Dreams Or Memories:lessons From Latest American Presidential Elections

Dreams or Memories, Same Concept, Different Contexts, Different Attitudes: Does the world hear?

The purpose of this article is to set briefly, almost in outline form a systematic map of the European political system and democracy and the american one, to stretch out the particular dynamic of each component and conclude with a brief assessment of the configuration of each. The same analysis applies itself to all sectors of human agency (Economy, military, education system, healthcare system, employment system, Reseach .....)

Reflecting toThe American Elections, by putting Barack Obama as Commander in Chief of the most powerfull country of the world in nearly all world matters and worldwide sectors, it strikes me to understand for the sixth time during my short lifetime as a young global citizen coming from a context that really does matter when we compete with the rest of the world. In the two past decades and a half during which as an african, a senegalese and an active member or citizen of the global society, I can see how powerfull our daily practices, daily life and daily system of response before our daily needs and challenges can be shaped. Five significant events have deeply galvanized me because they are the manifestation of two different challenging forms of human being imagination and nature at work today and it seems to be like that for the furture: The collapse of Berlin wall, Nelson Mandella's presidential election, September eleven with terrorist attacks, Senegalese alternancy with Abdoulaye Wade and Barack Obama's nomminee and presidential election. The essence of personnally what I called "Dreams in Action for Life" as the motto of my personal website( under construction )comes up and disburbs my sleep as it did during the five previous cited events that morning november 4th when all over the world, medias and newspaper put in Capital and Black letter what Martin Luther King had expressed in "I Have A Dream" What was that Dream?That historic and symbolic "I have a dream" was just a dream for a context in which black and white individually or together with the same rights and duties bank on talents, skills, accountability, trust, constructive imagination to meet their own fullfilment and define both their history and furture. There are many versions, many approaches and many prespectives of just what Obama’s election is specifically. From my perspective, my analysis is not important which formulation one must choose but the relevant fact is that they all drift to context, to axises: two differents contexts or two different axises that determine widely from each part, the type of responses in many issues. Obama's election as the US president shouldn't be mistakenly addressed as a victory between two political parties, nor between wo competing ideologies: the Democrat party and the Republican party. It shouldn't equate either with the Black and white racial issue that Americans and most people like me in all over the world considered as the easiest form of response and the arms of, fear, weak, ensecure and ignorant people before challenges and new domestic and world demands. Focusing on that issue which exists in our daily life, is wasting time and I m not about wasting mine. Let those who deal with the others on world matters based on race- issue dwell in their carve, in darkness. It shouldn't be viewed as a simple political game in Democracy. Barack Obama's victory is only one manifestation of a more complex emerging world order, the roots of which go back at least centuries to the moment when the Amercican citizens could no longer define all together with equal rights and duties their own History. The US has been for a long time victims of europeans legacy, also, since, the US has been distanced to European historic foreign policy many times in recent history: let me just choose one exemple to illustrate this: The US has defined its axis as the axis of freedom, selfdetermination, and liberation, hope and future in opposite to Europe considered as the axis of domination, conquests, memories and colonialism. That difference has shapened in all crucial world events. That difference brings light into both contexts and forge different environnments that can help one to better addresse what occures

before our eyes. The diffence is the difference between an open culture that adopts, adapts, absorbs (european) and an open culture that adopts, adapts, absorbs, challenges and anticipates to the furture and defines it (American). It is that difference that makes the difference in all sectors you consider in human agency. With what some must call the first worldwide victory of human beeings before many of the current global concerns that defy our daily life, the world with both its leaders and simple citizens are forced to reconcile themselves to be both vanquished and vanquiers. From the US elections, the big issue is not whether, nations, citizens and world leaders, worldwide and international institutions and democratic practices are absent or beyond of reproaches and the challenge of US elections are the challenges of each of us. The Us elections helped us to bring and keep hidden windows open and review meaningfully what we can learn from Context, Culture in which emerge aware citizens and democratic accountable political system offer the best hope for democratic local and global governance and the role of each of us as an actor, a change agent in order to better address and meet both local and global challenges. For all those reasons we are just at the begenning of understanding the geopolitical impact of americans challenging, questioning and renewing phenomena’s or systems and the stagnation and European world old conformism setting model in many world matters (politics, economy, employment, healthcare system, education system...) Most of the old continent's social, economic and political systems are set in such manner, they don't favour changes, open doors, individual challenges to plan, there was thus no room for any notion of improvement, progress, anticipation and ultimately any risk to dare something new based on world changing ideas through human agency. Never, the risk to build new roots. On the one hand failed political even democratic systems such as the ones in action in many european and african countries are defied by Oboma's election in the sense that with the same political context, same political system, same manifestation and democratic practices, same configuration political parties, same political culture, the same man, Obama, unknown to the large public, coming from nowhere and from somewhere, without any political background, without financial power, even white of skin colour would never be elected as President in none of european countries. What some people don't underline is the fact that America does’t look for Obama to elect him, that is Obama who understands the values of his country mainly the values of trust, dreams, acountability, added to the value of actors of its history not reactors who show himself up to american people as a Change Agent, a word I invent to define myself too. In this American setting political system it is much more difficult to hide someone like Obama, (no matter what the racial map or racial card would work) and keep him from revealing himself to the nation and to the world. In France you can do so, in Spain you can do so, in England you can do so, in Italy you can do so in short in many european and african countries you can do so. Yes you can hide someone like Obama in those countries because there, it is always hard and unbelievable to individually define his own history by crossing the line between justified precautions, secure and comfortable measures or systems and letting individual and positive imagination and challenges paralyze individuals like Obama to get the best of him and proposes the best for the country shared. We have to be

