Together they did

Barack Obama's historic victory spells the end of the Bush nightmare, but also opens unique possibilities, writes Chronis Polychroniou*
The 2008 US presidential elections are over and to the sheer joy of the nearly 61 million Americans who voted for him, and also to the overwhelming relief of hundreds of millions of others around the world. Barack Obama, the brilliant and seemingly idealistic Chicago senator from Illinois who studied at Columbia and Harvard and started his public career as a community organiser on Chicago's South Side, scored a resounding victory over his Republican opponent, John McCain, a Cold War dinosaur who made it to the national political stage 26 years ago by having at his disposal the fortune and business connections of a beer heiress, thus ending at last the eight-year long nightmare named George W (Worse) Bush.

The 2008 US presidential elections are doubtless memorable for many things, but Obama's history- making landslide victory has built hopes and dreams which can come true if only the forces it has unleashed take a life of their own and do not wait for a miracle from above.

Five reasons the 2008 US presidential elections are memorable:

- "America searched its soul, America recovered its conscience." The election of the first African American to the White House represents a moment of immense historical, political and social importance, considering that until only a few decades ago there was still widespread disenfranchisement among black Americans because of various discriminatory practices with few indications, until quite recently, that the country was ready to accept a black American as president.

The National Voting Rights Act of 1965 outlawed those discriminatory voting practices but real equality remained for most blacks living in a society deeply immersed in racist or biased attitudes a chimera. In his victory speech, Obama was acutely aware that his election as 44th president of the United States was a most memorable event for black Americans and his use of the story of 106-year-old Ann Nixon Cooper was a masterstroke that highlighted with poetic brilliance the dramatic progress America has made on the question of race: "She [Ann Nixon Cooper] was born just a generation past slavery; a time when there were no cars on the road or planes in the sky; when someone like her couldn't vote for two reasons -- because she was a woman and because of the colour of her skin. And tonight, I think about all that she's seen throughout her century in America -- the heartache and the hope; the struggle and the progress; the times we were told that we can't, and the people who pressed on with that American creed: Yes we can."

- The presence of a woman as the other leading Democratic candidate in the race for the White House in the 2008 US presidential elections is further testimony to how civilised the country has become. Having a woman run for the nation's highest office would have been also inconceivable 40 years ago and it is a considerable tribute to the activism of the 1960s and its aftermath, which so many in our own days prefer to ignore.

- Americans registered to vote in record numbers and on election day they exercised their democratic right and voted in spite of the very long lines and in many places pouring rain. Calculations differ, but it was the highest voter turnout in the last 48 years and maybe in the last century. The high voter turnout was driven by the fact that the overwhelming majority of the American people believed (some estimates indicate it may have been as high as 90 per cent) that the country was catastrophically on the wrong track and thus in urgent need for change.

- Obama drew strong support from all groups of American society (whites, blacks, women, youth, gays, Hispanics, Asians) and got the votes of rich and poor alike. His overwhelming victory marks not just a defeat but the end of the neoconservative era, the end of the Bush thugs that tried to destroy civil liberties and created havoc around the world because of their imperial aspirations, and apocalyptic, messianic driven madness. With Obama in the White House, America will surely realign itself to the centre of the political spectrum.

- Obama's campaign shied away from the provincial, narrow minded, anti-intellectual, nationalistic and jingoistic attitudes usually subscribed to by American political candidates. His grace of thought and character, his spirit, marked a much- needed and welcome message to the rest of the world. Throughout his campaign he expressed his sincere concern for the condition of his nation and the world alike. He truly touched everyone's spirit. And thus with the exception of the likes of Silvio Berlusconi, no one around the world cared to see a McCain win. Even the European Right felt in desperate need of a new American leadership. The moral nightmare, the political horror film written, directed and produced by George W Bush and his cronies had to end. And how sweet it is that the one who ended it was none other that the young black senator from Chicago with the "skinny legs", as California's Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger mockingly referred to Obama in front of a McCain crowd a few days before Obama's win.

Obama's election as the 44th president of the United States is already a historic event. The challenge now that lies ahead for American society, which has been driven to atomisation in such a pervasive way that people can only hope for a miracle from above, is for its citizens to become politically active and work together with others to fulfil the dream of a just social order, to accomplish something greater than their individual selves. This is the true message behind Barack Obama's astounding political victory.

* The writer has taught political science and international relations at numerous universities in the US.
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