With an Obama Presidency, Perhaps We Can

The election of a truly multicultural president, a symbolic reflection of the United States as a nation and the world as a whole, resulted in worldwide celebration. Kenya, the birthplace of Barack Hussein Obama’s father, announced a national holiday upon his election. In Washington DC police officers and firefighters danced in the streets with hundreds of thousands of elated supporters late into the night. As Amy Goodman said in a recent report, “You could almost hear the world’s collective sigh of relief.”

This historic election not only relieved many who were starting to wonder whether integrity had been lost. It also rekindled a people’s movement in the United States, and reactivated a nationwide drive for social, political, and economic change that is so desperately needed. It unified otherwise disintegrated causes and resulted in an unprecedented level of grassroots organizing, although blatantly ignored by a complacent mainstream media.

The Obama Administration will inherit the unenviable task of righting the wrongs of eight years of the Bush Administration. Two full-blown wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, a widening wealth gap and subsequent injustices, a criminal corporate elite, an energy crisis and a toxic environment, a media oligarchy, and a paranoid security narrative that has resulted in the steady decay of diplomatic relations and the utter destruction of civil liberties.

While many are suspicious of Obama’s accommodating rhetoric, it is clear that he is a far cry from the current US president. During the Democratic Primary Debate on July 23, 2007, Obama was asked the question, “Would you be willing to meet separately, without precondition, during the first year of your administration, with the leaders of Iran, Syria, Venezuela, Cuba and North Korea?” He answered, “I would. And the reason is this: the notion that somehow not talking to countries is punishment to them--which has been the guiding diplomatic principle of this administration--is ridiculous. . . I think that it is a disgrace that we have not spoken to them.”

In terms of security, Obama has consistently called for the need to abide by international treaties for human rights, including the Geneva Conventions. He has called for the closing of Guantanamo Bay, but has not mentioned the equally notorious Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan. Concerning nuclear weapons, in his speech in Berlin he said, “It is time to secure all loose nuclear materials; to stop the spread of nuclear weapons; and to reduce the arsenals from another era. This is the moment to begin the work of seeking the peace of a world without nuclear weapons.”

However, some remain cautious of this type of humanitarian American leadership. As journalist John Pilger recently said in an interview on Democracy Now!, “I think there have to be critical analyses of the return to the pretention of America as a peacemaker around the world. We had to endure this, and I mean endure it during the Clinton years, and I don’t think we in the rest of the world have to endure it now through the Obama years.”

For those of us around the world who work diligently to implement the capacity for societies to transform conflict before they manifest in violence (direct and otherwise), let us proceed with hope and vigilance. The United States stood blatantly exposed for eight dangerous years, and we are not to forget the “fire in the belly” as Ralph Nader calls it, in reaction to its consistently cruel and unjust behavior. This was not simply the behavior of a single administration. It was not confined to the behavior of a corrupt political party. Nor was it reservedly the behavior of a ruling elite. The dangerous arrogance we witnessed surfaced from a sick system, full of structural injustice, which needs to be addressed and radically changed. With an Obama Administration, perhaps “we can “~ but first civil society must keep up the pressure and accept responsibility. We all have blood on our hands.