[Reader-list] Congratulations America

[taraprakash]

Yes, the hopes are too high. Perhaps nothing generated as much hope after 
1968 as did Obama's presidency. I was not born in 1968 but I am proud to be 
actively involved in this "giant leap for humanity"

This change in leadership will definitely change the way the world looks at 
the US. It will also change the way the US looks at the rest of the world. 
The hawks will be replaced by human beings. Diplomacy will have more room to 
work. I am sure corporate globalization will be replaced by grassroot 
globalization.

And may be the days of the ideologies that divide humanity in to two or more 
poles are numbered. But may be we are being too optimistic. Still, we have 
reason to celebrate. The world will definitely be a better place without 
Dick and Bush.

I don't think we should compare Manmohan and Obama. Manmohan Singh mostly 
practiced what he preached. If someone ignored the past of Manmohan and his 
party and took their statements at face value, it is not their fault. There 
is nothing in Obama's past that gives cause for skepticism. let's hope that 
his statements about invading Pakistan are nothing more than verbal 
overtures. Let's also hope that he meant the positive things he said during 
his campaign. It is not good to be very optimistic, however, cynicism has 
been with us for too long. Let's try to change our outlook for a while; yes 
we can. As Dushyant Kumar said:

Kaun kahta hai aasman mein surakh naheen ho sakta
Ek patthar to tabiyat se uchalo yaro.

(Who says you can't make a hole in the sky,
How about hurling a stone at it with conviction)


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Nagraj Adve" <nagraj.adve at gmail.com>
To: "gautam bhan" <gautam.bhan at gmail.com>
Cc: "sarai list" <reader-list at sarai.net>
Sent: Wednesday, November 05, 2008 3:16 PM
Subject: Re: [Reader-list] Congratulations America


> Dear Gautam,
> Nice piece of writing (as usual) but since I have in recent times
> acquired a somewhat bleak view of larger political change, I was
> throughout today thinking of the 2004 elections in India and what
> heppened thereafter. Manmohan Singh came to power on the back of a
> emphatic rejection of economic reforms (and the BJP variant of
> communal politics). He then proceeded to anoint Montek Ahluwalia and
> Chidambaram (he of the Dow Chemicals fame) in key positions. His first
> trip outside Delhi was to Bombay where he expressed a wish that Bombay
> become Shanghai, after which about 3 lakh people were forcibly thrown
> out of their jhopad pattis.
> I don't know how to say what I will without sounding arrogant. I too
> am deeply glad that Obama is President and not McCain (and also that
> Sarah Palin is not VP); Obama's vote if nothing else means too much
> for black Americans, others in America (as your mail says) and for so
> many others the world over. But for me he more so reflects change that
> has already happened in the US and elsewhere, which his administration
> will try their best to blunt. On foreign policy it is now old hat that
> Democrats have been little different from Republicans since Vietnam,
> including Clinton. On this too, Obama will reflect some change but
> only slightly if I were to believe statements he has made on Pakistan,
> Iraq and particularly his vice president's views on Iraq.
> The key difference would perhaps be on domestic policy in the US,
> particularly on the nature of intervention in the massive economic
> crisis t faces. One hopes rather than lend money to banks alone, his
> administration might push welfare, public spending, etc. Quite likely.
> Without letting this mail run on for too long, he is President because
> people are emphatically demanding more. So let's see how we can demand
> even more (and also change things more fuindamentally) rather than be
> easily satisfied. I can say that without being one iota less happy
> that Obama has won.
> Naga
>
> On 05/11/2008, gautam bhan <gautam.bhan at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Dear All,
>>
>>  I dont usually post on the list, but thought I'd share a piece I
>> wrote for elsewhere.
>>
>> - gautam
>>
>> Cross-posted from Kafila.org
>>
>> A Letter from America
>>
>> I was out all night in Oakland, California, last night. One of the
>> most "dangerous" cities in the country, crime statistics say. Usually,
>> that's always code for historic black neighborhoods. This one is no
>> different. Close to us are some of the districts and towns worst hit
>> by the foreclosure crisis: one in three homes in parts of California
>> are now owned by banks and not people. A generation of voters in this
>> district remember what it was like not being able to vote because they
>> were black. This is part of the America that has elected Obama.
>>
>> My students are predominantly white. This is Berkeley, California,
>> with some of the most progressive affirmative action [what in India we
>> call reservation] policies, and so many, many of them are also Asian
>> American and Latino. There are still preciously few African America
>> students at the college level, even at subsidized public universities.
>> My students are mostly about twenty. They have the freedom not to
>> remember Reagan and Thatcher. They use the word "past" rarely and look
>> only in one direction. They are a generation long described as the
>> apathetic children of technology. They are an America that has not
>> easily inherited the arrogance that so easily slips in with power.
>> This is another part of America that has elected Obama.
>>
>> I saw the election results come in with community organisers,
>> activists, people who work in everyday America. Their tears are tears
>> I recognize from the defeat of the Hindutva and India Shining. They
>> are tears of relief and of belief. Tears that remind you that the
>> slow, thankless, everyday work of social change has a horizon that is
>> bigger than our individual lives. This is another part of America that
>> has elected Obama.
>>
>>
>> There was a different America on the streets last night - in ten years
>> of going in and out of this country, I have never seen it like this.
>> Cars were honking, people walking the streets openly crying and
>> celebrating with strangers, spontaneous gatherings of people at every
>> corner, public buses lit up, hope and joy were in abundance. America
>> doesn't do public displays of politics or affection - it doesn't rush
>> out on streets for much other than sports. It hasn't, in any case, for
>> a very long time. Jesse Jackson, one of the most famous black
>> Americans other than Martin Luther King, openly crying amidst millions
>> in Grant Park in Chicago is a sight I wont lightly forget.
>>
>> Not everything will change with Obama, but change they will. Race will
>> not disappear, but it will never be the same again. Structural
>> inclusion and inequality might not vanish tomorrow, but its pipes and
>> planks will be made visible. America might not change all that angers
>> much of the world towards it, but it will not be able to so easily be
>> so naked in its power. To think of Obama is not to judge whether this
>> hope will turn out to be real or false — the point is that it is hope
>> at all. This hope, even if all its promises fail after a time, will
>> have unintended consequences. Unintended consequences that, in stories
>> of the everyday, are in the end what help people change their lives.
>> Leaders come and go, but it is the unintended consequences of hope
>> that leave lasting, if infinitesimal, change.
>>
>> After eight years of Bush, Sept 11, a financial crisis, two divisive
>> wars, deepening poverty, and horrid clashes on moral values, this
>> landslide victory is the story of a scarred, hurt, and scared nation,
>> shaken from its arrogance by a series of blows, trying to slowly look
>> inside and heal itself. No matter what we think of America, its
>> imperialism, its role in global successes and tragedies alike, that is
>> a process all of us, in every country who have ever tried to think of
>> change can understand and support.
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