IT WAS great theatre. The best, outside Biblical epics for which the miracle of instant global communication had unfortunately not been invented. Not just one nation, but the world held in thrall to the words of a single man thrust into near messianic adoration by the process, with all its faults, of democratic election. And now the world waits for the miracle that will, or will not, be Barack Obama’s presidency.
No wonder the new President sought to lower dangerously rocketing expectations with a wisely-judged, sobering assessment of the task ahead. At the same time, he did not disappoint those Americans who believe their country under Obama has a chance to emerge triumphant from the “gathering clouds and raging storms” at home into a world more comfortable, and safer, than it was when having to live with the global bully that the United States had become.
That President Obama’s inaugural speech confirmed his centrist positioning – underpinned by the profile of his leading aides – should have come as no surprise. Yet there can be no doubt that a line has been drawn, burying the toxic economic values and paranoid foreign policy of the George W Bush presidency. Almost 30 years after Ronald Reagan, with the inestimable support of Margaret Thatcher, rang the death-knell for the post-war principles of the New Deal, Mr Obama has now read the last rites over a legacy of conservative politics that have distorted, corrupted and brutalised the agenda in the western world for a generation.
That a black man now sits in the White House carries an epoch-making narrative about America’s own journey, not only from the days of slavery but within the lifetime of black people who still bear the memories and scars of endemic racism. That prejudice, still deep-seated within America, will not disappear overnight. But the election of an African American is a powerfully symbolic rejection of racial injustice.
Mr Obama’s praise for the market – “its power to generate wealth and expand freedom is unmatched” – tempered by a call for “a watchful eye” may sound disappointingly similar to the centrist stance of our own Labour Government. But in attacking the “petty grievances and false promises, the recriminations and worn-out dogmas”, the “greed and irresponsibility” and the “collective failure” which have underpinned the past eight years, Obama signalled the end of the neoconservative approach to foreign policy and the supremacy of laissez-faire economics. Science, and advances promised through stem cell technology, will no longer be a dirty word in Washington.
His assertion that the US must handle its power more responsibly, his offer of “a new way forward, based on mutual interest and mutual respect”, his promise to the Muslim world to “extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist” potentially transform the global political landscape while also burying the obscene, racist rationale behind the “war on terror”. What may be asked of Britain in terms of extra troops in Afghanistan may yet test these words in practice. The early start in dismantling Guantanamo Bay shows resolution in what may prove to be a more lengthy and complicated project than could be hoped.
It is just one of the many tasks in the new President’s in-tray as he begins to clear up the mess that is America and its influence under the last resident of the White House. Mr Obama made it clear that it is not going to be easy, and that success in “remaking” America will not be achieved by one man alone, but by the collective and united will of the people, a people seemingly enjoined by the vision of his language, “giving our all to a difficult task”.
Mr Obama’s greatest achievement has been, and must continue to be, to persuade America to confront itself and what it had become under Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and the band of amoral corporate religio-military aggressors who bequeath a country in the grip of economic crisis, two overseas wars and a collective crisis of confidence and identity. President Obama’s words on clearing up the mess and remaking America cannot but engender hope for America and the world. As he gets down to work, the world will be watching what happens in practice.
