A Victory For So Many

I have not had the time to make any posts in the last few weeks and don't really have time now either, but the news of Obama's victory is too important not to put up a post about. There are no photos here, though I encourage all of you to take a look at Obama's 17 minute speech. I watched it on the BBC site but I am sure you can find it just about anywhere with a quick Google search.

As an expatriot for most of Bush's second term, being an American has had its challenges. Although I see the faults of the US government in a similar vein as friends from the Philippines, France, and Denmark - I also always champion to critics of the US what I think makes the country special and amazing. That quality I describe as the "Walking down the Street in San Francisco or New York" image. What I mean is that when you walk down a street in these and other large cities in the US, there is no way of knowing who is American and who is not based on how someone looks. This information only becomes clear after a conversation and that, to me, is the magic of the US. That is an advantage and an experience that minorities will never have in most countries - like for me in Japan, or a Japanese in Denmark. In such homogeneous places minorities are clear and immediately identifiable. And while I was perceived generally as a positive minority in Japan, I would never "fit in" there like a newly emigrated Japanese could in San Francisco. This is the quality that makes me most proud to be an American - and its one of the few qualities I could grasp on to during the Bush years.

Although while living in San Francisco I was also proud to participate in the huge (peaceful) protests against the Iraq War in San Francisco (that many never heard about). But unlike those protests of a vocal engaged and activated minority in San Francisco - this election and its result came about due to unprecedented voter participation and activism of all ages. And while it was a very long campaign, the length of it required all the contenders to be seriously vetted and to actually listen to the voices of Americans from the wheat fields of the midwest to the techies in Silicon Valley.

Today that quality of diversity and the great melting pot (or is it a salad?) of the US is on display for the world. I didn't vote for Barack Obama however because he is black, but rather because he seems to understand much about the world beyond the US border and seems to be a critical thinker willing to consider the angles of even those he disagrees with. Studying conflict resolution internationally these are qualities that seemed entirely lacking in the Bush Administration.

Of course no one knows what will happen now. Obama inherits a huge deficit, a financial crisis, an expensive war in Iraq, a fragmenting NATO alliance with limited enthusiasm to continue in Afghanistan, surging energy prices, among other issues. He will not be the cure all that many Americans are hoping for, the expectations for him are enormous. But they would be equally as enormous if John McCain had been elected. The job is a huge task but I believe Obama is up to the challenge!