Something must be wrong with me. I don’t like flying. I don’t write with a
computer. I’m a peculiar traveller. I prefer to minimise the ways that I can
be unduly affected, and yet here I am setting out on a long flight to
America, to write about an election that does not directly concern me. How
did this happen? A chance encounter and an unavoidable historical moment.
I had been in Ethiopia. On my return, with practically no sleep, I set off on
this unlikely American adventure. It was a cool day in London, the markets
had taken another beating, and I caught the Heathrow Express, nervous about
the long flight.
I am an unlikely candidate to write about the American elections. I haven’t
been there in 14 years and yet some mysterious affinity compelled me to make
this journey against my temperament.
Elections are always symbolic, but they are rarely mythical. They are seldom
epochal. It’s not often in history that a nation gets given such a timely
choice between a future and a past. In one of his books the American
interpreter of myths, Joseph Campbell, writes about “the call”, that is
whether an individual heeds the call that life makes, the transformative
call. He writes: “If a person has had a sense of the call – and if he
doesn’t follow that, but remains in the society because it’s safe and
secure, then life dries up.” It seems to me that this American election is
about such a call. Nations become what they are because of certain crossroad
choices they have made. I have set out on a journey to the heart of our
times. The American elections are fundamentally about the secret symbolic
destination of our age.
I am almost late for the plane. My seat is taken by a big and confident
American lady. She moves readily enough. She must have gathered early that I
was a naive flyer and took it upon herself to educate me on the gadgetries
of my seat. I concluded early that she was a Republican. To spare her
sensibility I didn’t immediately begin reading the Obama autobiography I’d
brought with me. But she was a lady of surprises. She was a healer.
Somewhere in a bumpy patch in the sky she said something about the American
necessity for change, and wondered about how much her country had lost its
way. She was the one who first made me aware that in many churches across
America people were praying for an Obama victory. There were churches
praying for McCain too; I found it fascinating that the elections are being
fought out in the spiritual realm as well.
In Washington DC the leaves are turning, there is a chill in the air, and
everywhere there are whispers. The election is on everyone’s face as it
enters the last closely fought week of its titanic contention. There is
something dreamlike about the mood of the nation. Financial tremors, the
sense of being in a major crisis, an election that might usher in the first
black president in American history, and a feeling of being on the brink of
something either epochal or disastrous seems to have left people a little
distracted.
People can’t seem to quite grasp how the nation has got to where it now finds
itself. Too many historic conjunctions. Some say that if Obama wins it will
be in some ways a curse, because he would be presiding over a national mess.
Others think it will be an opportunity to display heroic leadership.
There has been much talk about the role of race in this election. It is the
most visible and at the same time the most invisible factor. One gets a
sense that people don’t quite trust themselves and don’t know what they’ll
do when alone with the ballot box. There seems something of a Jekyll and
Hyde quality in relation to race; and no one knows which will vote on the
day. It is as if the nation is hiding a guilty secret from itself, nursing
unsuspected intentions. There are so many whisperings, perched between hope
and anxiety. One gets the feeling of a people who went to bed in one room
and woke up in another.
As the unthinkable moves slowly towards reality, will we have a chronicle of a
victory foretold or another astonishing moment in which a nation stands
aghast at what it never intended to do?
It is mainly because of Obama’s presence as a presidential candidate that this
election has captured the imagination of the world. In a time when people no
longer seem to dream great dreams, in which there are fewer great adventures
of the spirit, in which we are on the whole encouraged to dumb down, to
pursue populism, and to seek for the easy; in a time when celebrity is
commonplace and cynicism a common fate, when to believe anything is to
appear naive, to have a man who does not come from a powerful family and who
above all is black, to have such a man running for the highest office in
America is nothing short of an extraordinary act of the imagination.
In a sense it is one of the most audacious and inspiring stories of our age.
Sometimes a single dream can compel people to hold their breath in wonder.
God knows humankind needs such dreamers to remind us that we are not what we
appear to be, but what we believe deep in our hearts we can be.
