The speculation, whilst fantastic, is building a hype that it will be almost impossible to live up to. Should Obama win tonight (and I really hope to God he does), the world will not change overnight. Things will still be 90% the same. There are changes that will take place – if you’re black, you’ll have someone in the world’s top job, the king of the universe, a true role model and figure head that can raise the aspirations of those who might previously have felt a sense of supression. If you’re a left-wing thinker, you’ll be praying for a change in direction and you’ll get it. If you’re an American, you’ll have a sense of expectation that your current low sense of self-esteem will be lifted as a new dawn, er dawns, over the US of States. If he wins, I’m sure we’ll see the defeated candidate concede with grace and humility. McCain will tell his party to go away and refocus. Bush will echo those sentiment. Obama? Well, Obama will no doubt be pictured walking through the streets, shaking the hands of delighted citizens and promising a change to society.
Hmm, reminds me of something.
I don’t want to sound bitter before the fact. I think that an Obama victory would be a great thing for both the world and America. Particularly in that order. But I want everyone to have a sense of perspective and not start with low expectations, but realistic ones.
In the last few years, as Brits we’ve looked back on the Blair years with an unjustified sense of disappointment. Yes, there have been things that have been terrible – I don’t have to name them. But because of our expectations, because of our overwhelming sense that he was something new and wonderful that was going to change the world, our ability to judge his success and failure has been totally screwed.
Obama is going to change the world in some ways. And in other ways he won’t. He’ll still have to wrestle the political structures that exist in his own country and internationally. He’ll still have to operate within the boundaries of Americana – in that, his political outlook, like all politicians, to a great extent will be driven by the feelings and beliefs of the people of that country. And regardless of what he or anyone else thinks, he won’t be able to click his fingers and solve Israel/Palestine, stop his country’s dependency on oil or be able to remove his troops from the Middle East by the end of the week.
Let’s be excited but reasonable. Let’s be demanding but honest. And finally, let’s not set him up to fail. Because the current weight of expectation is far too much for anyone to bear.
Oh, and if McCain wins, it’s probably time to think about ethnic cleansing the bible belt.
(This last line is clearly just a joke. Please don’t get upset….)
Tags: american election, blair, mccain, obama, us election, voting
November 5, 2008 at 8:34 am |
Here here mate. I completely agree. However, I am currently taking down my Chris Akabusi, Mr. T and Desmonds cast posters and replacing them with those of big Barack. We all know to well the Dr Matrin Luther King speech, but I really don’t think in all honesty we thought that we would or could ever see that dream come true. “The Man” would always stop, oppress or assassinate the person or persons working, moving and spear-heading those changes. But now I really believe it can happen.
As you say it’ll not happen over night but I feel that my children will not have to fight to be treated equally. Will not have to listen to the phrase “I don’t like those (insert own racist/derogatry term) but your alright”! Its a far simpler dream that they will just be accepted for their merits and not have to work and prove theirself worthy to be judge equally, just to be seen as equal.
Lets hope that the nuts in rooms rubbing sniper rifles as I type this are stopped. In order to type this and to get the spelling half-way acceptable I had to type a few words into google inorder to check them (I know I probably should have typed more in) but when I typed ‘assassinate’ into google the first few selectione that popped up were assassinate Obama. Lets hope they are stopped and never succeed.
Well thats just my view for what its worth. Keep tha faith people, things may well get worse before they get better.