Yes, We Can..!!!

Well, for the most this week when ever I had managed to get my hands on the newspaper or watched TV, one man has been all over the news i.e., Barack Hussein Obama. I could not lay more emphasis on his name than this (Forget about the fact his name rhymes with Osama, there were even jokes linking him to Osama). Four years ago, no body could have dreamt that a man with a Muslim middle name, who is black with a Kenyan father who had spent his childhood in Indonesia, could be posted to the most powerful job in the world. Obama has many firsts to his name; the first black man to get presidential ticket nomination from any party in the US, the first black man to be elected has the president of US. The roots of his success were laid four decades ago. If it were not for a fifteen-year-old school girl, Claudette Colvin who refused to get down from the bus for a white man, Martin Luther King would not have launched the civil disobedience moment against discrimination against blacks. If Martin Luther hadn’t delivered the famous “I have a dream “ speech which made , then the President Lyndon Johnson sign the Civil Rights Act which outlawed the racial segregation, Obama would not have been able to run for the US Presidency. The Neo Conservatives always define a typical American to be a white educated Christian with a catholic background. By electing a black president Americans, have shattered their own myth. This is very relevant to India, where I find so many people have an obsession to look white. Especially those face cream ads in TV where a dark skinned woman always looses and the white colored woman is always looked upon as a winner. I consider those ads racially demeaning that try to create an inferiority complex among women. What’s even worse is people falling for those Ads, buying these products. I guess things like this happen only in India.

Coming back to the point, it’s had to picture someone like Obama in India, a young charismatic leader running for a top post (unless you happen to be son or daughter of politician i.e. the Gandhi family). But politicians here are always 60 and above clinging onto power. What’s even more amazing about this win is he was pitted against a heavy weight such as Hilary Clinton, a former first lady in the Democratic nomination. He has pretty much run a flawless campaign to white house. After eight years of George W Bush whose approval rating at all time low of 22% , the lowest for any US President ( the should start calling those ratings has disapproval ratings, they are that bad) , the change has finally happened. More than anything, what swung the Americans in his favor is his message of change. He had to break the myth of a stereo typed vision of a black man and also appeal to the whites at the same time. “Yes, we can “slogan will be probably go down in history books along with best speeches of Lincoln, FDR and Kennedy.

There are few things here that may worry me as an Indian. He has promised taxes for those companies that outsource jobs to other countries and tax breaks for those that create jobs in US. Not so good news for the job I do. But given the fact, US economy going into recession, companies swinging into cost cutting initiatives, I doubt how successful this would prove to be. There too many things right about his views, for me to let the above issue bother me. We finally have a US President who believes in Global warming and the need to cut green house gases (Mind you the US is the biggest polluter in the world), agrees that Iraq was a bloody mess, wants to concentrate his efforts on where it is required i.e. Afghanistan. Before he can do this all, his immediate task would be to resurrect the falling American economy. When the US economy sneezes, the rest of the world catches cold. Hopefully, he will be able to deliver on the change he promised (It would take a lot of gibberishes, to beat George Bush’s in his disapproval ratings). Most of all America is a changed nation after Nov 4th; there aren’t too many countries in the world that would allow a minority to lead the nation. As Obama himself put it in his midnight victory speech “If there is anyone out there who still doubts that America is a place where all things are possible; who still wonders if the dream of our founders is alive in our time; who still questions the power of our democracy, tonight is your answer..!!!” . At last, the change is here.

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