For me the conception alone was enough. But for Obama to go beyond conception
on a long gruelling campaign, through the primaries against Hillary Clinton,
and now to the final stages of a presidential dream against McCain is to
have dragged the world from disbelief to the brink of conversion. We like
people who set out on impossible journeys. They reawaken the sense of human
greatness, which we appear to have forgotten in these dismal times. That’s
why when I learnt that Barack Obama was addressing the rally in
Harrisonburg, Virginia, three hours from our next destination it seemed to
me too good a temptation to miss.
We drove to Virginia through a symphony of autumnal colours, the russets,
ochres, and the coppery glow of the beech or maple trees. The economy may be
in trouble but nature is staging a majestic fall. In effect we are searching
for a new America, a new paradigm for our times, a new phoenix out of the
moral and financial crisis of our age. This is a time for new directions, a
new revival. This is a time for soberness and rebuilding. This is when the
millennium truly kicks in. The new is battling with the old.
Harrisonburg is a university town with the second-largest Wal-Mart in America.
The rally was held at the James Madison University, named after one of the
nation’s presidents. It is an attractive university, with sloping fields
that lead down to the convocation centre where the rally was to be staged.
From the numerous faculty buildings, across the gleaming fields, students of
all colours poured in their thousands towards the centre. An incredibly long
queue had formed, snaking around the block. I ran into a music lecturer
called David, who had started the Democrat field office in the Harrisonburg
area. He is one of the legendary army of volunteers that have so
revolutionised the election. He said that on the first day, five phone lines
were overrun with responses. This is Virginia after all, a supposedly
staunch Republican constituency. I asked what was turning Virginia into a
swing state; he said that for him Obama was by far the better candidate. I
asked if race was a factor; he said it was both positively and negatively.
If Obama were white he would win by a landslide, he said. But on the
positive side he felt that Obama had taken the nation to a postpartisan
landscape and that he was therefore a candidate of the multicultural
coalition.
While in the long press queue, I was struck by the nature of the volunteers.
They were mostly white, charming, thoughtful and friendly. There were more
than 100 in the university alone. Inside the convocational centre everyone
was subjected to a thorough frisking. There have been threats and rumours of
attacks planned on Obama’s life; and if you want evidence of the seriousness
with which these threats are taken, observe the rigorous nature of the
search to which the press were subjected; it’s as tough as coming through
immigration.
Everywhere there are men and women with dark jackets on and “Secret
Service” in bold white letters on their backs, a strangely uncovert
stratagem. The rally is indoors where the basket-ball games are played. I
spoke to a guy in the press queue; he’d been to the Palin rally the day
before. He said there weren’t many people, and in the middle of her speech
it rained. Her followers were mostly an antichoice, gun crowd. By the end
they were a little muted.
In contrast the James Madison gathering was like something from the Sixties.
The centre was crowded and some say it was about ten thousand strong. There
was an extraordinary feeling of youthful idealism in the air. All the tribes
of dreamers and doers were here. The atmosphere was so intense it was like
the beginning of a legendary rock concert. Paul Simon’s “These are the days
of miracle and wonder” pours out from the loudspeaker. Then Kanye West’s Touch
the Sky filled the air. The students sway under the spell of the moment.
It’s as if something magical is about to happen.
I’m told that the last presidential candidate to come to Harrisonburg was
Stephen Douglas, against Abraham Lincoln. “It’s as if we’ve been kissed by
Zeus,” said a radio presenter about Obama’s visit. Apparently the coach of
the university team had said to his players: “Obama is No 1 in the polls and
we want to be No 1 when he comes here.” They won the next three games; and
the last game was won at the last minute, with a Hail Mary pass, at odds of
100-1. Symbolism is still in play. It is hard to convey the electric
atmosphere of the rally. It was not like the beginning, but the full spate
of a movement in river force. The spirit of the new generation empowered and
fired up. Here was intelligent idealism raised to the level of a rock
festival or a football game.
Then the build-up began. There was a prayer and a pledge of allegiance, then a
national anthem sung. The mood of expectation was palpable. This is a
campaign that clearly has transcended race; transcended it so persuasively
as to almost amount to a revolution, certainly a transformation. There are
those who have always believed that a new social vision could unite people
of all colours, all the tribes of the human story. But to see it happen now,
in America of all places, must count as one of the most significant moments
in social consciousness since Mandela came out of prison and unified a
nation. Nothing short of a fundamentally new kind of thinking could have
brought about this cultural phenomenon.
