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Great expectations

By Benjamin Teicher - posted Wednesday, 21 January 2009


The world's enthusiasm for Barack Obama must not obscure our ability to be agents of the change we desire.

Never before has the curious Australian fascination with all things American seemed so acute. With Barack Obama now sworn in as the 44th president of the United States, there is a sense that not only America will change, but that Australia too will be swept up in the tumult of Change We Can Believe In.

The messianic lure of Obama stretches across the Pacific, and so too the underlying hope that through Obama we will awaken to our better selves.

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Yet there are clear risks if a society - especially a global society - endows a single individual with all of its aspirations.

The psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud grimly foresaw the authoritarian societies that would sweep across Europe when individuals wholly identify with a leader.

One thing is clear: the Obama administration is not about to devolve into a totalitarian nightmare. But it is true that so many different people, with so many different causes and motivations have adorned the incoming president with all of their hope for the future.

His appeal worldwide only grew as the economic systems that underwrite our daily lives began to fail and the global economy seemed to head into terminal decline under his predecessor George W Bush.

In the week of Obama's inauguration, economists announced that consumers and businesses will experience a jolt of confidence that will get the markets moving again.

There is no doubt that the initiatives pursued by the Obama administration will have an impact the lives of billions. Obama's plan to fix the American economy will set the agenda for the global economy.

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Those looking for action on the environment and human rights have also placed a large store of their yearning in the promise of an Obama administration that can move the world.

Where the Bush administration was indifferent to the threat of global warming, Obama has announced that America will join the carbon-trading fold. He has also promised that the prison at Guantanamo Bay will close, if not as quickly as he had initially promised.

The risk is that Obama's supporters will wait for these initiatives to change the world for them. They will slowly forget that they too played a part in the events that concern us today.

The problem with words like economy, environment and government is that they seem like malevolent entities, independent of ourselves.

The economy, for instance, is comprised of all the different moments of economic activity in our daily lives. When we work for money, when we pay for a book or a DVD, when a bank or lender approves a home loan, these are moments that shape what we call the global economy.

Likewise, while Obama has promised to make the environment a focus of his presidency, it is a comforting illusion the idea that the world can halt global warming, reverse the destruction of forests and clear the choking pollution from its cities without actions on the part of individual human beings.

If human civilisation is truly facing an environmental catastrophe, then it will be up to citizens, workers, business leaders and consumers to opt for sacrifice at both the board room and kitchen tables.

The actions of individuals are key even on the issue of human rights. The torture of terrorism suspects was never merely the action of a sinister cabal in a dark corner of the White House. It occurred because, on the most part, these acts of the government were met with the acquiescence of ordinary citizens.

It is up to these citizens to ensure that human rights remains on the political agenda if such cruel acts are never to be repeated.

Supporters of Barack Obama must be willing to act and make changes in their lives if for no other reason than that this is something fundamental to Obama's message.

In a speech just hours before his inauguration, Obama evoked the memory of Martin Luther King to advocate encourage Americans to volunteer to their communities, cities and country.

Those who are seeking to change the way the economy works, to protect the environment and to transform the machinery of government must not defer their responsibilities to a higher authority. If our institutions are broken, it is only because we, collectively, have broken them or have allowed them to be broken.

Already, people have begun to worry that the Obama presidency will fail to meet the mounting expectations. We must not fear that a single individual will disappoint us. Instead we must work to meet the aspirations that we have channelled through an exceptional man.

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About the Author

Benjamin Teicher a freelance writer and blogger with a special interest in power. He blogs at Froth.

Creative Commons LicenseThis work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.

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