Why Does the Message of ‘Hope’ & ‘Change’ Resonate?
I was talking to a friend about reasons that Barack Obama’s message of Hope and Change may be resonating with people right now. I mentioned that I believe that part of it is because people are suffering from post 9/11 era fatigue these past seven years. People are ready to go back to a modicum of normal life.
September 11, 2001 kicked off a dark and gloomy era that has lasted until now. I believe that people want to see a parting of those dark clouds. On that day, I will never forget witnessing the most shocking sight I’d ever seen in my life: a commercial airliner being flown into a building. Then on top of that seeing the Twin Towers crash down with people inside. I just could not wrap my mind around it. I could not believe that all of this was happening in the name of religion - much less my own. Before many Muslims could even figure out what was going on and could even begin to get over their own shock, microphones were shoved into their faces asking for condemnations.
I remember the sick feeling I felt in my stomach when I woke up on September 12, 2001. I kept seeing those planes flying into the buildings over and over again in my mind. We were then treated to gruesome details of people jumping out of the buildings several hundred feet in the air and landing on the streets below. The politics of fear would begin as discredited (but opportunistic) bigots came out of the closets, re-started their careers in their new cyber-kennels and have relentlessly attacked Muslims who had nothing to do with these attacks. These skilled demagogues would not only smear Muslims, but anyone who opposed George Bush’s policy - even in intonation - was vilified as anti-American and smeared as a “terrorist sympathizer”. You had to be “with us (i.e., George Bush) or against us”. They were being divisive while proclaiming unity. Emotions were running high, while thinking was in short supply.
Afterwards, there was the anthrax scare, the color coded security alerts were established and the levels went up and down. A trip to the airport became a tedious task. You could no longer meet a passenger at the boarding point. Shoes have to be taken off, carry ons emptied and so on. There were the DC Sniper killings that had people in this area ducking for cover while pumping their gas.
The War in Afghanistan then blazed across the headlines. We started to see pictures of marred victims of war. This would continue for years. Then the sick maniacs started kidnapping Westerners and cutting their heads off on television and produced videos with gruesome death threats. The bombings in Madrid, London, Casablanca, and countless other places followed. Eventually, we would just grow numb to it all…but it still lurks in the background. Now, news about a bombing in Iraq or some other place and the fact that dozens were killed is no longer shocking.
Of course there was the rush to war in Iraq and the search for weapons of mass destruction or something like that. Countless tens of thousands killed. We sadly grow even more numb. No one could oppose this war without being vilified, being “for Saddam Hussein” (why do you support Saddam?) or even being declared a threat to security. There was also the shocking Abu Guraib scandal that was in the news for a long time.
Then in 2005, there was Hurricane Katrina in which we saw an entire section of a major city under water and thousands lose their homes. We saw people sitting on top of their homes. People are still - to this day - living in cramped travel trailers. The next chapter was the tragic Virginia Tech campus shootings amidst a general rise in violence in educational institutions. This is not to mention the bad economy and a health care system that needs to be repaired.
No wonder people want change. The past seven years have truly been dark times. As I was reading on this topic, I found this article from just a couple of days ago that supports what I am saying:
Long after Sept. 11, 2001, Americans’ terrorism-related thoughts and fears are associated with increased depression, anxiety, hostility, posttraumatic stress and drinking, University of Illinois at Chicago researchers have found.
UIC researchers examined the extent to which the strength of people’s post–Sept. 11 beliefs and fears, as assessed in 2003, predicted a range of psychological distress and alcohol abuse in 2005. Data were derived from a mail survey, which began before Sept. 11 and continued in 2005.
[...]
Richman and her colleagues measured the effect of larger, macro-level sociological stressors — rather than personal or micro-level events, such as a death in the family or financial difficulties — on mental health.
The terrorist events of Sept. 11 signaled a significant change in the socio-political outlook of many Americans and in their feelings of safety and well-being.
