INQUIRER.net
I was eight years old when Ferdinand Marcos imposed martial law in the Philippines in 1972. I didn’t totally understand the meaning of what had happened then. But the Marcos dictatorship eventually became a major influence in my life. It shaped my views on politics and political power, led to my disdain for tyrants and bullies, and to my critical view of American foreign policy having grown up watching one US administration after another endorse and embrace a corrupt and brutal tyrant.
I remember this now as Barack Obama begins his presidency and America enters a new era. My sons, Paolo and Anton, may not fully understand the significance of the change. But I suspect that, like me during the Marcos years, the age of Obama will be a major influence in their lives, helping define their view of America and the world.
The coming four years – perhaps longer – will likely help shape their understanding of race and race relations in America as the first person of color takes over the most important job in the land.
Perhaps under the new administration, they and other young Americans will embrace a more inclusive view of Muslims and the Third World under a president with strong personal ties to those worlds, and who has promised a more engaged, even progressive, foreign policy.
And maybe the Obama presidency will give my sons a more enlightened idea of the role of government, as his administration faces the gargantuan task of rebuilding an economy battered by years of unhampered and reckless free enterprise.
A lot of exciting ‘maybes.’
If Obama goes on to serve two terms, my eldest son Paolo, who is now 9, will be a young man getting ready for college, gearing up to take on bigger life challenges, by the time Pareng Barack leaves office.
How will eight years of Obama influence my son’s take on the world?
Let me say this now: I do not envision a utopian future under Obama. He is not Superman. And the problems he must now take on are mind-boggling. There are no easy solutions to the problems most Americans now face.
I expect Obama to play politics. He has to, to survive. And he has to survive – that is, win reelection and make sure he has more allies in Washington – in order to carry out his program of change. But the question is: Will he end up playing the game mainly so he can survive and stay in power, even at the expense of the great things he has said he wants to accomplish?
I expect him to make mistakes. Hopefully, he also will learn from these mistakes. But most important of all, I hope he owns up quickly to these missteps and explain what he plans to do to fix the errors.
In other words, in what increasingly has become a grim period of uncertainty, even fear – in America and the world, it’s important to set a tone of openness and honesty.
Obama himself has made this promise. Now we’ll actually see if he can, and will, do so.
In my book, I mention the more than 20-year old San Francisco mural featuring activist icons of the 80s, including my friend, the late youth leader Lean Alejandro. The original mural also featured South African leader Winnie Mandela. But her image was later painted over and replaced with the portrait of Wangari Maathai, the Kenyan activist who won the Nobel Peace Prize for her work in empowering women, battling corrupt officials and planting millions of trees in ravaged lands in Africa.
Once a symbol of the South African movement, Winnie Mandela had become a reviled figure to many after she was accused of abusing her position and power during the struggle against apartheid. The muralists said they made the made the change principally because they wanted to honor Maathai – but also because Winnie Mandela, as an icon, has become “outdated and complicated.”
The refurbished mural serves as a sobering reminder as America and the world turn to Obama for leadership in a difficult era, of how leaders and how they are perceived can change -- dramatically. Yesterday’s revolutionaries can become today’s tyrants. Yesterday’s mavericks can be today’s staunch defenders of the old, discredited view of the world.
Obama may be the central figure in the new American mural created during his campaign. But he will have to show, in a time of intense anxiety, that he deserves to stay on the painting and not have his image and his legacy be painted over and forgotten.
For in the long run, the mural is being composed and created by the people who made Obama’s historic victory possible.
The only thing certain right now is this: Obama has inspired Americans, young and old, to become involved again, to care about their communities, to hope.
I saw this a couple of weeks ago in an alley behind a French bakery run by a Filipino American family in Los Angeles. I was in LA for the launch of my book Pareng Barack, Filipinos in Obama’s America.
Before the event, lawyer and veteran community activist Prosy Delacruz, whom I mentioned in the book, invited me to have breakfast at the French bakery where she also was scheduled to meet her community group of Obama supporters. Their leader was Abbie Howell; it was she who came up with the idea of a street cleaning campaign once or twice a month as part of their commitment to the Obama campaign themes of change and hope. So for about an hour that morning, I watched her, her dad and Prosy pick up trash around the bakery.
I realized then, as I watched the trio cheerfully pick up cigarette butts, candy wrappers and other trash, that the significance of Obama’s victory goes beyond what he does and how he performs in Washington DC. It is also about how the energy and enthusiasm of people like Abbie Howell can be sustained, and will sustain, the new idealism that emerged from the historic election.
With Abbie Howell, that will be exciting to watch for another reason. The morning she led her group to clean up a small stretch of her community in the name of change, Abbie Howell had just turned nine.
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