Obama’s Success: Congratulations, Americans and America!

This truly is a time of hope for the world. For the first time in decades, ordinary Americans of the kind who work hard every day and earn little money have demonstrated how noble and common sense a democratic process can be.

Obama is not transformational or even an agent of change. The people who brought him this success are transformational. They are the change. He is their symbol. He is the repository of their collective hope that the change they caused through their actions during the campaign finds a deserving inheritor in Obama.

In recent decades, democracy got a bad rap in many countries where people were moving painfully and slowly towards freedom after decades under various kinds of authoritarian rule. There, democratic elections brought fractious discord and violence because the noisiest and most radical economic, religious or ideological groups won representation in parliament and then proceeded to make the country ungovernable.

In those decades, something similar was happening in American democracy. Lobbies and factions, some of them narrow minded and retrograde, got prominence through the democratic process and society became more divided and intolerant. US actions in the world mirrored the nation’s internal divisions and encouraged armed conflicts instead of cooperation.

Then, suddenly, a vast swathe of a new kind of American people decided to break their traditional inertia. In a miraculous happening, large parts of the silent majority, but only the most progressive and global community-minded parts, not only shook off the drugged slumber of life in complacent America but also acted to follow their conscience.

To Obama’s credit, he was able to invent the webs of network and communication required to harness this energy and keep it focused on pushing him forward.

Surprisingly, those people whose political attention spans are usually very fickle stayed the course. Sustained by the webs, they turned Obama into a national leader and carried him to overwhelming triumph. Now their representative is poised to lead the entire world, not through the boom of guns but the guides of American good sense.

Whatever Barack Obama’s future record of achievements or failures, the process of democracy has reached an honorable place worthy of respect thanks to the intuition and determination of millions of voters over many difficult months. An example has been set by ordinary Americans of how to participate and bring to fruition democratic ideals using today’s technology and intelligent communication.

I call this a miracle because in materialist America money and raw power usually matter more than thoughtful consideration for others. Yet, millions of small people of all ages, colors, social strata, religions, cultures and backgrounds united to change the way that everyone in their country thinks and lives at home and acts in the world.

If there is a country in which the entire world actually votes, it is America because US citizens literally are the entire world’s people.

This great act of true democracy, followed with resolute steadiness for nearly two years despite base attacks and many doubts, has brought all of us to the edge of historic changes both national and global.

Throughout humankind’s past, historically significant changes have come in the aftermath of awful wars, disease or natural disasters. This time, they are being parented through peaceful exercise of the vote in service of common sense and fraternity. Congratulations, Americans and America!

The final speeches of both Obama and John McCain offer real reason to look forward to a period of unity in America where most people work together to make individual human beings great, instead of just building a powerful and fearsome Nation State.

Let us hope this dawn brings a great day instead of grey disappointment.