The New Nation - Internet Edition

Maswood Alam Khan

Italian footballer Roberto Baggio during his whole career was always designated the penalty shooter for his team, the most difficult job a footballer has to perform under glaring eyes of spectators. The very utterance of 'penalty kick' can make the most intrepid footballer tremble at knees if, at the moment of his penalty kick, he flashes through his mind any image of great expectations of his avid fans.

Baggio faced such a tense moment in 1994 FIFA World Cup final when he took Italy's last penalty in the resulting shootout. Millions of football fans around the world screamed out---many in distress and others in ecstasy---and hearts of all the Italians were torn out when his kick went over the cross-bar and the Brazilians won the title.

Obama has won the American people's mandate to be the first African-American President of the United States, undoubtedly a great feat for the 47 year old senator from Illinois. But even a greater feat is at his threshold if only he performs his presidency as a true leader to bring the truest CHANGE inside and outside of the United States. His success as the 44th president of the United States will place him not only in the golden pages of the White House history, but also in the golden chair in the history of the world leaders paving the way for people to become colour-blind in choosing their future leaders.

All the previous US presidents have been of only British, Irish, or Germanic descent. Despite tens of millions of immigrants from different corners of the world are now settled as American ethnic groups there has never been before an American president having his ancestry in Africa, Asia, Latin America, or Arab World. None even from dominant ethnic groups with ancestral links to southern and eastern European countries like France, Italy, Poland, Spain, Scandinavia, or Russia could ever be an American president!

Obama has achieved something that no American even of European heritage could attain. Obama has opened the widest door for any American young man or woman irrespective of his/her race, colour, creed, religion, ethnicity, or ancestry to start dreaming to become one day the president of his/her country. From now on there won't be any perceived disadvantage to someone of Asian, African, Italian, French, or any other genealogical background, not previously seen in the White House, for aspiring to be a presidential candidate.

Obama cannot afford to remain content with disposing what is routinely placed on his desk in the White House. His angle of view and his range of vision in regards to interests of his nation and the world have to be unique and different from traditional viewpoints of his predecessors. He must focus his attention to distant future as a world statesman. His leadership style must influence the Americans, the young and the old alike, to choose their future leaders like him. His every decision must bear a hallmark of neutrality to appease the fears of those who had some doubts about his ability to enter the White House.

If Obama trembles, if he dithers, if he fails to score what the world is expecting from him as the leader of the most powerful country, doors for future Obamas to ascend to the chairs of leadership will be closed for at least another one hundred years.

The other day I was simply flabbergasted on hearing an expectation of a rickshaw-puller in Dhaka city as he said: "Sir, what benefits will we get from Obama?" I was speechless for a while before I could assure him that there will be lesser bloodshed in Iraq and Afghanistan and there may be more donations to Bangladesh from America in case we are hit by another natural calamity.

Not only Bangladeshis! The whole humanity of the world in trepidation had kept their fingers crossed in the hope that Obama would be elected as American president to give a respite from the pains both Americans and people from the rest of the world have been suffering from misuse of American power under Bush presidency during the last eight years.

But nobody could ever imagine that Obama would be able to blow such a strong bash on McCain. The whole world watched in sheer amazement the mesmerising performance of Obama in winning a landslide victory in the US presidential election.

Pathological America-bashing people around the world have also watched in stunned silence the victory of a non-white American and the courage of American people in going for a radical change in the United States where racism had ruled for decades.

Even Iranians, to many of whom America is "the great Satan", were surprised by the democratic values shown by American people and the sagacity of the American government and their intelligence organs in allowing a black candidate like Obama to come this far and even become a president.

Such attitudinal changes in American society, many optimists earnestly hope, may bring about a great change in the attitudes of the terrorists who have all along wrongly been taught that 'liberty of the oppressed lies in the annihilation of the United States'.

There is going to be a thousand kilometre long wish list American people---and people from around the world---would be placing on the desk of Obama on January 20, 2009. Among those people there may be one rickshaw-puller from Bangladesh too. Obama cannot afford to be rude to people's Himalayan expectations. He has to be cool and composed in ticking the long wish list, item by item, and make his own priority list to act upon that, if implemented, should satiate everybody's wishes directly or indirectly---today or tomorrow.

Obama has to create jobs for the teeming unemployed in America. He has to boost American as well as world economies, solve energy crises, restore America's image abroad, and must save the planet by safeguarding its climate. He has to listen to friends and rivals alike. He cannot antagonise republicans and their supporters by leaning too much for his party interests.

He must try to unite his country while avoiding the pitfalls in the Congress. Though his party gained around 20 seats in the House of Representatives and 5 in the Senate his party still falls a few short of 60 needed in the lower chamber to break filibuster and pass legislations without Republican support.

In the international arena he has to brave many nasty storms. It would be tough for Obama to live up to the general expectation that 'Obama's ascent to the White House will herald the end of American intervention in other country's internal affairs'.

Withdrawing American troops from Iraq anytime soon or stopping bloodshed in Afghanistan before arresting Osama bin Laden may not be as smooth and as easy as Obama fans are now fancying.

But a few things are for sure to happen during Obama presidency, I hope. The majority of Americans---95 percent as was estimated in the election campaign by Obama---will get some relief as to their tax, health and other welfare benefits. There will be more negotiations across the tables than roars of guns and canons to quell quarrels among states. Present and future immigrants will be better treated in USA. Fraternity among races will foster at unprecedented paces. Antagonism and suspicions of Muslims against and about the Americans will be at the minimum. Cooperation among the developed and developing countries will go up.

Obama will be watched most attentively by people of the world who are holding extremely high expectations from his presidency. Some people may expect Obama to promise and deliver them the moon and the stars. But, most people would be happy and content if they see an end only to their economic plight now being felt under white heat of the present recession.

We don't like to see in Obama a shaky Roberto Baggio who floundered and failed in his penalty kick against Brazil. We want to see him calm, composed, and focused as he looked during his election campaigns. We want to see in him a Tiger Woods, the most famous and the most cautious American professional golfer, whose veins run bloods of five ancestries: African American, Thai, Chinese, Native American, and Dutch.