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If Barack Obama succeeds in becoming history’s first black US President, will it change America and the world?
The US presidential campaign seems already to have affected US-world relations. No US presidential election until now has attracted as much global attention as the contest for nomination between a black and a woman. Perhaps such global involvement was overdue?
Because, inexorably, the world is becoming a global village. Globalisation is welcomed by some, denounced by others. It has both good and bad attributes. But if civilisation is to survive, further globalisation is inevitable. A global system with players having a global reach is increasingly discernible. This is not because half a dozen faceless men in some dark attic are plotting world affairs, as conspiracy theorists would have us believe. It is because technology, communication and global dangers have compelled trans-national interdependence, have shrunk the world.
How is all this relevant to Obama and the US election? Not because of any policy that Obama might initiate as president. The relevance relates to the change in the attitude that the US and the rest of the world entertain about each other. For the first time, US intervention in world affairs is being balanced by global participation in US affairs. True, up to now global participation in the Obama phenomenon is limited to mere audience participation. But it is a start. Eventually, if globalisation proceeds without a major hiccup, it could transform the US.
How? As this scribe has repeatedly argued earlier, America is not a conventional nation-state. It is a bizarre experiment that succeeded. America is a land of migrants who were fleeing repression or seeking economic gain. Almost all Americans have dual loyalties to America and to their country of origin. This denotes not weakness but strength, if exploited wisely. It can help change America from being the most powerful nation to becoming the world’s capital: it can make America to the world what New Delhi is to India. America can rule the world only if the world feels it owns America. Before that, the world has a long way to go. Obama’s nomination could be the first half step.
(Puri can be reached at rajinderpuri2000@yahoo.com)