We Are the Generation...

From Ritodhi Chakraborty:

We are the generation to end all generations. Children of a blind Cicero, anguish detracted shells for corporate impregnation. Honest expression of our repression is reflected in our Ipods, our primitive obsession with formless function, our acute lack of serendipity in the face of an ever complex cosmic now.


Last night I saw a small glitch in the matrix. A broad baby ripple that spread across the enormity of our value laden space-time mesh. It was as if a baton had been handed to the last human on earth – and the race was necessary not for our survival but for our ontological vindication. After almost 40 years – the hopes, the dreams, the cynical formalism was washed away in November rain.


And I was there. In the middle of it all – within this hallowed cocoon of self denial that lay dying on DCs sidewalks – was our generation – in the throes of its political legitimacy- awkward and scared – ruminating on the promethean burden of our lack of identity. As the fractured veins of the military-industrial complex bled dry in front of our eyes – we were enveloped by a festival – One that we had crafted from the hesitant whispers that had started this revolution.


And we walked through the “negro streets of dawn” clutching each others dreams with more pain than our reckless lives could justify – with more love than our asphalt promenades could withstand . Like prophets of an era that had begun the day we were born.


From K street to the White house, from Mount Pleasant to the capitol – we walked as if this was the first day of the rest of our lives – We became our own salvation. In our songs of freedom, was the sublime nakedness – the nakedness of that final feeling that absolves you from everything.


And as the wave crashed over the organs of this great nation – I thought of that fateful day in 1963 when the reverend had talked in front of Lincoln. His voice has been steady and his arguments human – He had said “We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of Now”. He had spoken of a brave new world, one that needed more courage to live in than to build. As I looked at the spectacle around me I thought – Free at last, free at last , Thank god almighty we are free at last.


And all it took was a dark knight from an atrophying Midwestern city, whose rhetoric finally shattered forty years of social apathy and saved my generation.


Hey Emily,

I am a second year masters student at SIS. I am not an American citizen, but what i experienced is attached to this letter.

best,

Gorky

Can Kenya learn from Obama's victory?

I think that the recently concluded election in the US is a bleak reminder of the democratic inadequacies in Kenya. We are stuck with an outdated constitution, greedy leaders and a political system that rewards individuals based on their ethnicity.

While Kenyans are rightly celebrating Obama’s triumph, we also need to realise that Obama is an American president, raised and educated in America. His priorities and ambitions are therefore American, not Kenyan. While he does acknowledge his Kenyan roots, Kenya really is just another country with its own issues and difficulties. I think it was hilarious that the Kenyan government’s reaction to Obama’s election victory was to declare a national holiday. While the president-elect was going about his business and reading over state briefings, our country was celebrating with the day off. Don’t get me wrong; I think Kenyans and citizens all over the world should be commemorating this great moment in world history and I’ve been smiling all week. America has demonstrated to the world that meritocracy can prevail over racial intolerance.

But if Kenyans are waiting for Obama to provide handouts and come save them, then we need to forget about overcoming our institutional inefficiencies and gaining economic self-sufficiency. Let us shed the dependency disease and seek Kenyan solutions to Kenyan problems. Instead of waiting for Obama to come build hospitals and roads, and boost tourism in Kenya, this is the time to grab the opportunity to transform our country and reject biases that some individuals are unfit to lead our nation because of the color of their skin or their tribal background. Kenya has many young Obamas to offer, with the selflessness, courage and values to defeat racial bigotry and the vision to lead. If we just stand up, we too can have our Obama moment!

 

 

 

Why my father wanted Barak Obama for President

To: Israa Hamad
From: Jan Arnese
Date: 11/10/2008 05:04PM
Subject: Why My Father Wanted Barack Obama for President
( a letter to swing voters in my family in Pennsylvania)


As you know, my father Richard passed away just a little over a month ago.
I am saddened in these final days before the election that Dad won't be able to see the outcome -
he was so optimistic about seeing the moment when Barack and Michele Obama would make it to the White House.

So in honor of my Dad who so often wrote letters to the editor to share his viewpoint with his community,
I will try to tell you in what might have been his words - just exactly why my Dad wanted Barack Obama to win this fall.

My father was a "real" American and a true patriot. And yes, he was a liberal and a freethinker, too. But he was also a child of the Depression and a veteran of World War II, and he kept a copy of the Gettysburg Address and the United States Constitution in his writing file for easy reference. His most cherished Amendment was the First Amendment of course - freedom of speech and freedom of the press, along with freedom of religion.

