Posts Tagged ‘world’
Quite a week for the world
For me, the day of real excitement and history with regard to Barack Obama becoming President of the United States was actually the day he became President-Elect: that was the point at which the country did something amazing and hope was kindled, in the words of Gandalf. I did however watch all of the inauguration last Tuesday, the bit of most interest to me being his inaugural speech. In general I was very impressed: the speech was blunt, honest and to the point, with some soars of most graceful rhetoric but also with clear guiding principles set out. It was on the level three of debate: it didn’t speak of creating x jobs or withdrawing y troops, but it set up ideals: Obama wants to restore America’s reputation (however little I may care about reputations he means restore a reputation of justice and fairness); cease to make compromises on liberty in the name of safety (for me this was the most important thing in the speech); and try to move away from the hold that superstition has over American politics by being more inclusive of more rational ways of thinking
Obama may have praised a regulated free market as a way to create prosperity and he may have called for patriotism to make the world better, but this is only the means by which he argues the goals that we in fact share should be achieved. While I may argue that only a socialist world can truly create peace and prosperity he disagrees, but still holds the same aims in mind. And the fact that he was happy, in his first speech when responsibility as well as expectation weighed upon his shoulders, to not shy away from what he had promised, to not equivocate and compromise unnecessarily makes me trust Mr Obama a great deal. Yes, in his heart of hearts he may be a no-good power-grabbing politician as they often are, but right now I am prepared to give him a chance, I’m prepared to believe that he may be out for the world. This world desperately needs a leader who can turn the tide of selfishness and greed and try to bring about a return to valuing liberty, and a move forward against poverty. Right now, Obama seems to me to be our best hope for that.
Real history
Today history will be made, today the world will be changed for better or worse. Today, the most powerful country in a world that divides itself such camps based on concepts of so-called ‘national identity’, culture and even race will decide who it wants as its leader, who it chooses to place in what is probably the most powerful job on the planet. It’s been a fantastically vibrant and involved election. The turnout is predicted to be very high, and there are so many factors involved even today no-one really knows which way it will go. I certainly have no idea. Obama has captured a massive chunk of a conservative nation’s favour through his fantastic oratory. The polls all predict a win. Yet McCain has bounced back again and again, and there is nothing to suggest he won’t manage that again. Both sides have things holding them back. The world is dissatisfied with Bush’s Republican run of the presidency, but Barack Obama faces the question of his race. If America finds itself capable of putting aside the simple colour of his skin, and his unusual name, humanity will have shown itself capable of moving a pretty significant step closer to the end of simple and unreasonable prejudices. If Americans can put aside their tribalistic drives for what is the most important job in the world, even if it is less important than it once was, then the presidency itself will have massive potential for change. America’s credibility as a voice on the world stage that isn’t there purely due to economic might will be enhanced. Racism will seem old-fashioned, and the race-blind young as they are called will flourish and old prejudices will wither and die.
Our world isn’t in fantastic shape at the moment. As in the fifties when the Cold War was at its nuclear peak, we feel afraid of external threats, but from within we also face massive problems. Warzones only get worse across the world: the Congo has recently erupted into full-scale battle; the Middle East is as violent as usual and no-one seems to have any solutions. Nuclear weapons and other such terrors remain stockpiled, and the West hypocritically demands that smaller states cease their quest for them, raising backs more than anything else. In so-called civilised nations, utilitarianism returns to make torture and abuse of human rights morally acceptable as a salve for the fear that grips the countries, once bastions of human rights and civil liberties, that have now sunk into depravity in the name of a little temporary security. And from within consumerism and rampart capitalism maintains the expectancy of the impossibility that is infinite growth, of always getting more for less. Community collapses, education becomes entirely based around capital in one’s later life, and people lose sight of the greatness that humanity can achieve through thought, consideration and generosity to others, rather than a selfish desire to smother pains with ignorance and material goods. And then, on top of all of this, the human race faces extinction from climate change, or from wars against each other over dwindling natural resources. With our free market situation it seems to me that it’ll only become economical to do something about this threat when it’s already too late – at least for some, if not all, of us.
But despite these problems we still have one resource that is so very important and so very powerful. We have people. People might be selfish and uncaring, but they can also show incredible altruism, respect and thoughtfulness. Humans have already achieved so much more than solving the above list of grievances. We’ve constructed ideas and fields of science and technology from a primitive existence in caves and forests. We have thought our way outside of ourselves and outside the confines of this doubtable empirical world, and we’ve struggled for truth in the battlefield of ideas. If we can vote in Obama, if we can show that we’re more than mere nature and biology would define us as, then we’re making the first step onto a path to better things. Come on America. Let us remember this day in history with pride.