Dear Editor,
Barack Obama’s victory in the US presidential election has been greeted by a massive outpouring of goodwill around the globe. I recently travelled to the Caribbean and Central America. Obama-mania is widespread. The ‘Yes we can’ mantra has caught on among people who had lost hope in politicians in their own countries. Now, they feel if they are organized among themselves, change will also come to their country and they are hoping an Obama will rise among them to lead the charge for change.

There has been a receptive mood to the charismatic American politician everywhere I travelled. And there is a reservoir of goodwill for the new President-elect. People look to him for global leadership seeing him as their President.  The standing of the US globally has been so badly battered by outgoing President George Bush that people can’t wait for a new administration to take over and effect change now rather than wait two more months.

According to press reports, hundreds of millions followed the US election and cheered when Obama was elected. In India, for example, people evoked the blessing of the gods to aid Obama to succeed in reforming America. In Germany, a report says people hailed Obama’s election “as a stroke for racial equality and voiced hopes his presidency would herald a balanced, less confrontational America.” In every corner of the globe, people express the hope that the US could overcome racial strife to elect a Black as president. People accepted Obama’s victory as a rejection of the failed diplomacy of Bush and his Republican neo-conservatives who misread the situation in Iraq and the world when they invaded the country.  The world does not like the idea of returning the party of a president who engendered widespread hostility against allies. Ill-will towards the US quickly developed around the globe as a result of the invasion of Iraq and the subsequent atrocities at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay.  And now that the US economy is teetering on the edge under Bush’s watch, brought about partly as a result of the Iraqi adventure, and causing global panic, people are placing hope in Obama.

People the world over have come to see the election of President Obama as ushering a new world order characterized by peace, global cooperation and hope.  They see a new period of building alliances to confront the dangers facing the world. Unilateralism, as practised by outgoing President Bush, is out.  Global co-operation is in.

Obama must be given a chance to settle in and people should take a sober view of the new president. Obama is not the popularly elected leader of the world.  He is in charge of America’s interest.  Anyone who studies foreign policy knows he has been elected to seek America’s interest first. The hope is that as he pursues America’s self-interest, the global community would benefit because the US needs the support of the global community to move forward on its international agenda, especially in stimulating the global market (to trigger America’s recovery) and fighting terror, greenhouse gases and arriving at a new international trade regime. People the world over want Obama to work with their leaders to effect a better world.
Yours faithfully,
Vishnu Bisram