We Can Hope Again and be Courageous Enough to Embrace Change

On November 5, 2008, Barack Obama, the 47 year old son of an African from Kenya and a White American, was declared the 44th President-Elect of the most powerful country in the world, the United States of America. When he was born in 1961, black people did not even have the vote; if his Kenyan dad had been an American, he would not have been able to vote. How could it be more just, that in the year celebrating the 40th anniversary of the assassination another African American icon, Martin Luther King Jr, the first ever black President of the US was elected? Just imagine a black couple and their two girls in the White house, not mowing the lawns or as ‘selected’ advisers holding office through patronage, but as elected President and his family occupying the Oval Office, the West Wing and the buck stopping at his table!

But the election of Obama has too many symbolisms not just for America or Africa, but for the whole world. Across the world many people felt connected to him and able to claim him for their own dreams of a better world.

There are many angles to look at this victory from and hopefully, barring the assassin’s bullet, we will have four or even eight years to judge this captivating personality against performance. Today is for celebration of the possibilities and the ways in which the campaign and the candidate has touched so many people.

One: it is a victory for all mothers, especially those in circumstances that have forced them to raise their children alone. It is a victory for family, in the broader sense of the word, not the very narrow and increasingly narrower nuclearism of the West and the middle classes globally. Here was a man raised by his maternal grandparents and from all accounts, was given love, emotional security and the confidence to believe he could beat the best in a world that set limitations of race and class on his ambitions. Can you imagine how challenging it must have been to raise a mix raced kid in the 1960s? It is a shame that his grandmother was not able to hold out to see the promise come through. It must touch Obama most deeply too that neither his father nor mother whose ‘forbidden love’ that gave life to him were alive to see this great moment. It is prove that Love across all kinds of divide is not wrong.

Two: in a world lacking in visionary and inspiring leaders, Obama’s message of hope and ‘yes we can’ resonates with the frustration of the young and all marginalised peoples; that they can do better for themselves and are not hopeless or powerless if they get organised.

Three: American democracy has been described as ‘the best democracy money can buy’. While it is true and this election is by far the costliest ever in the US, the balance was shifted in favour of ordinary people. Money was traditionally seen as in the big corporations and financial houses, special interests but Obama‘s faith in the ordinary people who donated their $5, $10 and many not more than $100, into a formidable movement and force buoyed by his vision, eloquently carried across the length and breadth of the world and echoed across the world, thanks to the new information technology bringing ‘unyielding hope’ to many.

Four: in a cynical world, dominated by a ‘me me’ ideology of greed from which decades of neo-liberalism decreed TINA (There is No Alternative) Obama made ‘change’ relevant and inspired millions to believe that business should not and cannot continue as usual. So successful was he, that even his opponent became a candidate for both of them effectively repudiating Bush’s legacy of right wing extremism. It is a triumph of Obama‘s possible change and McCain not being seen as that believable change agent that won it for Obama.

Five: the pride that Kenyans and other Africans and peoples of the world take in Obama’s candidacy and victory is not just the fact of his partial African ancestry, but the potential for it to inspire a new way of playing politics in our own countries where candidates may be judged ‘not by the colour of their skin’ or their ethnic or religious or other social affiliation, but as Martin Luther King put it, ‘by the content of their character’.

As we celebrate Obama’s victory we should also look inwards to see the possibilities: A White South African could be president of South Africa or a white Zimbabwean could be elected President of Zimbabwe : A black Sudanese, elected president of a united Sudan or an Asian-Kenyan President of Kenya.

Six: Obama becoming President of America, does not mean that racism has ended in America or the poor will suddenly become rich, but that they will be able to count on the listening ear of someone they trust, who understands their plight because he has experienced some of it. The gracious and dignified way he accepted his victory makes him a better man and human being.

Finally: Obama’s Presidency does not mean that the US will suddenly be at peace with the rest of the world, but that there is hope that his administration will stop treating the rest of us as tenants and listen to other peoples and take their interests and sensitivities seriously, ushering in a real multilateralism, as opposed to the unilateralism of the Bush years. It may be Good Morning again not just for America but potentially the whole world.

Dr. Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem is the Deputy Director of the UN Millennium Campaign in Africa, based in Nairobi, Kenya. He writes this article in his personal capacity as a concerned Pan-Africanist

If you would like to post a reply to Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem or Justice Africa about this article, please visit www.justiceafrica.org and click on the latest Thursday Postcard

“Forward ever, backward never”…..Kwame Nkrumah (1909 – 1972)

………………DON’T AGONISE!…………………..ORGANISE!!…………….

This entry was posted on Friday, November 7th, 2008 at 3:56 pm and is filed under Thursday Postcard. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.