The Election 2008 Visiting Journalists Program
Witnessing a Revolution in the Making

By Murtaza Ali Shah

Covering the 2008 US election in Ohio has been akin to the experience of witnessing a bloodless revolution in the making – and being part of the most seminal moments of the modern times.

Almost on all accounts -- the historic election of Senator Barack Obama as the first black president of the United States of America, to the running of Sarah Palin as the Republicans’ vice-presidential nominee, to the mobilization of millions of disaffected voters and the unprecedented and high-octane involvement of the youth in the democratic process -- this has been an exceptional election race, with huge repercussions for the American people and for the rest of the world, which had followed the campaign with bated breath.

The fiercely fought battleground state of Ohio – where this scribe was based – encapsulated for me the essence of how the American presidential politics plays out and what it means to be on the cutting-edge of the American democratic system.

While the Americans queued in record numbers to cast their votes for the most momentous and highly passionate presidential contest ever fought to decide who will be the next leader of the free world, it is also a testimony to the great progress America has made in assimilating its minorities in the mainstream discourse. It has been heartening to see the US flag fluttering all over the places and people of all backgrounds taking pride in their American citizenship and wearing it on their sleeves.

“My son, 7, says he will go on to become the president of the US one day. It’s not a fiction here anymore. The acceptance of Barack Obama by the USA has broken that barrier and we are a new nation,” the Pakistani-American head of a Washington based think-tank told me, adding that his child’s dream can become a reality only in the US. Such feelings are in a marked contrast to those expressed by Europe’s burgeoning third-generation ethnic minorities who still don’t feel British or French and don’t relate.

After visiting work places, political rallies, cafes, clubs, sports stadiums, malls and election rallies, I would imagine that racial tensions in the US will continue to fester for a long time but day by day the issue will go to the margins and the development of a growing common culture in the young generation can be seen as a healthy sign of a more confident society – completely at ease with its diverse identity.

I had often heard that Americans happen to be inward-looking, less sociable, ignorant of the world outside and apolitical. During my interaction with a wide variety of people, including an evangelical preacher from Columbus, the allusion proved to be fairly exaggerated as I found the people to be friendly, engaging, open-hearted and curious to know more about others. The evangelical preacher said the Bush administration had disappointed him after mishandling wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and for failing to arise to help Katrina victims on time.

It was a treat to watch the people involved in McCain and Obama campaigns slinging it out on ideological grounds – the liberal and progressive on the one hand and the conservative and nearly far-right ideology on the other -- until the last day. The democratic arguments have been fought at cafes, in the streets and in university auditoriums. That also explained why the most powerful post in the world is so hard fought and how spirited this nation is in its creeds and how clued up it is about its future, and how, if it again manages to put its act together, it can again provide fair and honest leadership to a chaotic world.

The uniqueness and sublimity of the American people and the vastness of the continent can never be understood from outside or from the sidelines. One needs to touch the ground and connect with the people of nearly all imaginable stripes to know – and feel – the United States of America and its different manifests.

And no better way than having the opportunity to interview exclusively the undisputed icon of this election race – the out-of-work and unlicensed plumber-turned Republican poster-boy ‘Joe the Plumber’ and hearing his thoughts on the complicated business of international diplomacy, meeting a die-hard Republican woman who said she was assured by the God in her dream that John McCain will win and that Obama was an agent of America’s enemies who are at war with America’s Christian values, interviewing a 49-year-old woman at a Democrats’ rally who feared racial riots if Obama couldn’t make it to the Oval Office, speaking to a former student leader, who had traveled from California to help Obama’s Ohio ground troops, who was inspired by Obama’s message of change and ‘spreading the wealth’ argument, and hearing thoughts of a millionaire Colorado-based Pakistani family who this year raised over a million dollars for the McCain campaign using the platform of “Muslims for America”.

For the tribe of visiting international journalists that I joined, it has been an exceptional experience as nowhere else could we have gotten the opportunity to see what we saw unfolding before our eyes: the rejection of fear, paranoia, class politics and culture of division. In a marvellous display of reconnecting with the politics and reclaiming it, people from all strands of the American rainbow have been queuing for weeks, bracing chilly weather and long hours, to have their say in the affairs of their country. Their sense of excitement, joy, hope and fear was palpable. Until the polls closed on Tuesday evening, I regularly witnessed them coming in droves, with their children, their chairs, their books, their party stickers, their coffee, proudly displaying their Obama/Biden or McCain/Palin shirts/badges to cast their votes.

The experience has been unique also in respect of watching the people of the world’s most prosperous nation in pain. For many millions, who enthusiastically came out to vote this year, the American Dream has been an illusion, and a goose-chase. For many more millions, who came out from polling stations declaring through badges on their chests they had voted to make a difference, the American dream is turning into a nightmare in the face of a huge economic meltdown.

I keenly observed the seriousness of their faces and the thoughtfulness of their eyes that said it all: that the yearning for a common sense of purpose and unity and a well-defined direction has never been greater than now. That’s why the whole United States of America chose to roar as one. For change. For new leadership. And for return to the old glory days.

I, and others, will look back at the opportunity to cover the 2008 presidential race as not only a life-enriching experience but also as a chance to be actors in the campaign moments which went on to change the world forever.

Ali Shah works for bi-lingual Pakistani newspaper The News/Daily Jang (UK edition) and can be reached at hazratpk@hotmail.com

The Election 2008 Visiting Journalists Program Witnessing a Revolution in the Making

The Election 2008 Visiting Journalists Program
Witnessing a Revolution in the Making