Run, Barack, Run
By Oh Young-jin
Assistant Managing Editor
Looking back at the past eight years under President Bush, now that the United States is about to elect its new president, the world has a case to make to American voters.
No offense is intended to Americans and their right to choose their leader is duly respected but, taking a glance at how the Bush presidency has changed the world, the rest of the planet is justified to plead for them to select the right leader this time or let us veto their chosen one.
Absurd as it may sound considering the current nation-state structure and sensitivities involving sovereignty, but national borders are losing their literal meaning with one's action affecting just about everybody else in this highly connected global village. With great power comes great responsibility.
Many cases show what a mess the world is in right now as a consequence of action and inaction by the U.S. _ the Iraq war and angry Muslims; no Kyoto Protocols and global warming; U.S. foot-dragging and North Korean possession of nuclear bombs; and U.S. beef and candlelit vigils, to name but a few.
A couple of clarifications are in order. I am neither a subscriber to wholesale anti-American rhetoric nor a Bush basher. As a matter of the fact, I believe Bush could have been a good leader, if he had ruled some other nation at some other time. Here are my thoughts and suggestions for Americans who will vote, come November.
First, select a leader who can respect the rest of the world. Barack Obama is inspirational. To those who watched him speak in Iowa in January, his middle name initial, H, came to stand not only for Hussein but Hope as well. I don't support Obama from the narrow perspective of national interest. If I did, his opposition to the ratification of a free trade deal between Seoul and Washington, which has been pushed by both the previous progressive government and the incumbent Lee Myung-back administration, would be enough for me to drop my support.
``… We are not a collection of red states and blue states. We are the United States of America. At this moment, in this election, we are ready to believe again,'' he ended his Iowa speech. Americans may have seen a reincarnation of JFK but I saw a possibility for a sea change in the American leadership style on a global scale from confrontation to conciliation, exclusion to accommodation, and elitist to pluralistic. Simply put, Obama can be a U.S. leader the rest of the world can work with.
His story is amazing because it is an American story that I thought was no longer possible except in fiction. A child of a black Kenyan father and white Kansan mother inherited his father's dreams perhaps typical of immigrants heading for the U.S. and dreamt an audacious dream, now finding himself within the reach of the highest public office of the nation with a chance to make the world a better place to live in.
But even more amazing than Obama's story itself is the fact that American society allows an individual such as him to live out his full potential or perhaps more. The world knows of the United States as a nation where Uncle Toms, Lincolns, JFK.s, Jim Crows and Rodney Kings coexist in different forms and shapes other than in their times. African Americans were brought against their will into the U.S. as slaves. They were declared free but were treated as subhuman even afterwards. It is only less than half a century ago that blacks were endowed with full civil rights. In many ways, they are still striving to gain their rights in practice.
Obama's election would mean the completion of what Lincoln left undone with his Emancipation Proclamation, and a rebuttal of Reverend Jeremiah Wright's ``God Damn America'' invectives. This will not be an easy task for American voters. There are signs that a white majority is yet to be convinced that they can live with the first black president. Some of them, deep down in their heart, may be resentful, thinking of his rise as a symbol of an undesired reversal of fortune, from master to slave. Bigotry and prejudices die hard and, if they do, often evolve into and persist in different forms and shapes.
But during the campaigning period thus far, Americans have shown reason prevails over such prejudices and bigotry. Every time the issue of race tried to rear its ugly head, they have pushed it down. The remaining six months will be a true test of Americanism as the world knows, as American voters will be tempted to let the genie out of the bottle, being surprised at the real possibility of a black man in the nation's highest office. I hope that they will persevere and overcome the temptation because, sentimental as it may be, it means the start of another hope for change for not just the United States but also for the rest of the world.