the masters of what we have created, the masters of the fruits of human imagination, the masters of what the future will be made and not the prisoners The american political system is based on trust, on master, and what the candidate can do to warm up dreams, to refresh and bring hope and to allow every one who meets the requirements to imagine a better future. Some worries about why the best and ambitious scientists and researchers and business managers who like new challenges, those who constantly question and challenge themselves move from Europe, Africa and Asia to the USA? One of the main reason is the context set why the US excels in university research, at teaching sciences and engineering? the answer lays fundamentally on the context and the culture. The other reason is because they are respectively in their specific field what Obama is in politics: full of dreams, trustfull, Change agents, new challenge. European policies and environment research doesn’t allow individual with financial barriers or not to challenge himself, doesn't offer individual to anticipate in the future as American system does. European setting system in all sector one must considerer promote a culture, a context which is of course open but which follows, copies, adapts, absorbs what american system based on "world-changing and challenging ideas" has discovered. In every sector one must point out, the big wound is sitting. For instance Investigation and Research suppose questioning, challenging the present, it means up dating knowledge it means looking forwards not backwards. It means projecting and defining the future and the tools and instruments of the demands of the future. Dr. Montagnier, the french scientist, best known for his discovery of the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), which has been identified as the cause of AIDS in 1983 wouldn't need to move to the US after his retirement if French Medical-University-based research system allowed him to go further with his discovery that led directly to the development of a test for detecting the presence of HIV in blood samples. (Luc Montaigner and his colleague Robert Gallo an other scientist of the Institute of Human Virology at the University of Maryland are considered to be the men who discovered the virus that causes AIDS.) If Dr Luc did so it because in his own homeland the research environment, the medical-university -based research system wouldn't allow him to challenge himself. Now, he is keeping working in the US and keep refreshing, up dating and challenging with what is doing best in HIV researches. Thanks to Americam university -based- research system. Thanks to the system that creates lifetime employability, a system that build the job of tomorrow, a system that build the needs, the companies, and ultimately the type of consumers of tomorrow. (yahoo and google, two competing research-engines companies are the best examples to illustrate this) That system favors and values dreams, not memories. It is about a system that can't guarantee you a lifetime job, a lifetime free healthcare, a lifetime fee education system, but a system that can guarantee you accountability, horizon with hope with perspectives that guarantee you a lifetime competitiveness, employability, in short a system that guarantees you to be a lifetime "Change Agent". Let me pause and just remind that there has never been a moment in human being history, when those qualities specially trust, dream and new challenges were not important, but observing these elections tells me that it has never been

more important than now and it will be more for the future in a world in which the small can act big. Thanks to Context. Context does matter, Culture does matter, Money does matter, When we live in a more centralized and more vertically political systems, in which the political parties has barely a total monopoly of power to promote just one person, individual, personal accountability, personal challenges, individual imagination and trust becomes a problematic as it is in European and African political system that Europe has formatted. But in American political system in which individual can bank on talents, self-trust, imagination, dreams and can gather supports financially and strategically (no matter in which party he belongs to, no matter what is the colour of his skin, no matter what political background he is marketing, no matter whether he has a military record, no matter whether his name sound muslim, christian jewish, catholic....) and run for president. Just build actions and send a message that meet american expectations.In this system citizen finance their choice, they defend their choice, there is no high cost to help to achieve aims and make dreams happened. That's why when I hear Obama congratulating his supporters those who eliminate a meal, those who made contribution no matter how important it is, those who volunteered, the hair of my head stood up because he understand what I do understand: trust is the key. American people showed trust in response to Obama who proposes "changes", "yes we can" .American people wanted changes and Obama has offered his leadership and self confidence. The response is yes each of you can act in that way and as money does matter let us put our hand in our wallet and show how each of us can bring change by a financial commitment no matter how big or small is the amount.In that sense America. Nearly less than a decade after September eleven attacks and under Bush’s leadership, a literally new world confronts the United States and its people. It is a world in which American dream seems to have come to a new area by putting in the white house a man who is profoundly inspired by that dream. It happens that that man is black, an African american. It might be an asian american, a spano american or an "european american" who fit the requirements legally expressed in the Us constitution to assume the charges of Commander in Chief. By doing so, the american people not only has sent to their leaders but also to the rest of the world the unique message that defines them over years: A message of a hopeful nation, a message of dreams, of accountability, of changes, of new constructive challenges and a message of sanction and desaprobation. Yes if someone has lost it might be George W Bush. With these elections the american people have clearly sanctionned President Bush and his two terms presidency policies both in domestic and foreign issues. Bush has shamelessly used lies and american patriotism for political purposes that effected profoundly american history. He has taken during his administration an agenda for which he has no popular mandate. Under Bush administration american people have never been so distant, so shame vis a vis to their leader. Under Bush administration, american people , introspection after introspection get to realize that they let a man defining wrongly the History they share for the country their love by leading their country into tragedy, into

