and the winner is...

Barak Obama. And my congratulations too. I may not be an American, but I and many others - indeed, most citizens of the world - have some stake in the American election. And in light of that, I'm happy that Obama won. I think he is the right person for the current domestic and world situation, and more than that he inspires hope merely by his presence. Some may decrie this as an example of politics being all about 'image' and I too share those concerns. However, human beings are not rational. We make many of our decisions based on emotion, and intuitions about the future. Look at the stock market; the fluctuations are all caused by rumours of this or that person that may or may not take over this company or sell this asset or what have you. Parties involved in intractable situations in the Middle East or Ex-Soviet bloc may perhaps see just enough hope after this election that they would come out from behind their 'fences' and talk with generosity of spirit. This may seem like utopianism, but as Obama was giving his speech I rememberd all the things I had seen in my lifetime - in particular watching the Berlin wall come down on tv with my parents, and when I stayed up watching the votes come in for the Northern Ireland power sharing agreement. Change is possible.

I watched the victory speech at a friend's house in Harlem, and saw from the window thousands of white Columbia University students walking up Broadway Avenue into Harlem to gather with their black and latino brothers and sisters to celebrate the victory of America's first black president. Now, foreign observers may be tempted toward indifference to this achievement - what's the big deal? But that betrays a misunderstanding about just how deep racial tension goes in America. A black friend of mine from school cast his vote across the road, at the Riverside Church polling station, the same church where Martin Luther King Jr. preached his sermon against the Vietnam war, and which was probably the tipping point that brought about his assassination. People forget that the Civil Rights movement was barely one generation away - this sermon was preached in 1967, just 14 years before my own birth. And so the bitter history of struggle for peace - racial and foreign - is still on the surface of the American conscience, and the symbolic and actual victory of Obama is a joyful message of new possibilities.