The world got the man it wanted
And so “the skinny kid with the funny name” is now President-elect of the United States. It is as momentous an occasion as the Berlin wall coming down. America elected as its President a black man whose middle name is Hussein, an accident of birth that could land anyone in the “no fly list”. Up until a week ago, there was reason to worry that America was not yet ready to make history.
Amidst the cheering of the crowd gathered at Chicago’s Grant Park to hear Barack Obama’s victory address, the rest of the world probably wondered why it took America so long to recognize this was the man America and the world needed. Way back in June, the Times of London had an article with a lead paragraph that read: “If Barack Obama was taking on John McCain in a global election he would already be on his way to the White House.”
A week ago, The Economist released the results of its Global Electoral College poll: Barack Obama won by a landslide. Some 52,000 readers of the magazine around the world who participated in its Global Electoral College favored the Democratic candidate over his Republican rival, John McCain, by a wide margin. As candidates collected delegates according to the countries won (just as America’s electoral-college system allocates delegates by state), Mr. Obama claimed 9,115 delegates, compared with a paltry 203 for Mr. McCain.
The Economist reported that Mr. Obama “quickly scooped support from readers in China, India and most of Europe, as well as from the United States itself. Mr. Obama won the backing of an overwhelming share of voters in 56 countries — including the likes of Canada, Britain, Germany, France, Italy, Indonesia and South Korea — claiming the support of 90 percent (or more) of those who voted.”
The world map was almost a monochromatic blue expressing strong support for Obama, including in the Philippines. The only exceptions were Iraq, Algeria, Cuba and Congo in favoring Sen. John McCain. The general result of this Global Electoral College poll may look lopsided, but it is not unexpected. Opinion polls including one carried by the BBC also revealed that Mr. Obama is the world’s overwhelming choice.
For a while this worldwide popularity of Mr. Obama appeared to be a handicap. The adulation Mr. Obama received in Berlin during his whirlwind European tour was used by the Republicans to backfire on the candidate. Some Americans complained about this intrusion in their internal affairs. But given the impact any American President has on lives all over this planet, everyone seems eager to claim the right to voice an opinion on who gets to have his finger in the nuclear button.
The world could hardly contain its enthusiasm for Mr. Obama. The Sun, a London tabloid reported Obama’s victory with a simple and enthusiastic headline: One giant leap for mankind! It also dumped its usual topless Page 3 girl in favor of a photo of Obama voting. A government spokesman in Germany described him as a “mixture of Martin Luther King and John F. Kennedy”. In France, he is, in the words of Jack Lang, the former Socialist Culture Minister, “the America we love... the youth and racial mix of an America under transformation and in movement”.
Obama’s election last Tuesday truly opens a new chapter in America’s march towards the ideal of being the land of opportunity for all. The New York Times quoted British historian Tristram Hunt: Mr. Obama “brings the narrative that everyone wants to return to — that America is the land of extraordinary opportunity and possibility, where miracles happen.”
Jay Leno probably said it best some weeks ago: “Senator Barack Obama was in Los Angeles last night for a huge campaign fundraiser. That shows you what a great country this is — when an African-American with a (white) Kansas mother and a (black) Kenyan father, who spent time growing up in Indonesia and is running for president, spending time in a state where Spanish-speaking people have elected an Austrian governor.”
Raised to adulthood by his white grandparents in Hawaii, Barack Obama couldn’t have been more different from many Americans who, in their lifetimes, hardly stray too far from the towns they were born. Though he came from a family of modest means, Obama was able to study in the best Ivy League schools using sheer talent and determination to realize his vision of what he wants to accomplish. From today, every boy and girl growing up in America from any social class or ethnicity can look up at him and know they too can be whatever they dream they want to be.
Obama’s victory signals a generation shift in America’s leadership. You can’t seek the highest office and admit you don’t know how to surf the Internet or use Google. Obama’s message of hope and change resonated well with the young. My children are brand new citizens of America and they identified with him. My son told me he even contributed to the Internet-based fund raising effort of Mr. Obama not just once. He voted in a Democratic primary for Americans abroad while he was studying in England. He also spent money to FedEx his vote from Singapore. My daughter mailed her vote for Mr. Obama from Silicon Valley three weeks ago. They are thrilled to be part of this historic event in their adopted country.
And so the world got the man we wanted for the job. And Mr.
Obama reassured the world in his victory speech that “a new dawn of American leadership is at hand.” Then again, the world never doubted him. The world has embraced him like no other American candidate for President ever. The world has taken Obama at his word and signed up with his voyage for change before he convinced his fellow Americans.
A survey of 24,000 people in 24 countries by the Pew Global Attitudes Project shows that around the world, people who follow the US election express more confidence in Barack Obama than in John McCain to do the right thing regarding world affairs. McCain is rated lower than Obama in every country surveyed, except for the United States where his rating matches Obama’s, as well as in Jordan and Pakistan where few people have confidence in either candidate.
The survey also found a widespread belief that US foreign policy “will change for the better” after the inauguration of a new American president next year. The survey hinted that a world that has for the past eight years held anti-American attitudes may be prepared to warm up to the US.
Last Tuesday, the world heaved a deep sigh of relief that “the long nightmare is over” borrowing words Gerald Ford uttered as he took over the US presidency from Richard Nixon in the wake of the Watergate scandal. The world saw during the George W Bush years a face of America not much different from a schoolyard bully as it unilaterally rejected previous American commitment on the Kyoto climate change agreement and invaded Iraq on the false pretense of that country supposedly having weapons of mass destruction.
The New York Times summed it up: “Mr. Obama’s election offers most non-Americans a sense that the imperial power capable of doing such good and such harm — a country that, they complain, preached justice but tortured its captives, launched a disastrous war in Iraq, turned its back on the environment and greedily dragged the world into economic chaos — saw the errors of its ways over the past eight years and shifted course.”
This incoming president is facing a great burden of expectations. There is a crippling world recession to address and the mess of George W Bush to clean up in the Middle East. All these and more will demand creative solutions as soon as he steps into the White House. He will also have to show an early shift of policy to multilateralism in addressing global problems.
Much has been said about his ability to answer that 3 a.m. call and his ability to manage the large American bureaucracy, given his supposedly thin resume. But if he manages the affairs of America and the world with such thoughtful yet ruthless efficiency as he did his campaign, we can rest in the thought that indeed, the American people made the right decision last Tuesday not just for themselves but for the world.
The world got the man it wanted | The Philippine Star - News - Business