Richman and others have shown that the events of Sept. 11 have been associated with feelings of distress and anxiety, and these feelings have led to problematic drinking. However, previous research focused on distress at the time of the traumatic event, and predictions about future negative behaviors were hard to assess.
In the new study, 30 percent of participants reported feeling very or extremely more pessimistic about world peace, and 27.6 percent reported they had less faith in the government’s ability to protect them.
Some people coped with this by just not watching the news. Either way, there are many people of all stripes out there hurting and looking for a little hope. They want change. No wonder Rudy Guiliani’s campaign of fear and smear did not gain traction. People are sick - literally sick - of the darkness of the post 9/11 era. This is what I think underlines this reason that Obama’s message of hope has attracted such attention. People want to hope for better things. People are tired of all of the crap no matter from which extreme it comes. We are tired of the anti-Muslim demagoguery and the anti-Western demagoguery.
This man - Barack Obama - appears in the midst of all of this with a message of hope and change rather than fearful demagoguery . Can this be the man that will lead us out of this era of darkness, pain and despair and into a more normal one? People need change from the last seven years. In light of all of the above, people desire change. People are tired of terror alerts and alarms. People are tired of the carnage. People are just tired.
I think it is the message more than the man. Obama - in my opinion - happened to tap into the mood of a large segment of the country: We want to move past the post 9/11 era and become friends and neighbors. We want to move past suspicion and fear. Even though we should not put all our trust and hope in the political system or one man, we will side with the candidate who speaks to what binds humanity together and not the one who uses the worst of humanity to mobilize. This is what I think Americans are looking for in a President.
Filed under: Changing World | Tagged: Barack Obama, Change
I think the future of America will be better, inshaAllah. I pray that They pull out of Afghanistan, Iraq and everyhwere else they are in and focus on our own country and the economics, health care, schools, etc.
I’m only afraid to see what will happen once America pulls out of Iraq and Afghanistan, because Muslims don’t really get along with each other.
Allah knows best.
For me to take Obama’s “change” seriously, and to view him as more than a sloganeer, I’d like to ask him: What change are you talking about? How about America’s fundamental attitude towards “Freedom of Religion” in this country? You don’t seem to want to change that, Mr. Obama.
When Barack Hussein Obama was asked if he was a Muslim, rather than emphasize that his religion, or even Romney’s religion for that matter, was a non-ssiue, he defensively sought to prove his Christianity by even citing what church he attended. He acted as if he was accused of being a homosexual.
The hue and cry over Obama’s supposed hidden Islam, and Romney’s Mormonism should be addressed strongly and sharply because such attitudes are antithetical to the Constitution itself. I respect Romney more than I respect Obama in this regard. Romney did not try and down-play his Mormonism in any way. Yet, Obama’s hyper “I’m a Chrisitan! I swear! I swear!” response to allegations that he was Muslim were just plain embarrassing to no one other than himself.
Obama vs. Huckabee. I’d vote for Obama no question about it.
Yet, If I were to pick between Obama and McCain, I honestly don’t know who I’d vote for, or if I’d even vote at all. I may just sit this one one.
To play devil’s advocate here don’t Muslims give good reason for people to want to distance themselves?
I would love for Obama to say what I feel he knows in that Islam is a beautiful religion that does not condone the nonsense we see on a daily basis. However, Obama must know that most Americans use the actions of a people to represent the religion and if that is the case, Muslims have given a poor example (to say the least) of what Islam is. Most Americans are not going to go out their way to research a religion and its teaching. They would rather turn on Fox News or some other program and we know what is being reported by the media is very skewed.
I agree that Obama’s denial of being a Muslim were a bit over the top, but he has since said he would use his experience living in Indonesia, rightfully citing it as the largest Muslim population in the world, to bridge the gap between East and West. Regardless of what he will do once in office, this is not something I have heard any other candidate say.
