The Weight of Hope
It always happens at 4am.
In November 2000, lying in bed, listening to the radio (France Inter as I recall- I was living in France), we hear the news that Florida, earlier called for Al Gore, is back in the “too close to call” category. Two weeks later, the U.S. Supreme Court effectively declares George W. Bush the victor in Florida, and therefore the new President.
It’s hard to remember what the world was like in 2000… Guantanamo Bay was still an obscure footnote of history and geography. Most peoples’ internet connections ran at 56k. The founder of Facebook was still in high school. The World Trade Center was just another pair of skyscrapers in Manhattan. At 4am on November 5th, 2000, there was no clue as to how fateful that presidential victory would be.
Cut to 4am in Birmingham, November 5th 2008. Lying in bed, listening to the radio. The BBC have just called Virginia for Obama. They’re about to cross to London for a news bulletin, when Jim Naughtie announces that the West Coast polls have closed: Oregon, California and Washington are falling into the Democrat’s column. With 293 electoral college votes, Barack Obama is the new President.
In the ensuing hours, journalists try to write history off-the-cuff. First black president. The end of Reagan-era politics. McCain’s majority in Montana cut to 17,000. A re-drawing of the political map.
But he punditry sounds clumsy when faced with the image of the Reverend Jesse Jackson, in tears as he awaits the president-elect’s arrival at Grant Park. No other western [Correction - industrialised] country has ever elected a member of an ethnic minority as head of state. “I Am – Somebody” indeed.
But there are still fears. Can Obama ever live up to the huge expectation – that enormous weight of hope – that has accumulated around his candidacy?
Obama’s victory is an obvious milestone in American civil rights – and yet last night California, Florida and Arizona passed consitutional bans on gay marriage.
Given the burden of vested interests at home and overseas, how much reform is truly possible? How much does Obama actually represent “change”? His platform is moderate – he doesn’t represent the radical agenda that some have ascribed to him. By world standards, Obama is more John Major than Hugo Chavez.
We can’t really tell at this point what an Obama presidency will bring. We don’t know what the world will be like 4 years’, 8 years’ time. All we do know is that Barack Obama is the best hope we have right now. On behalf of the 95% of us on the planet who aren’t Americans, America has made the right choice and that fact is worth celebrating.
*Photo credits – Getty/AP
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‘No other western country has ever elected a member of an ethnic minority as head of state.’ Not quite true…. For example, how about Perú’s Alberto Fujimori (1990)? And Bolivia? (Dare I say) South Africa? France’s Sarkozy? (I might not be helpful by pointing out that Napoleon was Corsican and Stalin Georgian….)
[...] The Weight of Hope [...]
Hi Kaishu, good to hear from you! Your point is well taken, and I’m willing to be corrected.
The point I was trying to make is that someone of non-European ancestry (especially black/asian) has not been elected as head
of state/head of government in Europe or Australasia.
The basis of my claim was “western country” and “elected”.
1. I concede my use of the term “Western” was lazy and misapplied. I should have said “developed” or “industrialised”. By most definitions Perú and Bolivia are still “developing” countries.
2. Napoleon and Stalin were certainly members of ethnic minorities but I think we’d agree they were not elected in any meaningful manner.
3. Sarkozy is a moot point… the French-born son of Hungarian immigrants… I’d say that because he’s white European he may not quite count as belonging to a minority. (The French republic officially doesn’t recognise any ethnic minorities anyway, unless you happen to find yourself on the wrong end of a police truncheon.)
If I’ve displayed narrow Eurocentrism I plead guilty as charged.
Sorry for my nit-fisking (and subsequent unconsidered rambling here). I agree with the general sentiment in your post, actually…. Though I am not sure if Obama’s policies are more Major than Chávez; Obama seems firmly in the centre-left. As a supporter of all sensible Green parties in the world, his win actually made the work harder for the Greens stateside for the next 4 years if not beyond, and this is a Good Thing, I think, in the non-partisan consideration. By the way, it has been quite interesting to see the Establishment worldwide trying to co-opt him and tone him down, even just hours after his election.
Don’t apologise for the nit-picking: it’s good to be challenged and to know somebody actually READS the posts
The Greens in the US seem a bit lost. George Kenney at Electric Politics has some interesting interviews about the challenges there (type “green party” into his search widget). Partly I think that this is a result of the two-party system in the US: because Green candidates have little chance of being elected on their own ticket, they are forced into an alliance of compromise with the Dems. The chance of serious electoral reform (eg. proportional representation) in the US is laughably remote – as in the UK. With a moderate leftist in the White House, it’ll be interesting to see if the US Greens are able to differentiate themselves from Obama’s positions. Somehow I think it’ll take a new leader – not Nader – to pull them out of the mire.
In addition, Green concerns traverse traditional left/right divide. I’m not sure that most media outlets are quite ready to deal with the nuance involved there.
BTW, watch out for the results of the NZ general election this Saturday to see how the NZ Green Party fare… although the likely result is a conservative-led government, the Greens are on track on current polling data to be the 3rd largest party in parliament
8 seats for the Greens, and total wipe-out for NZ First. Yay!