Only in America (part II)

In the second part of an exchange with KA Dilday, Anthony Barnett argues that the novelty of Obama's candidacy places the Democratic nominee in the company of leaders across the Americas. Kay's first letter can be read here, as well as part III, and part IV.

Dear Kay,

I well remember our conversation. I also recall how I first started to listen to and read Obama in January and thought, "Damn, he really means to win and can." It was because of his deliberate appeal to conservatism. It meant he was genuinely serious about the presidency - and not in running as a radical, let alone as a "black" (as Jessie Jackson, at least in part, did). So here is to your dish of crow! May I garnish it in just two evenings time! 

But will - or would - Obama's election mean that the US is exceptional? Or that it is the beacon for humankind? Or at least that it is more liberal or tolerant than western Europe as you suggest? Here also we argued. First things first. It was not even slavery in America that was so exceptional. It was the civil war. Without the civil war the South would surely have abandoned slavery of its own accord. Instead, it suffered its appalling devastation and long aftermath as revenge was administered on the coloured through Jim Crow. To overcome this is to become normal. 

Obama presents himself as a candidate who will heal division. Like all good doctors, he joins exceptional self-belief and a measure of modesty. The immediate division he seeks to heal is also the civil war of the Sixties - in a word, "Vietnam" - that echoed your original civil war. But I want to emphasise that this healing, if it happens, will make America more healthy and normal, not boost its exceptionalism.

Only in America? Much has been made by Clinton supporters of gender prejudice. As you know, Hillary failed because she made the wrong judgement over Iraq - a defining issue - not because she was a woman. Nonetheless, of course, women are oppressed. But who leads the original land of Kinder, Küche, und Kirche, where the proportion of women in the workforce is one of the lowest in the developed world (less than 10 percent of upper and middle management according to Wikipedia)? A woman! Who was the prime minister of the UK through the 1980s? Margaret Thatcher. (I emphasise these two rather than Indira Gandhi, Sirimavo Bandaranaike or Benazir Bhutto because they are not from ruling families. It is just as amazing that they made it, that Obama might.) In the nineteenth century Britain had Disraeli as Prime Minister. OK, he had converted. But when has the US ever had a Jewish candidate fronting the ticket? 

One way of seeing Obama is as part of a tendency that is sweeping the Americas: Lula in Brazil, Bachelet in Chile, Morales in Boliva. I am not trying to diminish the meaning of his success if it is fulfilled. People wept with relief in Brazil after Lula's success. America is our superpower; should normalisation also happen here it will be especially wonderful (IF it does, I don't want to jinx it!). An Obama victory will represent the destruction of an impediment. Whatever happens afterwards, a huge advance away from exceptionalism will be achieved. 

I don't think the comparison with Europe in terms of minorities is the measure here. American blacks are not like European migrants they are - you are - original Americans. Even if granted by constitution only 3/5ths of citizenship, you were there over two hundred years ago. I think we have 15 ethnic minority MPs out of 650 in Westminster, which is pathetic. But I am sure this will increase, provided, that is, Parliament continues to matter. Where we are really behind is in the state institutions. London, I feel, is more genuinely mixed than most American cities. But not our police force! The US military is a vast organisation dedicated to rooting out racial prejudice, whereas across Europe the military remains elite-controlled and exclusive. I don't think there is a military figure who could have made the kind of endorsement Powell gave Obama, saying it would be perfectly American to have a Muslim president!

I agree with Powell. What I feel is especially wonderful about Obama's blackness is that he signals an ending to identity politics. Like Mai Ghoussoub I believe one shouldn't make ones background into an identity and this is, in effect, the argument of Obama's book about himself. Dreams From My Father is an investigation of where he has come from, not what he is. It is a platform not a confinement. So I think you are wrong to feel embarrassed. His blackness is a huge part of his appeal precisely because it says "skin  colour doesn't matter".

Now, for the first time, feeling he will win, I am also beginning to feel sorry for him. It is almost as if the American elite has asked itself, "Upon whose shoulders shall we place the economy when it goes belly up?"

Alarmed by this expectation,

Anthony

Anthony Barnett is the founder of openDemocracy.net.