And The World Is Watching

Arriving home at past six thirty in the evening, I went up the stairs to go directly to my room. Tonight is the big day and the world is watching. Finally, the United States will have its new president and the fate of the world will be changed forever once its new leader has been elected.

As it stands now, history is in the making. The world's most powerful nation is at its turning point. If the black candidate becomes the president, all those years when minorities struggled, suppressed and discriminated will finally earn their voice. Their defeats will be vindicated and those who once believed that only the white man can rule will be forever shunned in books. This is the reason why I am watching - and the world seems to be doing the same thing.

Suddenly, change finds a universal appeal.

Turning on the television, I immediately switched to CNN to catch the news. It's 9 am in the other side of the planet and the polls had just opened a few hours earlier. Funny how this event made me closer there than where my feet stands right now. Perhaps, somewhere inside my consciousness, I know that no matter how my patriotic spirit tells me to ignore the things that are happening there, it will affect me in ways I could never comprehend.

Will an Obama victory be of service to the world?

The answer is Yes.

On my way home this evening, I made a brief stop at 7-Eleven to buy some essentials - junk foods. Passing by the magazine rack, I noticed Newsweek Magazine's front page cover. It reads "The Global Election: Why the World sees McCain-Obama more clearly than Americans do." The story is tempting to read and I could access the magazine's website when I arrive home. As I cross the street after paying for what I bought, an idea came to me; that Newsweek issue is too hot to be left in the cold and I would need a memento, a trinket that would remind me that I am part of history when the US election is over.

And I was right all along.

From Kenya to Indonesia; to Germany, Japan and even China the world's eyes are paying attention to America. Everyone seems so sick of Bush - and the Republicans - that they placed all their hopes to that young and charismatic black senator from Illinois and the promises he made in his rousing speeches. For the first time in my generation, the world implicitly acknowledge the possible emergence of a leader who will change how everyone perceives the planet's lone superpower. Even America's foes - Iran, Venezuela and Al Qaeda seems silent these days. Are they also closely monitoring the events in the US?

Who knows and it doesn't matter.

Only one thing is for sure.

If Obama really brings change to Washington; if he holds true to his words about the environment; if he promises to lift the middle class from their burdens; if he commits to progress not only in the way the United States is governed but also how it conducts its affairs around the globe; if he embraces the spirit of multilateralism in solving the world's problems; if he extends his responsibilities not only to the people who voted him in office, but also to those billions whose dreams he carried along the way,

Then perhaps, America won't need to rub its superiority to other countries; they have already given their mandate.

I have always suspected that the current global economic crisis have its roots in the fears that the Republicans will once again control Washington:

That change will never happen.

In the next twelve hours, the world will learn of America's fate.

My only hope is that at this very moment, more people living there had finally been awakened to the truth that they will not only elect a president of one nation, that president will also take leadership of the world in the next four years.

This is the true spirit of Globalization.

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"The world loved the idea that a man named Barack Hussein Obama could become America's 44th president after a 200-year string of white guys named Washington and Jefferson, Clinton and Bush. Asia was trying to claim Obama for his Indonesian childhood, Africa for his Kenyan father, and the Middle East for his middle name, says Ahmed Benchemsi, who edits both of Morocco's leading newsweeklies, one in French, one in Arabic."

- Stryker McGuire
Newsweek Magazine