backed by the rather older citizens, the highly orthodox evangelical Christians and the Conservatives. It can be said that the Republican wave that started with Ronald Reagan in 1980 has finally been tamed with Democratic Obama voted into White House with a thumping victory.
The Obama phenomenon had also shattered the old straitjackets of the electoral demography of America which was apportioned between the Red and the Blue states. The so-called swing states or the dedicated Republican states, etc also behaved quite differently this year. For Obama's appeal cut across all these artificial dividing lines. By winning the staunchly Republican states like Virginia, Florida, Pennsylvania and Ohio, Obama just convincingly demonstrated that his call for change has touched the chord of real America that cannot be divided between the Blue and the Red, white and the black, the evangelical and so on. That is why US president-elect in his victory speech in Chicago could so confidently declare that the American people were one.
This cross-electoral-demographic appeal of Obama dealt the telling blow to the Arizona Senator McCain's hope for taking advantage of the various dividing lines in the US electoral landscape. So the Republic bastions like Virginia and India fell to the Obama onslaught.
There were doubts cast mainly by his opponent McCain that Obama was less experienced in the affairs of running the White House. His contender in Democratic Party Hilary Clinton did also speak in a similar vein during the fight for presidential nomination from the party. In truth, inexperience in statecraft is itself a term in contradiction in the present context, because none of the candidates who contested the US presidential polls this time, nor any one before them had any experience in presidency before they were really elected for the job, especially for the first time.
And, the secret of leadership is seldom measured by experience. Of course, experience is the vital ingredient for success in the fulfilment of any task, but experience alone does not make a leader. Holding the highest office of a country does not hinge only on experience. For it is useful after becoming what one has aimed to. But to become a president one has to have the dream, the will, the charm to sway the public and above all the quality of having the courage of one's conviction. Obama has proved that he has all these essential elements of leadership.
The patriotic issues like the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the war on terrorism, about which Obama has made his strong commitment, while his Republic opponent was so uncompromising, did not really play any deciding role on the psychology of the voters, who turned out in record numbers with 95 per cent of the black voters joining the queues at the polling booths.
On the economic front Obama's message is simple: he will fix the economy, create jobs for the people and increase tax to some of the attention of the economy from pandering to the rich speculators of the Wall Street to the other Americans who also have a legitimate claim to the opportunities that their great country holds out.
And, as the president-elect Barack Obama admitted in his victory speech the challenges his presidency will be facing some 75 days latter when he will be formally inaugurated as the president of the USA cannot be hoped to be solved in a single stroke.
In fact, Obama's test as the president will be far harder than most of his predecessors. For he will have to grapple with a devastated economy spiralling inexorably downwards under the weight of recession. Though it is not a problem of his own creation, but he will have to own it all the same. So, his will not be a run-of-the-mill one, doing only the routine tasks of presiding over an economy already running smoothly on its own. Now, he will have also to prove himself up to the task as did President Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR) during the Great Depression of 1930s or President Abraham Lincoln during the Civil War of the !860s. Leading a nation through a great crisis needs the qualities of statesmanship and wisdom.
It is hoped that Barack Obama as the 44th president of the United States of America will successfully pass the acid tests of leadership and under his captaincy his country will again restore its lost image and turn it again into a land of great opportunity and prosperity.