To extrapolate from some of my father's own writings, I believe he might have presented the following argument for Obama's candidacy:

"In the past two months the McCain campaign has stooped to the very lowest forms of scurrilous attacks and character assassination; they have sought to demonize and denigrate Obama through false accusations and defamatory associations. They have called Obama a terrorist, an infidel, a sexual pervert, an elitist, a socialist, a communist , a Marxist and a " redistributionist" ( this of course is not an actual word to be located in any English dictionary - which does not bode well for four more "semi-literate" years to come under a McCain / Palin administration).

But putting the negativity of the campaign aside, let me remind my fellow citizens that Obama has clearly shown the cool demeanor, the organizational aptitude, and most of all "intellectual vigor" as so aptly described by Colin Powell, that we need and deserve in our next President.

He has proven despite his relative youth to have the bearing and the class of an elder statesman. bettering his opponent in this regard hands down. He has shown a remarkable capacity to remain calm and disciplined in the face of an unparalleled onslaught from all angles, while managing a massive and strategically brilliant campaign. I believe that, far more than his opposition, Obama has the potential to bring both Democrats, Republicans and independents into his administration to solve the daunting challenges facing our country at this pivotal time.

In addition to his outstanding oratorical skills, Obama also has demonstrated the ability to listen, something that has been sorely lacking in the political arena and never more painfully so than during the last eight years under George W. Bush.

Obama I believe also has the leadership qualities that we desperately crave - not only to inspire our youth through a time of crisis - but also to galvanize national and international consensus on global issues that will be so critical over the next decade and for future generations. We are on the brink of financial calamity - and at risk of leaving our children and grandchildren a society full of great schisms and even greater inequality, if we do not choose a President who can act decisively, wisely and magnanimously at this critical juncture in our history.

It is therefore with great confidence as well as pride in my country that I support Barack Obama for President. I encourage you to cast your ballot for him this Tuesday in the spirit of leading our country forward through a period of reinvigoration and renewed faith in our democratic system, and a reignited spirit of citizen participation - with both sides of the proverbial aisle working together to rebuild this bruised - but not broken - nation that we love. "

In conclusion, as my father's daughter, I encourage you -- any of you who for whatever reason may still be on the fence right now -- ignore the slander and demagoguery -- and cast a vote for the man who is by far the superior candidate in this extraordinary election year. Vote for Barack Obama on Tuesday - and if you are not 100% sure, then trust me - and do it for Richard; he won't be able to make it this year.

( Jan, November 2008 )

Secretary-General on Obama

This article was sent to me and I thought it interesting enough to post.

UNITED NATIONS | By Neil MacFarquhar
Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon, habitually a taciturn diplomat in his public statements, bordered on effusive in talking about the president-elect. While careful to highly praise both candidates, he called Mr. Obama’s election a “historic opportunity’’ for a stronger working relationship between the United Nations and the United States.

“I am very optimistic that we will have a very strong relationship, a renewed partnership under his administration,’’ said Mr. Ban. The secretary-general quoted from several campaign speeches in which the president-elect voiced support for diplomacy, development and even the United Nations itself, often considered a radioactive issue for the American electorate.

“He values highly the resolution of all the conflict issues through dialogue,’’ Mr. Ban said. “He has expressed publicly that he is willing to meet anybody, any country, so that will provide good opportunity not only for the United States, but also the United Nations as a whole to resolve all issues through dialogue.’’

Relations between the Bush administration and the United Nations have been notably tense, although the hostile surface rhetoric often masked a working rapport on numerous issues, particularly development in Africa.

Still, Mr. Bush did not appoint a United Nations ambassador until nine months into his first term and one of his envoys, John Bolton, once suggested that nobody would notice a difference if the top 10 floors of the Secretariat building were lopped off.

The Bush administration disparaged numerous treaties advocated through the United Nations, including the Kyoto Protocol on global warming, the International Criminal Court and the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. His administration also withheld funds from the United Nations Population Fund and worked against a treaty limiting small arms trafficking, among others.

Mr. Ban suggested all that might change. “I also expect the United States will take a more active participation in all United Nations organizations and activities,’’ he said.

The secretary general noted that in February 2007 he and Mr. Obama met by chance on a shuttle flight from Washington to New York. The senator asked him many questions, particularly about nuclear proliferation issues involving Iran and North Korea as well as the challenges of reforming the United Nations itself.

