Obamerica

“Rebirth of a Nation” would be the title of the movie made about 20 years from now about what Obamerica is experiencing. The title would be a reply over the century to “Birth of a Nation,” an astonishing production by American David Wark Griffith, in 1915. The movie is a true artistic monument and at the same time, a monument of the most sickening racism – black people were shown as a pack of no-men, greedy, cowardly, callous and retarded, while the Ku Klux Klan was the noble, almost sanctified gatekeeper of human values in the USA.

In all his speeches, Barack Obama, the man with relatives across the continents, speaks to the Obamerican as he sees him: be him poor, black, white, young, old, gay, normal, Latino, Asian, cripple or sane.

Also smart, and… no, Obama doesn’t speak to fools, he refuses to thicken and streamline his words, as so many politicians do, stimulating the mass’ lower instincts in order to obtain votes. With determination, elegance and warmth, Obama addresses the higher and better parts of Americans, of people. Throughout history, during major crisis, new comers to the presidential seat are usually preoccupied with finding enemies of the people and escape goats, inside and out, and presenting their removal as the solution. Obama refuses to build a pedestal on hate and the illusion of vengeance. In Bernard Madoff’s home state, where he committed the biggest fraud of all time at 52 billion dollars and home of the largest banking holes that the state has been unable to cover, Obama isn’t promising impalement and executions in the Capitol Square – maybe because, who knows, he saw this in Romania and in four years time, the only thing this brought was the separation of honest people and the unification of scoundrels.

As he sees it, this crisis can not be overcome by invoking profound legacy or through para juridical incrimination and groundbreaking short term pseudosolutions-–the real way is for America to rethink itself as The United States of America… Barack Obama hasn’t forgotten 9/11, but for him, the symbol of America was not and is not the World Trade Center, but the Lincoln Memorial, the place from where the father of the free American nation watches over. President Obama doesn’t want to found his mandate on fear, like G. W. Bush did, nor to sacrifice democracy and freedom in the name of security. As for the world’s corrupt and aggressive dictators, he is lending them a hand, providing they unclench their fist.

“What is the first issue Obama has to consider?”-–over 35,000 Americans have written about it on the internet, answering a question posted by the New York Times. I also have an answer, because I feel like a Romanian Obamerican: before dealing with finances and economy, far worse damaged than in Romania, President Obama has to struggle with the Obamania. It has come to the point where the fat people of America, which is one out of four, have come to say: “It’s alright, Obama is here and his measures are going to make us lose weight.” Everything that has Barack Hussein’s face on it is selling itself on the spot. 5,000 tickets, 25 dollars each, for the parade on Pennsylvania Avenue on the day of the oath sold online and through the telephone, in less than a minute. Obamania is turning him into a Messiah. Which is unfair. At no point during his campaign has Mr. Obama pointed to himself as being a saving hero, a genius, enlightened by divinity or endowed with paranormal powers. He never said, “I will do this and that.” All he ever said was, “I want to go to the White House because, in America, the land of possibilities, I want to make it so that people like you, ordinary people, can accomplish extraordinary things together.” Barack Obama is a Grand Catalyst – God help us that he won’t be taken by others, or himself, as anything other than that.

Which doesn’t mean that yesterday, in Obamerica, people didn’t experience the feeling of history. “Remember this day!” parents tell their children. A day for the whole world, not just for America.

An Obama in Romania is not possible now. This is because, as President Clinton said, “There are many bad things in America, but there isn’t one so bad as not to be overcome, in the end, by the things that are good in America.” Here, it’s the other way around.

So I consider Barack Obama to be my president, too. As to what he will do, I believe that now, more than ever, the faith of Romania depends on it.