After the Dust Has Settled

On the evening of Obama`s inauguration, I was at a press conference in Johannesburg and was surprised by one of my colleagues who asked “What are your plans for Obama’s inauguration?” I understood the question, to which I replied sarcastically: “We will cover the inauguration from our office in Washington.” But my colleague added, “I mean the coverage of the people’s reaction here and their celebration of this man’s election.”

South Africa and the larger black continent lost control when Barack Obama was elected. On the streets of Johannesburg, t-shirts were sold bearing his image appearing side-by-side with Mandela (in spite of the difference in legacy of struggle and the human dimension). Large screens were set on that day to display the inauguration ceremony, where writers and politicians compared his inaugural speech with Nelson Mandela’s speech in 1994 after the fall of the apartheid regime.

So why is the world considering Barck Obama’s election a great victory?

I think this is due to three main factors:

• Power and impact of the picture: the televised image from the United States, where media, public relations, Hollywood and polish played a major role in creating a magic image of a tan-faced man coming from the ground, changing the world and bringing peace. For two years, the television captured an image of him in the best suits with his wife, whom the media portrayed as legendary, on his right-hand side. This appearance connected everybody watching TV, in one way or another, to this magical personage, similar to a Hollywood star.

• The magic of words: on his long road to the White House, Obama appeared as a great speaker and a professional writer using the powerful gloss of certain English language phrases and slogans to fascinate the minds and hearts of the millions who gathered around the world to watch their TVs. The language magically worked in strong and balanced communities were words are influential. With the help of bright slogans and rhetorical phrases, Obama took everything and gave nothing back. With “change,” he was able to shift the balance of power to his side, but the world didn’t ask itself what kind of “change” Obama meant. It’s the language maze.

• The world wants a hero: it seems that mankind today, after being demoralized by economic interests, where the rich are eating the bread of the poor by the power of law and convention, had a desire for any hero who could help to stop the tears, hunger and suffering on earth. This tendency pushed people to create a mythological figure from Obama as a man who would have a positive effect on the entire world.

But a careful overview of the mood of the big leaders that brought Obama to power demonstrates that nothing will change. Obama is a man who was led to the throne by major companies to carry out their interests. Otherwise why would Lockheed Martin, a defense company, contribute over ten million dollars to his campaign? Is it to bring peace, or to start new wars where their weapons will find buyers?

A preliminary overview of Obama’s administration proves that this man is another cold U.S. president, although he said in his inaugural speech that the time had come to get rid “of the false promises that for too long have strangled our politics.” However, he caved in when he made the first non-traditional appointment, that being Charles Freeman. The “New York Times” also determined on March 14th of this year that Obama’s dealing with Guantanamo in legal terms is symbolic only – to set imaginary boundaries between his policies and those of the Bush administration.

But it seems that the Obama phenomenon is deflating. It seems that humanity has become so shallow that we are living in a world made of pictures, in which we are shouting for the legendary hero and then exiting the movie hall when we discover that we are pursuing smoke and seeing dust on water.