The World Hopes for Its First President

 
 
 

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Now, to the rest of the world America's election is about change but not just at home. Jonathan Freedland, a columnist for The Guardian in London, says the past seven years have been a long, painful public education for the world in the importance of decisions made by the United States. "Two wars and a global financial crisis—those events, at least to some extent, had their origins in decisions taken in Washington." What's more, the connection between the world and the occupant of the Oval Office has become deeply personal, says Constanze Stelzenmüller, director of the Berlin office of the German Marshall Fund. "In a globalized world," she says, "America's president can shape lives worldwide. He is our president, too."

That would be true, up to a point, of any occupant of the highest office in the United States at a time of American pre-eminence in the world. But with Obama, supported as he is by overwhelming majorities abroad, the connection is stronger than it would be with any other incoming president, the affection more deeply personal and the significance of his election much more intense. "The American president always claims to be the 'leader of the world,' and we always hate that arrogance," says Benchemsi. "Obama can say that, and we have no problem with it."

Around the globe, in a way that no one else has for half a century, says Oxford University professor of government Vernon Bogdanor, Obama has raised "hopes of a progressive leader who can restore America's moral leadership." U.K. Minister of State for Higher Education David Lammy, who has known Obama since 2005 when they met at a Harvard event for black alumni, says "Obama's movement for change is one that has the potential to go beyond America's borders, giving him a reach that could be unprecedented for a world leader."

Obama, whose life story allows him readily to be seen as the personification of change, racks up landslide-scale support in global surveys. Recent polling by the London-based firm YouGov had Obama garnering more than 70 percent support in Nordic countries and well more than 50 percent in Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. They show him rising in the polls since May, ever so slightly in Germany, and by 13 points in Britain, to 62 percent in October. In France, friends-of-Obama committees have proliferated; the French Support Committee for Barack Obama sells "France for Obama" T shirts online. The Portuguese-language version of the social networking Web site Orkut, dominated by Brazilians, has 293 "communities" dedicated to Obamania, including Eu Amo Obama. In Brazil, flattery knows no bounds: at least eight candidates in recent elections simply borrowed Barack Obama's name and put it on the ballot instead of their own.

More than celebrity worship, the Obama phenomenon has already had a very real impact abroad, raising questions, for example, about the lack of progress by racial minorities in Europe. Europe's parliamentary democracies have done quite well by women in recent decades, but blacks and Asians have been left behind. "Searching for the French Barack Obama" was a headline in Le Monde last week. As part of that report, the Togolese-born former state secretary for social affairs and integration Kofi Yamgnane told the paper, "We have to admit that the American model works better than the French model." "We love Obama," wrote the columnist Claude Weill in Nouvel Observateur, because "we hate slavery, racial segregation, discrimination in all its forms—America's original sins." He concludes on a pessimistic note: "We are the country of human rights, no? But are we really listening to Obama?"

As the election neared, Obama looked very likely to win. If he does, judging from the tenor of the campaign's final days, America will have elected a new leader of the world for entirely local reasons. In no small part it will be because of McCain's apparent lack of focus on the economy in an era of financial distress. It will also be a reaction to Palin, a political newcomer and a seeming lightweight a heartbeat away from the presidency, as they say.

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  • Posted By: jackreed33 @ 02/26/2009 2:44:51 PM

    Im happy this man won the election. He is promotting cheeper health care for all and god knows we need it. With drug and alcohol addiction on the rise we need more <a href="http://www.calnarconon.org/">alcohol treatment centers</a> and other health clinics to fix what has gone wrong with society. We need hi support to get fundong for these critical needs.

  • Posted By: sdjog @ 11/07/2008 12:40:15 AM

    i wish those who see Gandhi on the Obama bandwagon???d spare a look for his passion e.g (http://www.mkgandhi.org/swarajya/coverpage.htm); swadeshi (self reliance) --& implied opposition to globalization, Western lifestyle, modernity, ???etc. How much of that???d Obama own up?

  • Posted By: MissouriDemocrat @ 11/05/2008 12:54:53 PM

    I thought that a very telling moment about the mind-set of the losing side came at McCain's speech conceding the election. A very decent man who graciously praised Obama, who called attention to our country trying to redress the awful wrong of our past racial agonies, and who, true patriot that he is, promised to cooperate with the new president - for the good of our country. And what did he get for showing this bit of style and class? - boos and jeers every time he mentioned Obama's name. He was giving his supporters a chance to show some class and fair-mindedness, but they failed the test. I got the feeling that this was a case in which the candidate was much better than his supporters. Hats off to McCain for showing some decency in defeat. Shame on those followers who failed, once again, to rise up beyond their own narrow-minded nastiness.

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