Post 4-11

The build up to the November elections and the inevitable victory of Mr Obama will provide much needed catharsis for a civilisation wearied under the strain of a system turned against itself. In a rare moment of weakness and fear the institutions that safeguard our democracies were shackled and bastardized, corrupted against their intent and against the general moral compass of decency and the humane. Over this interminably long seven years, these chains have bitten more and more deeply into our collective prosperity- war, incompetence, division and the squandering of opportunity and life. The same chains have awakened us to this bondage and have become the source of our cry for freedom. However, the test for leadership is not winning an election, nor addressing millions with a message of hope and change. The real test after November is how quickly the shackles are undone, institutions reempowered, and the Augean levels of corruption and cronyism washed away with transparency and accountability.

I am the last to speak against engaging leadership and a platform of progress, yet charisma means nothing if it does not lead to action that repairs the damage to rule of law, individual liberty and global peace that has been so ruthlessly violated over this past administration. The danger is that we become so engaged in the catharsis of change, that we accept a superficial difference without the fundamental substance that yields true progress. The damage done is huge and the time to repair critically short, as power, once decried from afar, fits the new king as snugly as the old.

Yet, I am optimistic for a number of reasons. First, I believe the American system is developed enough that the vital institutions will largely self-correct, at least back to pre-Sept 11 standards. Increased economic and military competition from regional powers and new pressures to transform environmentally, socially and technologically, will force the U.S. to innovate to survive. Historically America has been well geared for such change, and I feel that institutions will strengthen through their pragmatic use. Simply put, they can no longer afford to divorce their ideology from reality, and reality has come crashing back in.

Second, there's Dr B.B. Obama's Lucky-Time Changey McHope Juice. Ok, I have to admit I've also been drinking the cool aid on this one. Although it's true that the measure of success needs to be made from a critical review of actions once in the Presidency, it is at least a very good sign that Obama looks like the critical-thinking, humanistic, reflective and persuasive leader that the U.S. needs, and that the rest of us need the U.S. to have. Politically, he will have a massive grass roots support base and a majority in Washington- a combination that promises hefty potential for reform. Policy analysis is a topic beyond the scope of this piece, but apart from following the traditional line of uncritical support for Israel, and the radioactive complexity of Iraq policy, his policy positions seem to resonate with progressive experts in the field.

Third, I think Australia is an interesting case study, prepared one year earlier. On 3 December 2007, Kevin Rudd was sworn in as the 26th Prime Minister of Australia, ending the 11 year rule of John Howard's conservative government. Rudd's first official act, was to sign the instrument of ratification of the Kyoto Protocol. In February Rudd fulfilled an election promise to apologise to Indigenous Australians for the stolen generation as the parliament's first order of business. In April he held the Australia 2020 Summit, bringing together 1000 leading Australians to discuss ten areas the government saw as critical for Australia's future development. And some days ago his government announced an overhaul of the horrific Australian asylum policy which prevented asylum seekers from landing on Australian soil and sent them instead to detention centres on small Pacific islands. These would-be immigrants were kept indefinitely, in legal limbo, and at their own expense. Changes to this policy means that the burden of proving a specific asylum seeker is a risk to Australian society now falls on the government, that the policy will not apply to children, and that cases of around 380 people currently in detention will be reviewed. Rapid and continuing changes of this type should form a litmus test for evaluating Rudd and indeed Obama and his promising administration.