Two blocks away the pro-mosque rally had an equally strong presence of Muslim
men and women in traditional Islamic garb and many other supporters. The
discourse for the most part was rather peaceful, despite overblown rhetoric on
both sides, but New York City like the rest of the nation seemed divided;
almost 70% opposed the mosque because it is too close to what many consider
hallowed ground (Pew Research 2010c).
Both sides carried diametrically opposed poster-board signs for the Obama
presidency. The crowd against the mosque, led by the
organizers like the blogger Pamela Geller, said Obama is a socialist and not
the best leader for America. The pro-mosque crowd said Obama is one of them;
they were carrying signs depicting Malcolm X and Muhammad Ali, claiming that
Islam has been in America for 400 years.
Is the rise of a president like Obama partly a reaction of the soul searching
Americans have been engaged in since 9/11? Will Obama be able to help America
negotiate its emerging yet shifting global identity vis-เ-vis its allies
and enemies, especially in the Islamic world? Is Obama really a sign of things
to come in the 21st century?
Obama watched the events of 9/11 from downtown Chicago. As he reported in his
biography, he was filled with horror and disbelief:
The reports on my
car radio were sketchy, and I assumed that there must have been an accident, a
small prop plane perhaps veering off course. By the time I arrived at my
meeting, the second plane had already hit, and we were told to evacuate the
State of Illinois Building. Up and down the streets, people gathered, staring
at the sky and at the Sears Tower. Later, in my law office, a group of us sat
motionless as the nightmare images unfolded across the TV screen - a plane,
dark as a shadow, vanishing into glass and steel; men and women clinging to the
windowsills, then letting go; the shouts and sobs from below and finally the
rolling clouds of dust blotting the sun. (Obama 2006, 291)
Did
something stir in Obama's heart and mind that day? Americans had not been
attacked at home in such a dramatic manner since the Pearl Harbor attacks,
something Obama was very familiar with having grown up in Hawaii near the US
naval bases. The sheer chaos and loss of life at Pearl Harbor have been
imprinted on the minds of Hawai'ians for generations. "Now chaos had come to
our doorstep. As a consequence, we would have to act differently, understand
the world differently. We would have to answer the call of a nation." (Obama
2006, 345).
Almost immediately, Obama began to understand the specific purpose and timing
of his run for the US Senate: "By the fall of 2002, I had already decided to
run for the US Senate and knew that possible war with Iraq would loom large in
any campaign. When a group of Chicago activists asked if I would speak at a
large antiwar rally planned for October, a number of my friends warned me
against taking so public a position on such a volatile issue. Not only was the
idea of an invasion increasingly popular, but on the merits I didn't consider
the case against war to be cut-and-dried ... What I sensed, though, was that
the threat Saddam posed was not imminent, the Administration's rationales for
war were flimsy and ideologically driven, and the war in Afghanistan was far
from complete. (Obama 2006, 347) Obama had begun to
position himself mentally for another political run, and deep in his heart
perhaps he was preparing himself for the political run of his life, the run for
the presidency. Obama went ahead and gave the now well-known antiwar speech at
the Federal Plaza in Chicago, which a few years later led to the antiwar
platform for his presidential run.
Thus, the events of 9/11 touched the core of Obama's identity as a would-be
senator, a global citizen, and a progressive thinker. I argue that as an
aspiring politician, who had spent his early years in Hawai'i and Indonesia and
his college days in New York City, Obama knew that the events of 9/11 had
pushed American history and world history to a cataclysmic point. Not unlike
what happened with the Pearl Harbor attacks, civilization was witnessing the
forces of extremism and progressivism in a clash of epic proportions. Obama was
determined to play a role in the shaping of the events.
The candidate Obama had accurately diagnosed the problems stemming from 9/11:
the overextension of the American military empire to the detriment of the
domestic agenda. Obama may have also had Osama in his crosshairs for a long
time given Osama was on the most-wanted terrorists list as the head of the
worldwide network, al-Qaeda, the public enemy number one.
Notwithstanding the linguistic similarity of their Arabic names, separated by
only one letter (i.e., Obama vs. Osama), which often created confusion in the
minds of reporters and the general public, the Obama-Osama binary opposition
formed the archetypal good and evil image in the minds of millions.
In the American psyche, Obama's rise represented "the good" in opposition to
"the evil" image of Osama, the face of global jihad. In Obama's mind, Osama bin
Laden came to represent not just an evil genius but also a false prophet on the
Muslim street, which America itself had been actively courting.
As Obama said in a recent Mid-East speech:
Bin Laden was no martyr. He
was a mass murderer who offered a message of hate - an insistence that Muslims
had to take up arms against the West, and that violence against men, women and
children was the only path to change. He rejected democracy and individual
rights for Muslims in favor of violent extremism; his agenda focused on what he
could destroy - not what he could build. (Obama 2011).
As it
has been argued, president George W Bush went after Saddam Hussein with a
personal vengeance because of the leftover baggage from his father's unfinished
Gulf War (McAdams 2011; Renshon 2004). Obama threw himself into the race for
the presidency to solve the big challenges posed by the events of 9/11 and to
take down Osama's global network.
Although the bluster of the war on terror has been turned down by several
decibels, Obama has prosecuted the war with a quiet resolve, including the
killing of Osama bin Laden. By killing Osama, Obama brought a painful chapter
in recent American history to a remarkable close.
Yet, Osama may have managed to do the damage he intended by forcing America's
hand in overextending its military reach for more than 10 years. From a remote
cave in Tora Bora and from his residential hideout in Abbottabad, Pakistan,
Osama drained the United States' precious resources in lives and treasures.
As Pepe Escobar of Asia Times Online has suggested, it is not clear whether
America can recover from the military misadventures after 9/11 and regain
control of its slumping economy. Now that Osama bin Laden has been killed, will
China emerge as the real winner of the war on terrorism?
Dinesh Sharma is a regular contributor to Asia Times Online and a Senior
Fellow at the Institute for International and Cross Cultural Research, St
Francis College, New York.
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