Barack Obama is the ultimate symbol of the American Dream

by Felix Ngasama

When Barack ObamaBarack Obama announced his candidacy for the US Presidency, many people including respected political pundits dismissed him as another black loser too ambitious beyond his ability.

One blog even featured an anti-Obama article titled “Why Barack Obama will not be the first black president?”

The article’s emphasis on Barack Obama's racial profile as a black man and how his blackness would make him lose his way or simply cause him to be out-witted during the race along the winding road to the White House was just one example of a jaundiced view against Obama’s candidacy.

Fast forward to 4 November 2008 and 20 January 2009, and it goes without saying how the article’s author got it all wrong.

Barack Obama has just been inaugurated as the 44th President of the United States of America, his blackness or darker shade of white notwithstanding. Obama has not just won the US presidential election but he has surpassed former White House candidates in many areas of his presidential campaign.

The way he accessed voters including the youth through text messages via mobile phones and Facebook, his oratory flair, the unprecedented global fascination and support that he enjoyed then and still enjoys now, and the colossal attendance of his inauguration are just some of the examples that put Obama’s presidential candidacy, successful campaign and subsequent inauguration unparalleled.

It was very clear from the outset that part of Barack Obama's brilliant election campaign strategy was to remain black but campaign 'colourlessly'. Obama knew that he already had the African-American vote and therefore he did not need to promote his blackness to black Americans to identify with them and win their votes. Nor did he need to transfix white voters to his darker shade of white lest they got blinded by racism and gave their votes to their fellow white. Needless to say he campaigned without highlighting his skin colour among both black and white voters.

Instead Obama shrewdly analysed American politics and realised that America was on a downward spiral with a faltering influence internationally, an economy that was facing recession and a foreign policy that was hatching more enemies than friends thus endangering American citizens both at home and abroad as targets of hatred and terrorism.

Obama was clever enough to realise that for the past 20 consecutive years - a socially, economically and politically yo-yo period in America – the US has been ruled alternatively by the Bush and Clinton families whose administration over those years contributed to bring down the country to its current economic quagmire, costly wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and international hatred.

After correctly analysing the American political situation, Obama went to analyse the current American psyche just as accurately. He saw that American people wanted change and he embraced “CHANGE” as the impetus of his campaign message.

Indeed Hilary Clinton was a formidable challenge to Barack Obama but astute as he is, Obama highlighted to the Democrats how by endorsing her, they would not be ushering in change but merely sending another Clinton to the White House and creating a Clinton dynasty in addition to the Bush dynasty that they had already created. Americans who were hungry for change started eating from Barack Obama’s hand and rejected Hilary Clinton as their Democratic presidential candidate. Obama emerged as the Democratic contender for the US presidency.

The contest for the Democratic Party’s ticket between Barack Obama and Hilary Clinton was the main battle – more like a final election outcome indicator. Hilary was much more a fierce challenge to Barack Obama than John McCainJohn McCain the Republican old chap.

Obama wasted no time in identifying John McCain’s weakness and quickly highlighted it to the American voters that John McCain was just another Bush, thanks to McCain’s support of George BushGeorge Bush’s policies and associating himself with religious extremists such as Pastor John HageeJohn Hagee who endorsed him.

McCain the so called maverick even went to the White House to seek George Bush’s endorsement and saying afterwards, “Well, I am very much honoured and humbled to have the opportunity to receive the endorsement of the President of the United States, a man who I have great admiration, respect and affection (for)”.

The majority of voters realised that electing John McCain was akin to giving Bush, the most unpopular president in American history another term, a third term. The voters realised that the old chap, John McCain, was not the change they were looking for and down McCain went, rejected. Obama finally won the US presidential election to an unprecedented resounding global celebration from major cities and towns to villages and hamlets in forgotten corners of the world.

In modern times with the world becoming smaller and forging into one global village, global leadership has become colour-blind. It is therefore myopic to judge a person’s leadership abilities or chances to succeed by the colour of their skin.

Last year Barack Obama was given no chance but today he has been given a set of keys to the White House and Oval Office, the most powerful seat in the world. Obama has proved wrong all armchair critics, pseudo-analysts and cynical political pundits who did not give him a chance and may they have a great feast of their own unpalatable words.

In 1901, Booker T Washington - a freed slave - was the first black person to visit the White House as a guest of the then President Theodore RooseveltTheodore Roosevelt. White Americans felt disgusted and protested vehemently against a black man visiting the White House. Today we have witnessed both black and white Americans sending a black man and his family to the White House not just to visit but to live there and lead their great nation.

Symbolically, Barack Obama’s election to the White House choreographed the whole world to tap-dance together with the United States in celebration. For a moment the United States, a country notorious for being the bully of the world and therefore generally hated, enjoyed the support of almost the entire world.

Barack Obama might be the architect of America’s own version of Pax Romana if his inaugural speech is anything to go by. In his speech he highlighted non-partisan unity and proclaimed “an end to petty grievances and false promises, the recriminations and worn out dogmas that for far too long have strangled our politics” and that the decayed or hackneyed partisan political arguments that have consumed the US for so long no longer apply.

Having proclaimed his domestic vision of the rebirth of America in his inaugural speech, Obama hinted on his foreign policy through a veiled condemnation of his predecessor’s violation of American ideals such as the rule of law and rights of man with his (George Bush’s) indiscriminate use of force for the sake of expedience when defending the US from its enemies. Obama proclaimed to foreign nations that, guided by these ideals as drafted by America’s founding fathers, he will seek greater cooperation and understanding between nations as opposed to bullying tactics. Obama hinted an era of old friends and former foes with whom he will work tirelessly together to deal with the problems affecting the world. He singled out the Muslim world – America’s thorn in the flesh - and promised to “seek a new way forward based on mutual interest and mutual respect”.

Can Obama use his envisaged American Pax Romana as an example to positively and constructively influence the world at large? Yes he can!

As the real work starts for Barack Obama, his success or failure may depend on the patience or impatience of the American people who put him on the throne with great expectations. As he gets down to face the task at hand and clean up the huge mess left behind by Bush, he will, no doubt, be more watched by Americans and the world than an average Big Brother housemate.

Obama has proved to all and sundry that the American Dream is not just an “Alice in Wonderland” kind of fairy tale. Indeed the American Dream is real and has its own symbol. That symbol is Barack Obama the 44th and fist black president of the United States of America.