Barack Obama
It’s taken a couple of days to post this message to my blog but that isn’t because I couldn’t find the words, in fact I’ve had so many thoughts racing through my mind over the past few days the only doubt that I’ve got about writing this current post is that I might forget to write something of significance. I’m under no illusion that anybody is actually reading this blog but I’ve concluded that it is a good idea to put my thoughts down when my emotions are running riot, I hope I can convey through words what I really feel and the election win for Barack Obama encompasses everything I could have wished for, the significance of this victory is monumental and it represents a gigantic leap forward. I never wanted this election to be about the colour of a person’s skin, for me it was always about the real issues facing the world today and finding real and tangible ways to tackle the huge global problems that we are all facing right now. Everybody is analysing why Barack was victorious on November 4
th and naturally the colour of his skin has taken centre stage but I really don’t believe that he won because he is black – if you followed this campaign as closely as I did, and I suspect probably half the world did, you will know that Barack Obama rarely if ever mentioned the colour of his skin during the campaign, it wasn’t an issue for him and consequently it was never an issue for anybody else, including the much vaunted blue-collar middle class white man, in fact it was because he never made an issue of his race that I think is one reason why he did win the keys to the White House. The last credible black candidate to run for President was the Rev Jesse Jackson and I am sure the reason he failed in his bid was because he did make so much of the black struggle, and I fear that may have frightened off the majority of centrists in the country. Rev Jackson is a man I admire and respect and watching the tears fall down his face during Barack Obama’s victory speech last Tuesday night in Chicago was a very moving moment for everyone and I can’t help thinking it was at that moment that Rev Jesse Jackson handed the baton to the next generation in the form of Barack Obama. There are a hundred different reasons why Obama won and each has merit and validity but on a very pragmatic level I can’t help casting my mind back to the 1996 re-election campaign of President Clinton in search of the answer. During a campaign meeting in the White House of Bill and his top aids President Clinton quipped to everyone present to put forward what they thought were the most important policy successes of the previous four years to fight the election battle on, one of Clinton’s aids present in that room stood up and wrote seven words on the white board “Amongst other things, it’s the economy stupid” and that mantra, or at least the last four words of it have been repeated over and over at every election since, he was of course right in his assertion, it really is the economy and that played a very important role in sweeping Barack Obama to victory on Tuesday.
Other reasons will no doubt have played their part and Sarah Palin is an obvious nomination. It was a masterstroke of the Republican Party to put Mrs Palin on the ticket and she gave so much to the Democratic cause – Obama himself energised the electorate but Palin bought the Democratic vote out in huge numbers and for that I thank her sincerely, it is an overused line but she really was the gift that keeps on giving. In the aftermath of the Obama win there are of course many casualties too, the Republican Party itself now has to do some soul searching but I can’t help wondering if it really has the capacity to look inside itself in search of the answer – only today I heard a Republican voter in Texas on the news complain that the media are biased towards the liberal agenda, and I couldn’t help thinking to myself if that were true where were the media in 2000 and 2004 when George W. Bush won, and in 1984 and 1988 when Ronald Reagan was victorious – if the media really is biased towards the liberal agenda why is it the Republican Party have won more elections in the last century than the Democrats. This is a classic example of what is wrong with the Republican Party, and in many ways what is wrong with America — when things are going well, take the credit and when everything is falling apart, blame everyone except yourself.
Many words have been used over the past few days in an attempt to vocalise what the world has witnessed; historic, monumental, poignant, significant, extraordinary, epic and emotional to name a few, and in the context of the Obama win none of these are exaggerated or overused. Over the past decade America has had a tough time on the global stage; anti-American sentiment has swept the world and its easy to tie this emotion into the George W. Bush Presidency but we shouldn’t forget that President Bush was not responsible for that – I’m not about to be an apologist for President Bush, in fact I share the sentiment of the New York Post which has declared him the worst President in history, but we can get carried away with the blame game especially when the person we’re pointing the finger at is hated around the world to the extreme that he was. President Bush didn’t create anti-American feeling but he didn’t bring a halt to it either, and he so easily could have done if he had chosen different foreign policies. In fact this negative feeling towards America started back in the mid-nineties under President Clinton and he was one of the most popular Presidents in history so clearly the vitriol towards the United States was not because of the actions of any President but more a general perception of the way America portrays itself in the world, and it’s important to remember how the world accesses the information that when grouped together portray the image the outside world has of this country; Hollywood and movies play an important role because over ninety percent of films released at the cinema are rooted in Hollywood, politicians also contribute heavily because of the way the news travels the globe and American corporations play their part too because again American brands sit side-by-side with our own corporate identities, and if one word seems to repeat itself over and over whenever an outsider looks at any of these three entities in isolation, that word is trust, or lack of it. Hollywood forever exaggerates the truth or in many cases completely rewrites it in the hope of making America always look like the good guy, politicians are so insincere that onlookers can often be taken aback and left to wonder if the American public actually believe some of the stuff they’re being force-fed every day and the corporate brands are measured by financial gain instead of satisfied customers; the world looks on and thinks they like much of what America stands for but the message is diluted to the point where it’s meaningless, simply because nobody trusts anything that America says and instead of this shining beacon of democracy standing tall and proud on the global stage, we see a schoolboy bully who will lie and cheat to get his own way – a basic lack of respect and fairness towards the other kids in the school. September 11th 2001 was the culmination of, and a direct result of that very real and deep seated feeling in some parts of the world. It’s hard to admit this and hindsight is an important tool in my assessment but at its very core the events of September 11th were inevitable in many ways although that shouldn’t be misconstrued as an excuse for what happened, they never can be justified but with the passage of time to help look back on the past decade it does seem increasingly clear that the perception of America in the world played a very significant role in the attacks and it frustrates me now to think that they really could have been avoided. I’ve never liked war but the anger I felt after those attacks energised me in a way that had I been scripted to fight in Afghanistan I know I would have gone without questioning the morals of that war, but thankfully conscription no longer exists in this country and I was never brave enough to volunteer myself for a war, and furthermore had I been told instead I was about to be deployed to Iraq to fight a front which the Republican politicians claimed was somehow inextricably linked to the attack on the Twin Towers, I would sooner have gone to prison. It seemed at the time just as it does now that the whole world with the exception of the Republican Party and its core base never believed Iraq played any part in what happened on September 11th 2001 and as for weapons of mass destruction; I vividly remember a conversation I had with a colleague during the build up to the Iraq invasion that I wasn’t convinced Iraq even had WMD’s. If I’ve leant anything over this period it’s that I should trust my instincts.
The world now looks on to Barack Obama to take America into a different direction, the real work now begins and January 20th 2009 can’t come soon enough. George W. Bush is a lame duck President and baring another catastrophic event in the dying days of his administration, it feels satisfying to sit back and watch the current President sit out his final days safe in the knowledge that by the beginning of 2009 the world will let out a collective sigh and bid good riddance to the worst eight years quite possibly in the history of the world. The in-tray on Obama’s desk next year will be gargantuan and nobody is under any illusion the next President can glide into the Oval Office and sprinkle a handful of fairy dust over the world’s problems to make them go away – a very diligent and thoughtful approach is now in order to find real solutions to the problems facing America and the world, problems which are too great for one person alone but it is one person now with the weight of expectation on his shoulders and every nation now has a moral duty to hold out a hand of friendship to America, including those who have currently been perceived as enemy’s of the United States. We all have a huge stake in the success of President Obama and 2009 should be the catalyst to usher in a more considered century and one which finally puts an end to the inequalities and injustices in the world.
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