“He was very engaging and he knew a lot about the United Nations and I was very much encouraged,’’ Mr. Ban said.

From Grant Park, Chicago...you can't get any closer!)

I Got this post from my friend Kate Lillis, who lives in Chicago, read on:

Tickets to Grant Park were hard to come by and my roommate, Aruna, and I ended up on the waitlist. I assured Aruna that ticket or no ticket, I was going to join the masses and get as close to the action as possible but ok, yes, first we could party hop. Common and Talib Kweli were hosting an election party at the Hard Rock Café and Aruna’s friend Paraisia knew the right people to get us on the list. We were feeling pretty cool as we waited in line in our high heel boots and cute tops in the 70-something degree weather (very rare this time of the year!). But we waited…and waited…and realized that 8pm was quickly approaching and getting in after this time meant paying $20. We are a group of law students and underemployed young adults who are willing to pay money on beer but not on admission to a swanky event. So we headed to the bar!


After a couple miller-lite (gross) and delicious steak fries we got on the “L” and shot down to Grant Park. The energy on the red-line was electric. Young people debated the best place to exit the train while Paraisia pulled us off at Monroe. Above ground we caught the current of Obama-worshipers and rode it down Michigan Avenue, over the bridge and toward Grant Park. On the way, I learned that Obama was president from a group of screaming and flailing teenage girls. We then became screaming and flailing teenage girls as we surged over the bridge in the direction of our new leader.


We, along with the hundred or so people that crossed the bridge with us, bumped dumbfounded into the green fence surrounding Grant Park, stood on our tippy-toes to try to catch a glimpse of The Man and then collectively realized that to the left was a large screen where we were to gather and take in the spectacle.


Surely you know, with some accuracy, the history of segregation in Chicago and have a sense of the racial tension that exists here. The south side is almost entirely black and the north side is mostly white. The majority of northsiders have never set foot in the south – even in the gentrified Hyde Park where the University of Chicago is located and Barack Obama resides – simply out of fear. There is nothing melting-pot-esque about Chicago but rather it is defined by its delineated and ethnically uniform neighborhoods.


So you will understand how momentous it was to chant YES WE CAN pressed up next to each other, a sea of immigrants and Americans of all colors. And you will understand how powerful it was to see black children sitting on their parents’ shoulders waving small American flags at Obama on the big screen. To my immediate left were Nigerians and to my immediate right were an elderly white woman and Mexican family. We could all see something of ourselves in this truly global citizen on the screen. We smiled, welled up, shouted and believed in unison. I expected at least something to go wrong or some kind of riot to happen. I mean, come on, there were hundreds of thousands of people. But nothing did. On the contrary, people were gracious, friendly and so positive. I was – as my facebook status accurately noted – proud and thrilled. Not only to be a Chicagoan (transplant) but to be an American.


After Obama’s speech, we rode the current of Chicagoans down Jackson street to the blue-line where by some miracle we were able to catch the first train back to Wicker Park, our neighborhood on the northside. Once inside the apartment, we ripped off our stupid heels, let our poor throbbing feet come back to life, and watched the speech for a second time on CNN.

Oh, the POSSIBILITIES!

My name is Emily and I'm from a very Republican (against their own interests) region of the midwestern United States, in the southernmost county of Illinois. We share a border with Kentucky. Almost everyone in my family is Republican and most are racist, though of course they do not think themselves to be racist. I am a bleeding heart liberal and even do not blame them for the way they think and feel with regards to African Americans, native Americans, Latinos, or anyone else in the world that isn't full-blown confused about their ancestry; the way they were raised in rural mid-west with a super biased education, chock full of pro-America propoganda ("We give the most aid to poor nations, we have superior education/healthcare/infrastructure/culture, We succeed most at capitalism but we also reach down and help all those poor, lazy countries in poverty, etc") is the culprit in this situation and for the situation in most of the Red States: its machismo, its patriotism without question, its lack of objective information sources. They are/we are mostly farmers, mostly lower middle class, mostly busy just working to live with no time left to seek truth or information. No one travels or thinks very much about life outside of the USA.

I've always been a black sheep and thus have ended up working in sustainable agriculture (the farmers in my family think I'm stupid, talking about working in agriculture and never having lived in Kansas or Texas or on a "farm" in the conventional American sense). I'm currently working on a community based garden project at a school in rural Guatemala and watched the news from here, 7 months pregnant with a biracial child--the father is in Washington DC and coming down around the due date.

