What we learned about the USA on November 4, 2008

One hundred years ago the small town of Springfield was the site of a race riot that started a movement that culminated last night in the election of an African American to the highest office in the land.
It was as a consequence of that riot, in the birthplace of Abraham Lincoln, that the organization that still goes by the name of NAACP was founder the following year.
Now, a hundred years later, we have a president-elect who began his move to the top in - Springfield, Illinois.

Although Barack Obama's popular vote percentage (as of this moment just under 53%) is eclipsed by the numbers Ronald Reagan got in 1984 and George H W Bush received in 1988, it is the highest percentage of the popular vote that any candidate received in 20 years.

This is an incredibly important datum in the context of American society in 2008.

It was a mere 40 years ago the Martin Luther King was assassinated in a country that was still segregated in many ways, in fact if not in law.

MLK's statement "I may not get there with you" was indeed prophetic - and I believe that the ghost of MLK would be proud of the events that we have witnessed this year.

I believe that this election marks an irreversible change in the melting pot that America has advertised for so long.

Watching the results coming in I was amazed that my fears about crypto-racist sentiments weighing heavily on the outcome were unfounded. When Ohio was called, I began to believe that the time of racial prejudices, although it is not yet dead, is finally moribund.

Welcome, America, to the acknowledgement of the reality of a global heterogeneity that we have so long tried to pretend does not exist.

It will take some time for the healing, but it is my fervent hope that this election will see the drawing to a close of the two hundred years of self-serving prejudice and discrimination that have been a hallmark and badge of shame for this country.

I do not envy Barack Obama the challenges he will face in seventy-six days.

Many of the promises he offered earlier in this campaign will be nearly impossible to achieve in a country that is in recession - the funds are simply not there.

But it is my hope that the American people who brought about this incredible transition will recognize the intrusion of unpleasant realities that have changed the rules of the game.

But I have bigger hopes than that.

The position of the last superpower in the world has been eroded badly during the last eight years.

We have squandered much good will abroad with the arrogance displayed by an administration that was governed by moral certainty of a kind reminiscent of the time of Torquemada.

At home we have had an erosion of constitutional liberties the like of which has not been seen since the days of HUAC and the beloved junior senator from Wisconsin.

For those who have forgotten the words of Edward R. Murrow - they have been as valid during this administration as they were in 1954:

We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty. We must remember always that accusation is not proof and that conviction depends upon evidence and due process of law. We will not walk in fear, one of another. We will not be driven by fear into an age of unreason, if we dig deep in our history and our doctrine, and remember that we are not descended from fearful men -- not from men who feared to write, to speak, to associate and to defend causes that were, for the moment, unpopular.

(The complete interview can be seen at http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/MRC/murrowmccarthy.html)

Since the tragic events of September 11, 2001 we have had an administration that has seen fit to use the tactics of HUAC - confusing dissent with disloyalty and beating the drum for fear to replace reason.

And we have had no Edward R. Murrow to say "have you no shame."

I will have more to say on the impact of an Obama presidency later. For today I shall close with an expression of real hope for the future - a luxury that I have not enjoyed for some time.