Besides raising a plethora of hopes and expectations, the extraordinary electoral verdict that Mr. Barak Hussein Obama received on November 4, 2008, has also a lesson or two. And these lessons are more significant and potent than the ordinary hopes and expectations.
Mr. Obama, for example, presented the necessity of change before the frustrated nation. His manner was free from rancour. It was sweet and persuasive. His focus was on the need to alter and ameliorate. He did not quote any scripture to prove his point. His approach was rational, logical and civilized.
If the preachers of Islam use these “tools” also along with their vision and imagination in the presentation of Islam as a solution not only to this world problems, but to those of the world hereafter also, would it not work? It should. It would.
THE WOOLY-HEADED
At the very outset it has to be made clear, both for the beginners and the woolly-headed, that the middle name of the President-elect “Hussein” has nothing to do with his political persona. It should not mislead the gullible or inveigle the uninformed into thinking that the “Muslim” President of the United States would usher in Islam there or anywhere or right the wrongs done to Muslims elsewhere. His father was an African Muslim and mother a Catholic Christian. His reverend mother has taken enormous pains in affectionately inculcating Christian values in her praiseworthy son. That is that.
The rise of Mr. Obama, the 44th President of the United States, in the otherwise leading colour-conscious nation, by all accounts, is a stunning event. It is an epoch-making revolutionary, giant step taken by the electorate. It would, perhaps, not be an exaggeration to say that the civil war in America came to an end only now. And the victor was a black person. Thus the Americans have expiated their “original sin” – slavery.
TOO FRUSTRATED
This electoral verdict also shows how much frustrated, how much angry, how much shame-faced were the Americans because of the humiliation caused by Mr. George W. Bush during his 2-term, ruthless rule.
The two futile wars that the United States fought during this period brought no glory to Washington. These aggressions did not add any feather to Uncle Sam’s cap. For the victims, they brought disaster and death; for the victor they caused un-alloyed ignominy and pure hate. Mr. Barak Hussein Obama has restored self-respect to the Americans. Earlier it was at stake. Now they, though crestfallen, can speak with their chins up. If we see Mr. Obama’s success in this backdrop, the picture becomes somewhat clearer.
VOTER MATURITY
It was American electorate’s maturity that it refused to swim with the sentimental current.
Look how succinctly but indirectly, Rogen Cohen points out in The New York Times what the Bush era was and how embarrassing it was for Americans to put forward their political values: “You can’t proclaim freedom as you torture. You can’t promote democracy as you disappear people. You can’t stand for the rule of law and strip prisoners of basic rights. You can’t dispense with the transparency and regulation essential to modern capital markets and hope still to be the beacon of free enterprise. Or rather, you can do all these things, but then you find yourself alone.”
MASSIVE SURGE
One sees a massive surge for change today in the United States. How we Indian Muslims wish this surge includes return to Morality as well. In today’s America, those who were conceived on the wrong side of the quilt are in majority. Progeny of the legally wedded happens to be in a minority. A handful of new studies, made public in October, suggest surprising changes in the marital landscape. Infidelity appears to be on the rise, particularly among older men and young couples. Notably, women appear to be closing the adultery gap; younger women appear to be cheating on their spouses nearly as often as men. University of Washington researchers have found that the lifetime rate of infidelity for men over 60 increased to 28% in 2006, up from 20% in 1991. For women over 60 increase is more striking to 15%, up from 5% in 1991. We really do not know to what extent God has been externed from the borders of civil society. But neither Christianity nor Judaism allows this profanity.
The political manifestation of moral turpitude, is, we feel, the American doctrine of unilateral strike on the sovereign states that dare to defy the US dictat.
Washington has, in the past, without least compunction, killed non-conformist leaderships abroad. The leadership change is a minor sin that the US commits in sovereign countries.
EXPANSIONIST POWER
The Muslim reading of the US politics, diplomacy, economy and military ambitions confirm the view it is an expansionist, hegemonistic power. Its armed-to-the-hilt bases abroad tell a formidable tale. Its Pax-Americana policy is unacceptable to the Third World countries. No civilized society is prepared to allow encroachment, whatever their form and nomenclature.
For its ulterior, extra-territorial purposes, the US has created artificial lobbies in foreign countries. In the name of cooperation, it penetrates into foreign intelligence apparatuses and plants its own people in the armed forces and political outfits.
WARS FINANCED
The US finances wars as we saw in the Gulf war. Then it disowns and gets killed its protégés as we observed in the case of Mr. Saddam Hussein. It sells arms and ammunition to disputants as we are currently seeing in the sub-continent.
The United States, by hook or by crook or by both, promotes and protects the interests of Israel, which, in brief, is its rogue client state in the Middle-East. Its roguishness is, however, not visible to the US.
The US appears to be dead set against Islam and Muslims. It condones the enemies of Islam under the pretext of “freedom of expression”.
America promotes promiscuity, infidelity and what not, and wants its friends in the Muslim world also to follow suit. The list of the US sins of omission and commission is too long.
The basic point is: what role has Mr. Obama envisaged for himself in history? Mere withdrawal of the American forces from Iraq; further pulverization of Afghanistan in the hot pursuit of Osama Bin Ladin; and over-running sovereign Pakistan for the purpose, etc. etc.? If so, he would end up as yet another Bush, a mere footnote in history. But if he wants to be recorded as an epoch-maker, who turned the tide of history, he will have to have a dispassionate, second look at his domestic, foreign and military policy.