Al-Yasha Ilhaam
7 November 2008
opinion
As night falls in America, it's a new day in Cameroon. Barack Obama is now the President-Elect of the United States. At 5:00 A.M., I ran down the street searching in vain for a taxi to get to the Capitol Hotel Residence to meet my American colleagues visiting for the International Conference of African and Caribbean Literatures at the University of Buea.
I called my parents and spoke with other family members. We shouted in amazement and congratulated ourselves for having survived long enough to witness a Black President, while acknowledging the many thousands gone who could only dream for such a day.
When I arrived at the hotel, I found most of the international contingent up and shouting, tears of joy streaming as we switched back and forth from CNN to BBC to the football game (briefly). McCain gave his concession speech (if it had been three minutes longer I would have been asleep) followed by Obama's much more invigorating victory speech.
Before an audience of around 250,000 at Grant Park in Chicago, Obama mentioned Martin Luther King and the civil rights movement in reference to Ann Nixon Cooper, a 106 year old Atlanta voter, who has lived through many political and social changes. "She was there for the buses in Montgomery, the hoses in Birmingham, a bridge in Selma, and a preacher from Atlanta who told a people that 'We Shall Overcome.' Yes we can."
The dream of Martin Luther King connects to the belief that the freedoms declared in the Constitution at the expense of the minority will one day be enjoyed by all. I spoke to the people from my village about the long haul from civil rights to the White House, from Atlanta to Buea, from the past to the future, from King to the Kansas-Kenyan.
I specifically wanted to know about how they viewed the concept of the "American dream;" is Obama's victory a realization of King's dream? Stephany Spaulding hails from Chicago, and she sees a connection between the two men and their messages. "This is the perfect book-end to a symbolic journey.
He took the convention nomination on the same night as the 'I Have a Dream' speech," she observes, "and he'll be inaugurated on the weekend we reserve for Martin Luther King." Coincidence? She thinks not. Also, like King, Obama is clear that his charismatic speeches aren't enough to make changes; his goals require a popular groundswell of support.
"It was never about King, the man, and he understood it was never about himself. I think that God was able to utilize Barack Obama because he understood it was not about him," she says.
Leah Creque wears a t-shirt bearing the countenances of Obama and King and referring to "dreams", but thinks the differences are as important as the similarities. Raised in the Deep South, she sees how far the dream has come. "I'm the same age as the children who were bombed in Birmingham," she says. "My father was a leading minister.
I knew teenagers and college students who were picketing. I grew up in the middle of the civil rights movement." She sees the major difference as one of scope. "The dream of King was the access and opportunity, getting the vote. This is more about changing things intrinsically," she says. "King's dream was about fundamentals; we weren't even thinking about healthcare."
It's clear that the civil rights movement was the starting point for many of the changes we see today. But King's generation had better be cautious of taking too much credit. Young voters, new voters, and heavy campaigning in traditionally Republican states were crucial in winning the election.
Obama also had to go over some old heads to get to where he is, although nobody can hold it against him for superseding Jesse Jackson Jr. and other members of the civil rights elite. It hasn't always worked for him, as in his campaign against Bobby Rush, but Obama has always maintained that the civil rights movement is American history and the future has to build on that foundation rather than relive the 1960's glory days.
For a less informed but more impassioned version of this theory, you should hear my brother rant about baby boomers; self righteous windbags still living off their laurels and Marching on Washington, ready to die with the baton super-glued to their hands rather than pass it along, hating their kids who went to law school just as much as the ones who won't move out of the basement. Nothing personal, though.
It has been, as the media keeps saying, "a long road to victory." But this victory is representative of how much the culture is changing. It's also been a long night and I look forward to getting to sleep, perchance to dream. The best part will be waking up to see that Obama, actually, won the election and, that, when I return to America, the country will have changed for the better.
Meanwhile, I am happy to be here with my colleagues from America, admiring the view of Mt. Fako. "This is my first time on the continent," Spaulding says. "The sun is rising over the second biggest mountain in West Africa. The biggest mountain was slavery, and we just climbed over it."
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