Then after a long wait, after the state senator made a speech saying: “We have
to assume we are the underdogs. We have to work harder”; after placards were
thrown into the audience to be caught, there was a thunderous roar when
Obama was announced. It was the roar of a thousand lions; and it shook my
heart. There was something a little messianic about the prospect of his
appearance. And then on that platform with rows of schoolkids holding up
Democrat placards, he materialised from the midst of innumerable Secret
Service men.
And then he was there. He is compact, defined and self-possessed in an easy
way. His voice is rich and clear. Here is a man who has clearly followed his
bliss, the thing that most gets your life juices going. He is comfortable in
himself. He is a natural politician as some people are natural actors. It is
his ease that is most striking. I believe that people come to secretly
resemble their heroes, if they have studied and embodied their heroes long
enough. And I would say that Obama has certain Lincolnian traits. A certain
steeliness, a wiriness that belies strength, a guiding integrity and an
almost mystical belief in the sacred nature of high office, and its equally
sacred responsibilities. Part of his allure is his moral force. He plays it
straight. He has high ideals. He has forged a persona for himself that
brings together many strands of American life. He can improvise on his feet.
He has a wry sense of humour and an astonishing smile. If a smile can win an
election, he has it. His speech was both idealistic and practical and had
depth.
Allow me a moment’s meditation on the nature of a good political speech. A
good speech is made before it is made. Excitement and expectation have to
precede it. It should salute the time and the place. It should celebrate the
common interests of the audience. It should start quite high and have a
certain music, a certain rhythm. It is best delivered without notes. It is
indispensable to have a good voice. A good speech rises, it justifies
expectation, slows down in the middle and climbs again until it reaches
higher than it began, and then it must peak. When it has peaked, it must be
brought to a close. The highest point should be at the end.
Obama had made this speech before but it was nonetheless exemplary. He began
with a riff: “We are one week away from bringing change to America. . . they
ask us to fear at a time we need hope.” He addressed the audience
personally: “I believe in you, in your ability to make change happen.” He
gave flashes of lyricism: “We can see the mountaintop from the pit of
depression.” He delivered an astute gibe: “I can take one more week of
McCain’s attacks, but the country can’t take four more years of
McCain-Bush.” And he struck a moral chord: “We know what’s been lost, our
sense of common purpose, of higher purpose.”
He made many promises of tax cuts, higher salaries for teachers, a better
healthcare system. But his best line of the day was: “I’ve seen the best of
America.” Then he ended on the need for a deep-reaching hope. “Power doesn’t
concede anything,” he said. With his return to his “one more week” riff, the
audience stormed the heavens.
Not since Mandela’s release from prison has one felt the mesmerising effect of
one man’s story working on the intractable material of the world. In fact,
the two narrations have much in common. It was always about colour, about
its signal irrelevance in the face of such great and personal qualities.
We do not know the power of the democratic idea until anyone with vision can
challenge the highest representation of that idea. White America needs Obama
to win; not only because of his qualities, but also because his victory will
be a resounding vindication of that immortal document sculpted by the
Founding Fathers: “We hold these truths to be self-evident . . .”
Evening was falling when the rally ended. As we walked back to the car I
suddenly had a flash of that moment before Obama appeared, when a wave of
arms reached up to catch a placard on which was the legend “Change”.
Novelist and poet
Ben Okri was born in Minna, northern Nigeria, in March 1959 but spent much of
his early childhood in London. He returned to Nigeria with his family in
1968, then read comparative literature at Essex University. During the
mid1980s, Okri was poetry editor for West Africa magazine before
becoming a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 1987 and serving for
two years as a Fellow Commoner in Creative Arts at Trinity College Cambridge
from 1991. His first two novels, Flowers and Shadows (1980) and The
Landscapes Within (1981), are set in Nigeria, as is his 1991 Booker
prize-winning The Famished Road, the first in a trilogy, followed by
Songs of Enchantment (1993) and Infinite Riches (1998). His
most recent novel is Starbook. He has published collections of
poems (such as An African Elegy, 1992) short stories and essays,
and written a play, In Exilus. He was appointed OBE in 2001 and
holds honorary doctorates from Westminster and Essex universities.
