Why the World Watches America

The world has never paid so much attention to a single election. In one country after another, opinion polls show that the results of the American election tomorrow will become noted as a focal point.

Polls in Japan show that interest in the U.S. election is higher among Japanese people than among Americans. In Pakistan, interest in the first debate between the presidential candidates was so high that television stations had to change their schedules to immediately rebroadcast the debate twice. Because Obama has roots in Indonesia and Kenya, these countries feel that Obama should lead. In a few Kenyan high schools, students were assigned to write letters to the two American presidential candidates. Of the completed essays, 87% wrote to “Dear Barack Obama,” the remainder going to McCain. In Vietnam, on the other hand, there is a lot of discussion surrounding John McCain. The American veteran has appeared here in the smoke. In Brazil, praise for Obama knows no limits: at least 8 recent political candidates have borrowed Obama’s name for their own use. Last week, a representative of China’s Foreign Ministry said, “We hope, and believe, that the winning candidate will pay attention to Chinese-American relations.” The Xinhua News agency also quoted the point of view of Britain’s Guradian newspaper–if the whole world were voting, Obama would be checking in to the White House.

Newsweek magazine says, it’s obvious that most people have taken a great interest in Obama. Worldwide polls all show Obama with a solid lead. On the way to the White House, Obama became the world’s candidate — despite the decline in faith in American promises and the psychological impact of Bush hatred, the world continues to look forward to opportunities for working together with the United States. “Obama’s adventure is what makes America magical,” said France’s Secretary of State for Human Rights, Rama Yade, a Senegalese immigrant and the only black official in Sarkozy’s government.

Lately, it seems as if America and the rest of the world have been discussing two different elections. The experts discuss this election as if it were the last one: swing states, voter registration, campaign finance, buying ads, race…

But the rest of the world has already gone beyond the election itself. The world would like to see Obama become America’s 44th President — for two-hundred years, all of America’s presidents have been white, from Washington to Jefferson and Jefferson to Bush. Asia tries to emphasize Obama’s years in Indonesia, Africa focuses on his Kenyan father and the Middle East is concerned with his middle name.

Now, people around the world believe that the changes brought by the American election with not be confined to America alone. Guardian columnist Jonathan Friedlander says the history of the past seven years has made the world concerned over the importance of American decision-making, a long and painful learning process. “Two wars and a global financial crisis – in retrospect, these matters can, at least to a certain degree, be traced to decisions made in Washington.” Even more importantly, contact between the Oval Office and the world has been shaped by personality.

Obama’s personal story allows him to happily be seen as a symbol of change and helps him to attract support around the world, while also presenting new problems. For example, in Europe people have begun to question the lack of progress for minority rights. Over the past few decades, Europe’s parliamentary democracies have only given women, blacks and Asians the right to be ignored. “France’s search for Barack Obama” was the headline of last week’s “Parisian.”

Tomorrow, the results of the election may be announced, with Obama very possibly the winner. If he loses, the United States is likely to return to old policies. Conservatives will rejoice, liberals will despair and African-Americans will gnash their teeth. The media will tell the public what a shame it was that the polls had not predicted a McCain victory.

Different regions of the world would look differently upon an Obama defeat. America, already a nation in decline, would be reduced to virtually nothing — because it would not elect a black man with African and Asian roots and a Middle Eastern name to be president. The U.S. will be looked down upon, because it had the opportunity, but in the end did not choose it; for failing to break the 200 year pattern, the U.S. will be looked down upon even more. To the rest of the world, for the U.S. to choose another Republican president would not only mean extending the period of suffering associated with the Bush Administration, but also the loss of an historic opportunity — the opportunity to set a precedent in the United States or a similar county is not easy to come by: that is, to have a long-suppressed ethnic minority come to power at last.

Time would return to Berlin in July, when Obama gave a speech before two-hundred thousand people on a sunny afternoon. In 18 months of local political speeches, he had not encountered so large an audience. He took advantage of the opportunity. “People of the world,” he said, “Look at Berlin, where a wall came down, a continent came together, and history proved that there is no challenge too great for a world that stands as one.”