On the night of the election I wasn't feeling anything (probably out of self-protection...its SCARY to hope so much) though leading up to it, it was all I could talk about...somewhat depressingly since no one here in this rural village knows much about international politics, even that which effects them greatly--again, not the fault of the villagers. In fact, it seems the more they know of the Western world, the worse off they are. Two days before I told a woman selling tamales that the father of my child was Barack Obama and she replied in Spanish, That's nice...my husband's name is Jose.

The elections began here around 7PM and I have a friend who manages a hotel that is surely the only place that has a TV with a screen larger than 5 inches so we hang out in this hotel room for the night. I'm pregnant and thus get nearly everything I ask for from my friends these days. I settle in to watch with a German, a Spaniard and a Republican from Hawaii. Kentucky, 8, McCain. Vermont, 3, Obama. I remember the Kerry elections and how it began slow like this and as time went on, Bush's electoral points gained more and more of an edge. Ick. I can't do it for another 4 years. Palin doesn't know Nicaragua from Nigeria, just like Bush. McCains ugly old face is just a slap in the face to those of us so passionately crying for change: I simply can't look at it for 4 years. I won't return to the States if they win, I'm thinking.

Soon enough, the tides have turned. Obama is gaining more and more States, "FLORIDA Proyeccion--Gana Barack Obama." WHAT?! I cannot believe it...only 5% of the votes counted. Florida? Really? Michigan, Wisconsin, New Mexico--Obama! OHIO, Obama! They started to show the crowds of Chicago, where I had lived for nearly 8 years of my life. There, the people, soo many of my friends, were gathering in the same park I walked to and around in the summers and watched old movies on the big screen with the sun setting amidst the skyline behind it. So familiar, I WANTED to be home for a moment! I think, 'If he doesn't win, there will be a goddamn riot!' I'm laughing and have goosebumps. Oh My God. Obama is the President-elect! My son, the future, the oppurtunity to turn things right--all the things running through my head--it all seems so bright and shiny to be on the winning side for ONCE!!

My own half-black, half-white first son could be born on the first day of the first year of the first minority and progressive President of the USA (dare, I say, the world!) I've been smiling in the face of all the snobby Europeans who have had a plethora of material to laugh at us Americans during the Bush administration, proud to be an American (and a half!) for the first time in my life.

But...as a local paper said here, It's like Obama has stumbled on a huge mess of oil and honey and is equipped with a roll of toilet paper to clean it up (sounded more eloquent in Spanish). We are as responsible as he is for creating the change we want to see in this world...its just GREAT we won't be seen as fringe elements any longer. We can ask for equality and sustainability and peace out loud! We're confirmed that we ARE NOT silly hippies, we're real people who have demanded change from the most powerful and possibly most damaging countries of the entire globe! There must be a god because after all these years of asking, that god FINALLY blessed the USA.

Thanks, Israa, for creating this outlet of our friends and families to read and talk amongst themselves: Where Were You When the World Changed...

Anyone interested, please read my newest blog entry on Obama and Food/Agriculture issues, too. And then...continue reading about my project here in Guatemala!

www.emilykayzielke.blogspot.com

Impressions from Nigeria

This is a comment from my friend Chris Schunk who is currently working in Nigeria:

I never post notes but I'm making an exception because I need to share what I've seen in Nigeria in the two days since Obama's victory. Not a surprise that people here are ecstatic about it, but people in the U.S. might not grasp just how dramatic the change of attitude about the U.S. and its citizens has been. At a meeting this morning the man I met with couldn't stop talking about Obama and how thrilled he was. All he kept saying was "I love America!" He sounded like Eddy Murphy in "Coming to America." Then tonight we went out with some friends and a Nigerian guy had an American flag that he kept waving in the air on the dance floor and the band dedicated a song to Obama. To anyone that's lived or traveled abroad during the Bush years, you know how implausible that was even up to a week ago. Of course now comes the hard part, governing, but I am completely blown away by the effect of Obama's victory on the U.S. image abroad. All of the sudden you don't need to apologize for being (or in my case growing up in the States) an American. The only analogy I can think of is the U.S. image after WWII. Maybe this wouldn't of been possible had we not had to endure 8 years of suffering under Bush. In a weird way that almost makes all the tragedy of the Bush years worth it (except if you're an Iraqi civilian). Maybe every cloud really does have a silver lining...