WHAT OBAMA’S WIN MEANS TO TURKS AND THE WORLD
Asli Aydintasbas
Forbes
Nov 7 2008
NY
Istanbul, Turkey – Fatma, our cleaning lady, walked in yesterday–all
smiles and with a newspaper in hand. "He won. That dark guy made it!"
Fatma is from a remote village in the Black Sea region of Turkey and
moved to the big city here only a few years ago for her children’s
education. "My son–9-years-old–was saying [Barack Obama] is just
like us. They showed pictures from his village, and his family has
just one cow and are really poor."
For Fatma, the new U.S. president is also from poor village stock and
came to the big city and made it against all odds. When her two sons
watched the American election results, there was an understanding
that they, too, could grow up to become presidents here in Turkey–a
message that somehow was never communicated so openly to a Turkish kid.
Of course, Barack Obama hardly has anything in common with Fatma, or
with thousands of Turks cheering his election victory on Tuesday. He
also doesn’t have that much in common with the millions of Middle
Easterners, Europeans, Chinese or South Asians who are jubilant about
his election. But somehow, a black American with a Muslim middle name
and a unique family history elected to the highest office in United
States, against all odds, has come to personify the individual dreams
of people around the world.
A good friend tells me he came home to find his mother sobbing with
joy at Obama’s victory. Another friend said she put her 4-year-old
daughter to bed explaining about the new president-elect and how the
world will be a better place from now on.
"Wow," I think when I hear these stories. It has been so long
since people talked about anything American in loving terms. Here
in Turkey–a longtime U.S. ally–anti-Americanism skyrocketed with
the Iraq war and the subsequent upsurge in Kurdish terrorism, and it
seemed there was almost nothing the Bush administration could do to
reverse that trend. Global anti-Americanism was not solely due to an
unpopular George Bush at the White House, but also due to annoyance
at the American public for twice electing him. From global warming to
inflation, it seemed that Turks, Europeans and Muslims were willing
to blame America for all their ills.
But is it possible that this trend has changed overnight? Why are
people sobbing about Obama’s victory if they hated the United States
a minute ago? One wonders if there is something Freudian about the
need to disown a parent so that you can love him again. The world
has been angry at the U.S. for so long that it suddenly feels like
hugging a sibling that you, unwillingly and out of hurt feelings,
had stopped talking to.
At the more official level, Turkey hoped for a Republican win for fears
that an Obama administration would fulfill a campaign pledge to pass
a law recognizing the 1915 massacres of Armenians in the eastern part
of the Ottoman Empire as "genocide." "Obama will be tough for us,"
a senior member of the government told me last week. "But," he added
ardently, "it would be great for the world."
Despite Ankara’s stance that a McCain win would make Turkish-American
relations smoother, I knew of only one Turk who wasn’t rooting for
Obama–a Turkish-American who said that he too was torn but that
an Obama administration could result in a tumultuous period for
Turkish-U.S. relations.
In the run-up to the elections, I was often interviewed by Turkish
television as a journalist who covered the United States for
years. Most commentators would ask me something that many friends
also asked: "Ah, but even if he is ahead in the polls, would Obama
be ‘allowed’ to win?"–revealing Turkey’s own fears about a darker
invisible hand meddling in the democratic process, as occasionally
happens here.
Right before the polls opened on Election Day, a popular talk show host
looked at me on the air in disbelief "So you think Obama could win, and
you don’t think that there is a deep state in America that decides on
these major national issues?" I looked naive, and almost incredulous,
trying to explain for the umpteenth time that day that if Barack Obama
were elected, it would be largely thanks to the power of the people
who want genuine change in America and in American foreign policy.
Instead, I should have said something more conspiracy-minded, like "If
Obama is elected, it means the American deep state has decided it can
better achieve global domination through him." Maybe that sounds more
convincing than just people-power–in places where people lack power.
Asli Aydintasbas is an Istanbul-based journalist and former Ankara
bureau chief of the newspaper Sabah.