Obama won!! Of course, the whole world knows this, celebrated this, prayed for this, and is now recoiled in anticipation for great things to happen. Why shouldn’t the world expect great things from the “greatest” country?

It has been a long and grueling and often unsightly campaign, to say the least. Twenty-four months of obsessive focus on two parties, billions of dollars on advertisements, untold hours of media spin that never really hit the spot of where people want to be, and, yet, despite all of the foibles and glitches and warts, Obama won!! As people, it may not be pretty, and it may not even be democratic, but that is their system, and Obama won!!

I am happy that he won. He is clearly a likable, brilliant, charismatic guy. He is a loving dad, and that counts for a lot. He has much to offer. He knows and likes the world. He has said some interesting things about working to make the US a force of good.

In one of my initial postings, I argued that Obama could not win because many White people would not vote for him. I was wrong. Many White people did vote for him.

However, many White people did not vote for him. There is an urban-rural division in the US. It mirrors the religious-secular cleavage. To say that there are no racial tones left to any segment of US hegemony would be naïve. But today is a day to rejoice that Obama won. The contrary would have been nothing short of a catastrophe.

A few thoughts on the election. With so much attention paid to the unprecedented, unparalleled lines of voters, I was expecting the voter-participation rate to be 80-90%. The final tally: a mere 65%, only 1% higher than in 2004. The total number of youths participating only increased by 1%. Question: what happened to the other 35% of the population? Why do so few people choose to engage in elections in the US (or in Canada, for that matter)?

Is it really democracy when the message is so filtered and trite and infused with ridiculous overtones of what a plumber thinks about Israel’s military prowess (as in Joe the Plumber’s entrée onto the scene).

It is impressive that every country in the world, with the exception of Albania for some strange reason (see http://www.iftheworldcouldvote.com/), passionately supported Obama. And this is where the mysterious disconnection between reality and fiction hits the pavement. McCain came very close to winning. In fact, if he had taken a couple of more states, with the bizarre electoral college formula, he could have won, even with less votes than Obama.

This will be Obama’s challenge, to persuade Americans to see peace, not war, to embrace those around the world, not to fear them, to push for a more meaningful, critical and engaged educational experience, not one that stretches the limits of utopian positivistic intestinal turmoil, and to understand that the United States should neither consider nor venture out there, in the ozone, alone as if others don’t matter. Shooting from the hip in movies is great but less desirable when real humans are involved.

The United States has over 700 military bases in one hundred countries, expending an enormous amount of capital and goodwill everywhere. Will Obama attempt to transform the militarization of US society into a force of peace and goodwill? Will he eliminate the military option?

I hope that Obama will move quickly on health care, on the redistribution of wealth, on reducing the military, and, especially, on making education a cornerstone of social justice, development and participatory democracy. If he waits, the task will become more difficult.

The international feeling toward the US is palpable. Gestures of good will be welcomed with tremendous affection and reciprocity. And, it goes without saying, foreign policy should not start and stop with… Iraq. What about Africa?

Obama will have his hands full trying to balance the traditions and values of the US political class. Being able to meet the people where they are, the masses who want change, not the elites who prescribe, in detail, how Wall Street, the War Room, and NASA are to be run, will be key.

Seeing the reaction of so many African Americans visibly moved by the reality an African-American is now President was heartfelt. May the US wish to support him as he articulates what change means.

One could almost sense that the page has been turned. It is difficult to be too critical and intro-/retro-spective today, knowing that the glass is, I hope, more half full and half empty.

Peace

Paul