Obamania

From time to time, just when it seems they have run out of the world’s goodwill, America pulls a surprise out of the bag — and the world is once more in love with the American Way.

They did that at the onset of the Sixties when Americans elected John F. Kennedy, signaling a break from the dreary fifties and subdivision of the globe into two warring camps. Kennedy gathered the intelligentsia around the White House, spoke hopefully about human progress and a kinder community.

When he was assassinated, the world wept together, perhaps for the first time. It was as if the loss of this bright young leader was for all humanity to bear.

Late into that eventful decade, a world weary with the Vietnam war and torn apart by the radical ideologies that flourished then was again enthralled: the US had landed men on the moon. At the dawn of satellite broadcasting, that was a magical moment the whole world shared, Neil Armstrong announcing a small step for man and a giant leap for mankind.

In the seventies, many developing nations were in the grip of autocracies. In the middle of that decade, the American people elected Jimmy Carter to the presidency. His handling of domestic policies might have been mediocre; but Carter firmly stood for human rights everywhere. He brought hope to the dark and damp cells that kept hundreds of thousands of political prisoners around the world.

In the eighties, most of the world’s major economies were stagnating and the Cold War had settled into a deep freeze. Americans elected Ronald Reagan to the presidency, assenting to policies of deregulation that many saw as a “revolution”. It was a policy movement echoed in many countries, paving the way to the reinvention of capitalism. At the end of that decade, the Berlin Wall came down and the Cold War dissipated.

And how could we leave out September 11, 2001? One bright morning, international terror showed us its new, more terrifying form. As the American people rushed to rescue the injured and bury their dead, gather to defend a homeland attacked for the very first time on such a scale, the rest of the horrified world quickly expressed solidarity with the US.

Last November, with two inconclusive wars still in progress and the world gripped in the downward spiral of a financial crisis, American elected Barack Obama to the presidency. And the world has simply fallen in love with the man.

Attribute it to the new communications technologies that allow mankind to share grief and fear, joy and celebration in real time. Attribute it to the charismatic politician who has brought in a new type of political discourse: one that transcends race and ideology, that is pragmatic and hopeful, that seems to make change not only definable but also achievable.

Or, attribute it to the confluence of events: a crisis shared by all countries and a leader who seems to be able to communicate without boundaries. His discourse was beyond race and, as we now see from the global response, beyond nation.

He had ran a campaign that was at once sweeping and personal: making full use of the new communications technologies to inspire large crowds and individual volunteers spread across an expanse that was at once broad and invisible. It was a campaign that used the mass media as skillfully as it used the new media. Rare it is to find a man who can communicate effectively with speeches delivered to tens of thousands in a stadium, do as well on television and then, just as effectively on podcasts and text messaging.

Three million people crammed the National Mall in Washington D.C., many of them traveling for days to be an anonymous face in a mammoth crowd. But that is not what is truly impressive: billions of people around the world watched the proceedings, feeling they were truly part of the celebrations. And the hopefulness.

This was a spectacle unprecedented in its reach, its impact and in its profoundly unifying themes. The Obama inauguration theme was Renewal of America’s Promise — one that resonates not only with the American people but with the world’s.

At no time, it seems, have so many people felt that America has let the world down. It has badly managed its financial affairs and the financial crisis resulting from that still sends shockwaves every day across the globe. The war in Afghanistan, most of us supported. The war in Iraq polarizes opinion.

At no time, as well, have so many people felt that we need America desperately. We need America to rise from economic weakness so that her market can again propel global growth. We need America’s diplomacy to reemerge, to help bring peace to the Middle East. We need America’s leadership to rally all of us to solve global problems: environmental degradation, the AIDS epidemic, and all that.

For decades, it has been fashionable to fault America: for its wastefulness, for its bullying, sometimes for its stupidity. But over those same decades, we all have realized that when America is weak the rest of the world cannot be strong.

Barack Obama — a technophile, a man of color, a politician of soaring rhetoric — brings a refreshing new look into what is possible in the world we share.

At a time when there seems to be a surfeit of despair, Obama personifies that gnawing suspicion that the world could be a better place — but only if it is better led. And so the world clings to him: the most eloquent interpreter, not of our time, but how this time could transform. How America could become a better nation. How the world could transfigure closer to how we dreamt it might be.

Those who fret that the expectations on the man could be too large. He could not, after all, walk over water.

But we all desperately need to imagine him to be greater that he could possibly be. For our own sake.