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US President-elect Barack Obama. |
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POINTED VIEW: History in the making
Issue 166 - 13 Nov 2008
ISSUE 166, November 13, 2008: The symbolism of the first African American president is poignant for Aboriginal Australia, who have an affinity with the civil rights movement in the US, writes Prof LARISSA BEHRENDT*
Barack Obama has made history and become the first African American to ascend to the Presidency of the United States.
While Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people have an affinity with Native Americans through similarities in our world views and our experiences of colonised peoples, there are also some strong relationships with African Americans.
The experience with racially based discrimination, especially with segregation and exclusion from the opportunities given to the rest of the community, created a similar experience between blacks here and blacks in the US.
This relationship that developed due to this shared experience can be seen in the exchange of ideas around the civil rights movement and the way that Aboriginal people involved in the tent embassy and the setting up of our own medical services and legal services had strong relationships with African Americans.
In this light, it is not surprising that many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people celebrated the election of Barack Obama and saw it as inspirational.
There is no doubt that Barack Obama stands for the ability of African Americans to overcome adversity, poverty and institutional racism.
It is no coincidence that, as an African American, Obama is the first US president who has not come from family money. And from humble beginnings to president, there were many barriers that he broke down, many things he achieved that were unthinkable to the generations before.
But what will be most interesting to see will be the extent to which the symbolism of having the first African American president will translate into the further breakdown of racial barriers in the United States - where the poor are predominately black, where those in prison are predominantly black.
Obama attended Harvard Law School. I went there for my post-graduate study several years after Obama had graduated. But I was interested to see how many African American students there were studying at the school, all a testament to a struggle to capture the opportunities that the United States had to offer.
But when you left the walls of Harvard and walked through Boston, you were confronted by the fact that perhaps nine out of 10 people begging on the street were black, about three quarters were Vietnam war veterans, about a quarter had obvious and serious disabilities.
It brought a striking realisation that even though this was the country where, in theory, any person could be president, it was still a place where poverty and exclusion were overwhelmingly one colour.
The 2003 census in the United States showed that 35.9 million Americans live in poverty (about 12.5 percent of the population) and those without health insurance numbered 43.6 million. It also showed that the poverty rate of African Americans remained nearly twice the national rate, at 24.4 percent.
While individuals can, through perseverance, intelligence, diligence and hard work gain a foot hold in the ladder of opportunity, this does not always provide the answer to solving cyclical poverty and the associated socio-economic problems that occur in levels of critical disadvantage.
Obama would know that. He became a senator representing Chicago, a city with a large African American population with pockets of abject poverty, high crime, low levels of education and employment.
He is under no illusions about the hard work needed to address the root causes of exclusion and disadvantage.
Overcoming the entrenched poverty in the United States is only one of many challenges ahead for Barack Obama. He has the credit crisis and the havoc being wrought as a result of it over the world's financial markets.
Tens of thousands of Americans are losing their homes, many more are losing their jobs and the market crashes have impacted on the life savings and retirement funds of many Americans.
He also inherits failing foreign policy with entrenched conflict in both Afghanistan and Iraq.
America's reputation internationally has taken a battering ever since it was revealed that they relied on "flawed intelligence" to justify going to war in Iraq in the first place.
It is not hard to draw the conclusion that gaining the US presidency is like being handed a poisoned chalice.
And Barack Obama has one other very difficult challenge ahead of him. The vote for Obama was a vote for change. It was a vote against the Bush administration and all it stood for as much as an embrace of Obama's vision for America.
After eight years of George W. Bush, Americans wanted a change. But what this change should look like will be a different vision for different people.
In much the same way, the change from John Howard to Kevin Rudd was driven by people who had grown tired or disillusioned with Howard's policies.
They had expectations that Rudd would do something about climate change, industrial relations, the Northern Territory intervention, asylum seekers and a raft of other issues. But when the government changed, Rudd did take steps in all of these areas but they have not been what those who voted for Rudd as a symbol of change might have wanted.
Rudd has taken some steps towards dealing with climate change but environmental groups are not all happy about his proposals.
Workchoices has not been dismantled as many unionists would have hoped and, indeed, some sections of the ALP seem to delight in union-bashing as much as Howard's government did.
The NT intervention has been altered very little despite the independent review that reinforced its many negative impacts.
There can sometimes be a long distance between one person's hope for change and what the government sees as being an agenda for change.
There is no doubt that Obama will have to have to carry the heavy burden of everyone's expectations for change in much the same way. And despite the fact that his election as President is seen as the fulfilment of Martin Luther King's dreams and as a fairy tale, Obama seems to be a pragmatist and a realist.
His acceptance speech was downbeat and serious. While acknowledging its historical importance and symbolism, he did not seem euphoric.
Instead, he seemed like a man who understood the enormity of the challenges ahead and who wanted to remind people that his election was an important milestone but really only the first step towards dealing with some very difficult issues.
The fact he seems to understand the enormity of the tasks ahead already instils confidence in his ability to do better than the previous US administration.
Obama backs change for Native Americans
Barack Obama has promised to be a president for all Americans. In relation to what he can do to represent Native Americans, there are a few steps that should be self-evident.
Like Australia, the United States has not endorsed the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. The Rudd government has said that it will and the real test will be whether they have done so by December 10 - Human Rights Day.
The change of government in the United States could mean a similar shift in position on the Declaration that occurred here.
Obama seems to already have understood the special situation of Native Americans. He has said: "Perhaps more than anyone else, the Native American community faces huge challenges that have been ignored by Washington for too long. It is time to empower Native Americans in the development of the national policy agenda."
Obama's agenda includes support for the principle of tribal sovereignty and he believes that the government should honour its treaty obligations.
He has also said that he will appoint an "American Indian policy advisor" on his senior White House staff so that there is a direct link between Native Americans and the White House.
Obama has also said that he will host a "Tribal G8" which he has said will be an annual meeting with Native American leaders "to develop a national Indian policy agenda."
In addition to this, there are some strong commitments to improving Native American health, housing and education outcomes.
This is an ambitious agenda but it is clear that Obama wants to take some positive steps in improving the relationship between the government and Native Americans and to back that relationship up with some concrete improvements to key socio-economic factors.
It will be interesting to see how the new President of the United States fares in making this vision a reality.
pointedview@nit.com.au
* Larissa Behrendt is a Professor of Law at the University of Technology, Sydney and a fortnightly NIT columnist and writer.
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