darkness, into economic crisis (which I personally considered fictive and strategist) the all based on many lies through his non sense "war of terror". Mostly american people face severely the problem of inflation, high unemployment rate which should be the real war, the real job of a President in office. Under Bush administration, the world is less safer, the USA less safer the world is far less manageable than it it was 8 years before when he took office. Under Bush administration, american exceptionally seems to have come to an end, american dream seems to have come to be questioned and resetting and addressed in its righfull dimension for the first time in recent years. In that perspective Obama's election sounds like the expression of "Dreams in action for life", a motto which defines me and I use on purpose for this circumstances to define what is happening right now. But understand that, that concept "Dreams in action for life" is my intellectual propriety registrated as my motto with my personal logo. Yes american people has expressed and has renewed their dream, their desire to freedom, to economic growth, the desire to keep what keep civilized and open society open, the desire to lift themselves up, their desire to never hide from history, their desire to hold their heads up before the rest of the world, the desire to keep defining the nation that reflects their dreams, the nation they share. This is the reason why I personally like american optimism and american self confidence, american learning and teaching political process. That's why I also would like african people to learn how context, trust, optimism, imagination and accountability can help to bring down iron walls, remove barriers eliminate prejudices and make changes happen.Only in American political system ,you can see after a long and hard political campaign ,in both parties voices are arisen in order to push the whole nation to gather behind one man for the country they love and for the future they share..Only in that system you can see a new elected president ,right after his election ,turns the page and call for unity and be ready to count on political actors from different ideological to form his cabinet. Only in that system you can see an ancian and republican secretary of foreign affairs endorses a democrat nominee to run for president. This is one more page that scholars will be proud to add to their study case. For that reason, America is deepening a gap.

When we look through history American's exceptionalist role in the world, from my own framework and from american own inception, has been, to be that nation that exports hope, that brings hope and progress. But under Bush administration that nation has shown a strange image, and has taken from bush leadership a path that exports fear, insecurity and crisis. America not only has drove a wedge between Americans, and between America and the rest of the world, it drove a wedge between America and its own history and identity, it build the bridge between America and Europe as it exists a bridge between Europe and Africa. I understand the reason why so many people like America as I do understand too the reason why so many people in Europe and in the rest of the world dislike america. They feel, those people that American as a nation born only 3 centuries before has taken and appropriated a legacy which is very dear to them, which is very challenging to them. With

Obama America as a nation restore its place and its role to its right seat on the world order, that place, President Bush has moved it from under his administration. One has to approach this issue with great humility but as humble we should be, please let us recognize that an other chapter, and other episode is showing in history screen, another page is turned and a message is sent to each of us. Beyond trying to value it what else can we do. As an african my question is how how african countries think in order to meet challenges generated by the unsufficiency of human system of response before human needs generally before african developpement. Specially what policies developing countries specifically african countries headed by their leaders need to undertake in order to create the right contexts for their people to thrive in this world we share. One thing we urge to do is both african leaders and citizen need to engage in some honest and constructive way an introspection and take actions that can change african context so any dream will not dies before those who carry those dreams die.

“””How far away Europe is set back from USA in all sector of world matters? How huge is the gap and how many are they? What was US answer before European economic gap after the second world war? Marshall plan was the generous answer addressed by a generous nation. How far away Africa is set back from Europe in all sectors of world matters? How huge is the gap and how many are they? What is European answer before african multiple gaps? I m waiting an answer . But on waiting that answer,on letting dream and hope on the way ,let me just to imagine an other Marshal Plan for Africa that Europe owes us but that might be probably addressed by The US.””The current african young generation deseved it and will fight fo make the case in order to chande context .Context really does matter.This is what i learned from an Election.

(MIF) Mamadou ibrahima Fall “Dreams in Action For Life.”