| Electing the President of the World |
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| Written by Ogaga Ifowodo | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Friday, 07 November 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Electing the President of the World © Ogaga Ifowodo As I kept anxious vigil, like millions across the globe from Aba to Antarctica, for the state-by-state results of the just concluded United States presidential election, I couldn’t help worsening my anxiety with shaming thoughts about elections in my country. Living in the US, and so able to follow closely the events that led to this epochal day, my unease was made palpably unbearable by the sheer transparency of the unfolding event. It had been so throughout the primaries, but this was the grand finale and perhaps because I hadn’t been able to ignore all the conspiracy theories, or memories of the Democrats’ last two bitter losses in a manner all too reminiscent of electoral brigandage in my own country, or the heightened fear of the so-called Bradley effect raised at every opportunity by the cable news talking heads, I soon found myself unable to separate electoral tyranny at home from the giddy advent of historic change in the tapestry of America’s political life. Among sundry possible shenanigans that would allegedly make nonsense of all polling data and deliver victory to Barack Obama’s war hero and cold-war-style opponent together with his pistol-packing and race-baiting running-mate, Sarah Palin, the Bradley effect — which, simply, means the phenomenon of white folks openly professing their support of a black candidate to pollsters only to vote against him once in the privacy of the polling booth — had in the closing moments of the long-drawn out campaign assumed the most frightening omen. Obama had to enter the election with a minimum six-point lead or else suffer the fate of the popular black mayor of Los Angeles, Tom Bradley, who was pole distance in front of his opponents only to astonishingly lose the 1982 California gubernatorial race. This, as campaign memos later confirmed, was what Hillary Clinton meant when she insisted during the testy primaries that “Obama can’t win,” and why she sought every means fair and not-so-fair to wangle the Democratic Party’s nomination into her hands. But soon, the fear of political ghosts was banished as the cable networks, aided by cutting edge digital technology, began tracking the returns. For anyone who had been paying attention, the central focus of the race was on the much-hyped battleground states. Senator McCain, trailing by more than the magical six points in all but the trend-defying Mason Dixon and his own internal polls, had to pull off the feat of not only taking Pennsylvania from Obama but also keeping him outside the gates of the Republican fortresses of Florida, Virginia, Indiana, Nevada, North Carolina, Ohio, Colorado and Missouri. As it happened, McCain hardly took a step up that mountain of improbable victory. Once Pennsylvania, and then Virginia and Ohio, were called for Obama, a McCain aide was quoted as admitting his defeat. What was left was the magnitude of his loss and the length of the coat-tails with which Obama would enter the White House. Which, as it also happened, would be pretty long having splashed blue over a map turned scarily ruby red by Reaganism and, lately, Karl Rove’s Machiavellianism. So there it was. Just before midnight — the mythical hour of possibilities — Barack Obama, actually more African than American by the continent’s parochial and rigidly patrilineal modes of apportioning citizenship rights, boasting an unfamiliar name replete with a middle cognomen his opponents quickly sought to turn into the mark of Cain on his forehead, emerged the president-elect of the lone standing superpower and most powerful country on earth. It bears pointing out that America, as is the wont of all empires, sees itself as not merely the centre of the world but, in fact, the very extent of the globe. Thanks to cable and satellite television, the world knows now that the title series of any of the four major professional sports of America — baseball, basketball, American football and ice hockey — is known as the world series and the winning club the world champions! But if the orgies of celebration that greeted Obama’s victory in every corner of the earth are a good indication, then the United States may very well have elected the president of the world. What is more, as the current economic influenza sweeping every stock market testifies, America is for good or bad the financial barometer of the world. Which makes it appropriate that Obama should address his words, dressed in both the awe and graciousness of power, to “all those watching tonight from beyond our shores, from parliaments and palaces” and those “huddled around radios in the forgotten corners of our world.” Only a president-elect of the world can deign to issue stern admonitions when his victory in a national election is yet to be ratified: “To those who would tear this world down — we will defeat you. To those who seek peace and security — we support you.” Only a president-elect of the world could pair belief in our shared destiny with the thinly veiled threat of imperial power in the phrase, “a new dawn of American leadership.” But Obama did not inspire hope and stir the minds of so many across the world with power-speak. Indeed, he couldn’t, for then his redoubtable rival, McCain, would have been the one who spoke to rock-star-like audiences at home and abroad. Which brings me back to my starting point: the conflicting emotion of elation as a living witness to history-in-the-making and anguish in the realisation of how much my country mocked democracy and its processes. If Obama won, every home and street in Nigeria would break into frenzied celebrations as we claimed a victory our buccaneer politics would never permit. Perhaps, then, all the more reason why we should dance ourselves lame over a vicarious victory achieved in struggles about which we know and care little beyond the fuzziness of racial pride. And, perhaps, this ought to suffice in a land so pitilessly starved of heroes on the political front. As the child of a Kenyan father and a white American mother, Obama’s is not the quintessential African-American experience. But though raised by his white grandparents, Obama would overcome the tumultuous identity crisis of his youth to find security in his Africanness, leading him to unapologetically embrace and be embraced in return by the African American community in the true Pan-Africanist spirit. Having found his centre, his mode of being in this world, in the African American community he paid heartfelt homage to it through service. The years of grassroots organizing in the black hovels of the south side of Chicago toughened and wizened him for the monumental challenges of public service and it is clear now that anyone puzzling the riddle of how a minority, a black rookie senator, dismantled the famed Clinton political machine and the institutional power of the Republican Party must look to those years of ardent activism. But if as we rightly celebrate we maintain enough sobriety to remember that Obama’s historic victory is the fruit of unconditional love of the people and a selfless commitment to serve them, then we might begin to understand the meaning of love of country — what we commonly call patriotism. It is that love that shone through the shining armour in which the president of America, of the world, is necessarily clad as Obama spoke to the enchanted throng that November night. “If there is anyone out there who still doubts that America is a place where all things are possible; who still wonders if the dream of our founders is alive in our time; who still questions the power of our democracy, tonight is your answer.” And there was the source of my knotted emotions even as I pined for Obama’s victory and prayed that he would indeed end the night in that very finery of power. For I wished so agonizingly that we could produce a leader to utter similar certitudes about Nigeria; that elections in our land would cease to be a do-or-die bloodsport judged by how much the will of the people is savaged. But perhaps in the mirror, spotless for the moment, of an African son’s triumph over the ultimate political barrier in American politics — that of the colour line — we will be shamed enough to begin the purification of our politics. For how ironic that Africa should look to America, chief enslaver of her youth and manhood during the inglorious trade, for racial pride and inspiration as Nigeria, the continent’s self-vaunted Giant, thirsts and thrashes under the sun!
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Posted by Robot| 07.11.2008 00:08