Change and politics in America

Washington DC. On this historic day when a Black man, who 50 years ago could not even have boarded the buses that whites rode, moves into the White House, I am in the US on another occasion and so witness history from a somewhat closer distance. I know that witnessing this historic day from this distance is of little importance in many respects. Because all the details of the event, along with all the commentary, can be watched live from everywhere in the world. So the difference between being in America and being in Turkey to watch these elections is only like the difference of watching the match from the stands. Well, that may not count as a small difference either, of course.

The excitement and enthusiasm on the faces of the people gathered in the square, the economic, political and moral expectations from the Obama administration, the joy of being rid of the political and material wreckage caused by the old administration, the search for trust by people who have lost trust in the government in a society where trust is the greatest capital, the anger toward the Bush administration that chased deadly adventures abroad while exposing its own people to the biggest economic crisis in their history... It is not possible to draw a homogeneous American picture out of all of these. Nor is it easy, or correct, to say that by electing Obama America decided on a total change that will meet everyone's every expectation.

On the one hand, it is the gradual arrival of American society at an ever more different population composition, a different synthesis, that made Obama's election possible (or rather, his election by a relatively clear margin despite being Black). The growing interest in politics of minority populations, Catholics, Hispanics, immigrants and their new waves of population is heading toward becoming a factor to be taken somewhat more seriously in American society's expectations of change.

On the other hand, a change that is by no means negligible and undoubtedly deserves appreciation is that a considerable segment within American society has coped with its racist tendencies to the point of voting for a Black man. Moreover, the share of a "punitive" anger, because of the last Bush administration, especially over having been "terribly deceived" by their own "white statesmen" in the Iraq war policy, in their having reached this point is very large. Many whites known not to have given up their racist feelings see "voting for a Black man" as a kind of way of punishing their lying kinsmen.

Of course, none of this amounts to data that will change everything with the sharpness of a revolution from yesterday to today, from today to tomorrow. But it very clearly shows that America, known to belong exclusively to those of WASP origin, no longer fits such a definition, at least.

Some may find it unnecessary to seek any meaning beyond the fact that, looking at the general course of American election history, power, which passes almost in sequence between Democrats and Republicans, has this time passed to the Democrats. Yet in these elections a serious will for change has emerged that was rarely seen in earlier ones. This can also be seen in the passionate favor shown to Obama. In no earlier election did the masses have such great expectations of the president they elected, nor were the inauguration ceremonies so crowded and enthusiastic. That Obama's first acts were to sign the decision suspending the trials at Guantanamo and to announce that his troops would be withdrawn from Iraq shows how he interprets these intense expectations of his people.

Whatever Obama means for Americans, a significant portion of the commentary made in Turkey about the Obama era provides a good occasion to see the signs of very serious problems regarding the concept of politics itself. There are those who say that the system in the US will never change at all, that whatever the masses expect, these expectations will be manipulated and neutralized by the owners of the system.

Of course one need not be overly optimistic about the Obama era, and nobody is in a position to vouch for a US president. But such interpretations, which assume the social or political system to be a kind of fixed and unchanging "essence", also sufficiently explain why politics in Turkey has never managed to reach a certain depth of quality. That ordinary people should favor such thinking is understandable to a degree, but it strikes me as very strange that people who in some way have a column, can speak on television, and can in practice affect the world through what they write and say, are so pessimistic about politics. Even people who already exert enough influence on the political stage by speaking readily adopt a cynical or fatalistic attitude that nothing in the world will change. Yet this has a serious effect on the very people who fall under the influence of these speeches. At the very least, you may notice that they have thereby reinforced people's fatalistic submission to established systems.

It must not be forgotten that American politics, too, is made by real people, in flesh and bone, and that here too, as in all societies, change is the most important sociological fact that does not change.