Salaams
we still have aways to go as I sit in the airport waiting for my flight being bombarded every15 min with ” in the interest of aviation security do not leave baggage unattended as it will be removed” “Please report suspicous activity to airport security” I feel like “Big Brother” is speaking LOL LOL LOL I guess things are getting better since I wasn’t detained after I made fajr in the terminal
I think the author is on to something with the 9/11 fatigue. Obama’s denials of being Muslim are only the results of the vilification of Muslims since 9/11 by the anti-Islamic “pundits” who have tried tenaciously to imply that he is come “Manchurian candidate” for Islam.
As a dyed-in-the-wool cynic who occasionally wears my alienation from American politics as a badge of honor, it’s hard for me even to admit an ounce of enthusiasm for any candidate, lest I cast myself as the naive young fool boarding the inevitable train toward disillusionment. Yet, here I am, having already donated money twice to Barack Obama. What gives?
This country has moved hard to the right ever since Ronald Reagan ascended to the presidency in 1980. Bill Clinton’s presidency was less the exception to the rule than the confirmation of it and he pathetically capitulated to the Reaganist orthodoxy.
We still operate within the terms of this lamentable consensus, but things have become even more dire now that the forces currently in power uses the “War on Terror” to buttress militarism, imperialism, Constitution-shredding, torture, an assault on civil liberties, and ominous (dare we say fascist?) claims of executive privilege and secrecy. This woeful legacy cannot and will not be dismantled by just one Democratic president. The long march back to sanity, if it ever comes, will be slow and arduous, and will require serious, long-term, grassroots, bottom-up progressive activity. We have to plant the seeds now for a still-distant and uncertain revival. A new president can help plant these seeds, but he or she will see only the very early signs of blooming during the next 4-8 years.
So this is why it is so important that young people get involved in, and excited about, politics NOW, which is why Obama’s campaign is so important. Yet, young Obama supporters are mocked as fickle and fashion-obsessed, flocking like sheep to the hip candidate rather than seriously and sincerely examining the issues. For me, this has been one of the saddest side effects of this primary: witnessing the contempt for the youth displayed by so many. If the young are indeed such hopeless sheep, then perhaps it’s time to weep for the future of this country, because the young are our only hope for an eventual rollback of the disastrous right-wing consensus Tariq describes above that is suffocating this country. Obama is clearly and indisputably the candidate who is bringing the young into the Democratic Party and into politics more generally.
The young “Obama-bots” we dismiss are likely to develop far more progressive commitments than Obama himself expresses. For the long-term viability and promise of a progressive movement in this country, there is simply no question that Obama is the better candidate.
The change required in this country necessitates a transformation that will require more than policy wonkishness and bureaucratic competence. We need a fundamental realignment. But just to be clear: Barack Obama will not do that alone. I’m not a fool. But Obama comes a whole lot closer to understanding this required transformation, and he offers more long-term promise. Certainly not during his own presidency, if it comes to pass. But he is laying the groundwork for it
And if Obama attracts people through soaring rhetoric and eloquent appeals to hope and unity…well, more power to him, I say. Obama understands that the revolutionary president is not the technocrat, but the figure who can lay new modes and orders through the sublime and awe-some force of language. Through his command of language, passion, and inspiration, Obama could potentially change the very terms through which we think about politics, and these terms inevitably define the limits of our political vision. Currently, those limits are defined by the presidency of Ronald Reagan, and we should support the candidate who offers the best possibility of dismantling those limits and unshackling us from a Reaganist discourse. What Reagan established through words and language must be disestablished through words and language. Not only words and language, of course.
Br. Shibli Zaman, are you serious? I mean, I agree with your points about Obama, but to say you don’t know who would vote for in a contest between Obama and McCain? John McCain’s campaign, to quote MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough, is promising more wars and less jobs. In a choice between a would-be Dr. Strangelove and Barack Hussein Obama I think the decision is obvious, if a somewhat bitter.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0nqtL-P8kzo
Mr. Nelson,
Let’s all hope that Obama(,or any other logical Democratic presidential candidate, will be the answer to our prayers. If there is another war supporting Republican like John McCain, the world will be going down the toilet.
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