Being called a Muslim is considered a smear in America. Even though i can understand why it is as such,i still am disgusted by that. For the uninformed, Obama has been 'smeared' as a Muslim for months now. Plenty of viral e-mails are making the rounds on the Net, even though it has been repudiated beyond doubt by the man himself.
He is thought to be Muslim partly because his full name is Barack HUSSEIN Obama. Though it is known that he had an African father who was a non-practising Muslim and that he has been a Christian all his life,the rumours still exist. There are also false rumours that he studied in a madrasah while living in Indonesia during his youth. These rumours are spread so as to cause the Americans to fear him as some terrorist. Hatred for Obama is very obvious at McCain-Palin rallies recently with people shouting things like 'terrorist!','kill him!' and 'off with his head!'. This is 21st century America?! I'm sure that the majority of Americans are nice,smart, tolerant people. But crackpots who shout such incendiary things should not be allowed to get away scot-free.
Not just that,his relationship with a 60s era terrorist called William Ayers is also being hit upon hard. Even though these acts took place when he was 8 and the so called terrorist is actually a well regarded figure in education nowadays. The way the McCain campaign has been attacking him for this makes it seem like Obama is intentionally best buddies with a terrorist. This man Ayers was named Chicago's Citizen of the Year in 1997. Well,to any rational person it would seem like this is not a very good line of attack to carry out. Furthermore,Obama has been forthcoming about their relationship,denounced his acts of terrorism and it's clear that Ayers is not in any way advising Obama on anything. But this attack is nevertheless going to be continued as it reinforces a subconscious thought into people's minds that somehow Obama is foreign,un-American.
The most shocking thing about the tactics that are being employed by the McCain Campaign is that back in 2000,McCain was subjected to the same type of lies by Bush. Bush accused McCain of fathering an illegitimate black child. This even though this was a Bangladeshi child that the McCains adopted not illegally fathered. hmmmmmm...... You would think that as someone who has experienced such negative campaigning against him,he would know better than to employ the same tactics. Furthermore with a reputation for being a 'maverick' who said that he wanted to run a civil campaign about the issues, he sure has come a long way to this sort of Rovian tactics. One can argue that,in such a bad year for Republicans, he has no choice because he would lose if he talked about the issues. I still think that for a man who is a war hero and talks about honour and dignity so much, he should have at least an ounce of that and try his best to wage a civil campaign. His campaign,and this is the ironic part,is being run by the same guys who ran Bush's campaign! So essentially the guys who smeared him and now working with him to smear others! I would get my balls sued off in Singapore if i said something considered to be even a little racially destabilizing. And these guys get paid to do the same thing?! Now i know why people everywhere want to go to America.
My point is that i think such politics should have no place in any political arena,especially in such a 'socially,economically,culturally developed' place as America. I use quotation marks because i think even though they trumpet themselves to be some sort of moral compass,this sort of discriminatory behaviour suggests otherwise. The first black man to actually have a reasonably good chance of becoming President and this sort of racial tension is stoked again. America talks relentlessly about human rights yet there is a significant amount of people there who are not ready for a black president according to polls. Why should skin colour even matter if all of us are humans with the same rights? But the polls also show that Obama is leading in the race and hopefully it stays that way. I believe he is the more likely of the two candidates to be able to restore America's standing and respect in the world. I for one would finally respect them for having the brains to elect someone with brains and not someone they'd rather have a beer with. Apparently, Americans voted for Bush because he was like them,'one of them'. It's the same way they feel now about Palin, that she's 'one of them'.
I find this absurd. I would never want a guy like me running the country,I'd want someone a heck of a lot smarter than me doing it.
So they think that if their leader is like them,he will know how they feel. That would be valid,except the policies of the Republicans don't match that. They believe in trickle-down economics where if you help the rich with tax cuts,eventually the poor will get jobs. I think Obama's philosophy of bottom-up economics makes more sense. Help the lower and middle classes and the economy will start running again. I really think it would send a strong statement out to the world if Obama is elected that America is sincere in wanting to gain the respect of the world and engage in multilateralism instead of being a lone sheriff.
You guys may wonder why I am so interested to the point of obsession in the American election.
One reason is because I am surprised how someone like Bush got elected and i want to follow this process to find out if Americans have actually learnt anything from the past 8 years of crap. But my interest is mainly due to Obama. I really believe that he is the kind of leader that we will tell our children about in the future just like how people talk about Roosevelt,Lee Kuan Yew, Kennedy now. From reading about him,he strikes me as a person who will surround himself with people he agrees and disagrees with,a person who can accept different points of views without feeling the need to impose his own,a person who will seek to find consensus and not just do what he feels like. If he gets elected,watch his inauguration speech and i guarantee you that you will feel a chill up your spine when he speaks.Watch this for proof. He has the ability to inspire optimism and hope. His critics will pan him for being all about soaring rhetoric,but a leader must have that ability. The ability to rally his troops when all seems lost,the ability to make people want to work together for a better future and the ability to make his people work for the greater good. He has his flaws like all of us do,but I believe he will still make a great leader.
