REJOICE! REJOICE! OBAMA IS COMING!
Mustafa Akyol
Turkish Daily News
Oct 30 2008
Turkey
WASHINGTON – It has been a little more than an hour since I turned on
the TV in my hotel room, but I have come across Barack Obama almost a
dozen times. American channels are full of ads that are in favor of,
or against, the Democratic presidential candidate. The ones that his
party put out talk about his vision for America and how great it will
be. The ads given by his rival, John McCain, counter by saying he is
inexperienced and will get confused in the first crisis he faces.
In other words, the whole focus is on Obama. Indeed, the election
that Americans will hold next week will be basically a vote on
Obama. Everybody has seen what the Republicans have done in the past
eight years and ultimately few have liked it. Sen. McCain, despite all
his effort to the contrary, cannot compel most people to think that
he does not share the main premises of the Bush Administration. But
Sen. Obama is obviously offering something new and raising new
hopes. The only question is whether he is capable of turning them
into reality.
Change that I do believe in:
There are five more days until the elections. As former Turkish
president and political guru, Suleyman Demirel, once said, "Twenty-four
hours is a very long period of time in politics." So, nobody can tell
right now who the next president of the United States will be. Yet the
polls hint that Obama will have a clear, possibly landslide victory
and if that turns out to be the case, most non-Americans in the world,
including my humble self, will be happy.
I have many Republican friends and I understand and respect their
reservations toward a Democratic candidate. They have issues,
such as abortion or gay marriage, which have made them committed
Republicans. But what is at stake right now in the world is arguably
more important than all of these issues. For decades, the United
States has been the leader of the free and democratic world, and
the world still needs that source of trust and inspiration. The
alternative powers are China and Russia, which are both bastions
of autocracy. Yet since the beginning of the Iraq War, the United
States has increasingly been perceived as an arrogant and aggressive
force. The American dream of "freedom for all" was smashed by images
of Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo, water boarding and rendition. In just
five years "America the beautiful" has turned into America the ugly.
In fact, President Bush had the sense to get things right, "If we are
an arrogant nation, they will resent us," he said as early as 2000. "If
we are a humble nation, but strong, they will welcome us." But,
for a variety of complicated reasons, things did not go that way.
Now, Obama offers a chance to change all this. It is no accident that
he has overwhelming support in the four corners of the world. People
want to see a new America and only a new face with a new message can
make them believe that this is possible.
Of course, Obama might come to power and fail to realize his
promises. But he is definitely worth trying. As Colin Powell has
wisely pointed out, his presidency will be an asset not just to
restore America’s prestige in the word, but also to overcome the
new McCarthyism, the Islamophobic hate campaign that a handful of
misinformed Americans are trying to sell to their fellow citizens.
In the minds of Turks:
In Turkey, many people who are informed about U.S. politics sympathize
with Obama for similar reasons. Some pundits, such as veteran
journalist and opinion maker, Cengiz Candar, endorsed him months
ago. But the McCain campaign has sympathizers as well and most of
those people are, with all due respect, either wicked or close-minded.
The wicked are those who have been craving to stir a military
or judicial coup in Turkey. When they decided to sell their
anti-democratic crusade to the world, the only allies they found were
the new McCarthyists in the United States just mentioned. They have
been able to convince some, but not all, neoconservatives about the
"hidden Islamist agenda" of the governing Justice and Development
Party and thus gather some metaphorical firepower from some Washington
pundits for their war in Ankara. For those secular-fascist Turks,
the Republicans, because of the narrow Islamophobic camp among them,
are the strategic choice.
The close-minded fans of McCain on the other hand, are simply concerned
about Turkey’s classic foreign policy issues; will the American
president use the term "Armenian Genocide" while referring to the
events of 1915 and will he support Iraqi Kurds in their aspirations
for greater autonomy? In both these issues, these Turks think McCain
and his Republicans will be closer to Turkey’s position as they better
understand the "strategic importance" of Turkey.
But in fact, whoever comes to power in Washington will get the same
briefing from their bureaucrats about Turkey’s importance when these
issues come to the fore. It is also not realistic to think that
the two candidates will be too different from each other vis-a-vis
Turkey. They may well however be different in the way they handle
international crises, such as the issue with Iran’s nuclear program
and Turkey has seen enough evidence to conclude that a fundamental
change is needed in U.S. foreign policy about such matters.
That is why it is time to cross fingers for Obama. I do hope he wins
this election and brings a fresh start that the world sorely needs.