President Obama?

The Iowa caucuses mark an intriguing start to the American presidential election. In actual votes they carry little weight in the final selection of the Republican and Democratic candidates for the ultimate contest in November. But in being the first state to take a call on the candidates, they often give winners headstarts in making bids for the big states. So, Barack Obama’s victory in Iowa this week may not guarantee him the Democratic nomination. But leave the micro-stocktaking for another day, for another primary. For this moment, just savour Obama’s arrival and imagine what it can mean for the United States and the world.

Obama’s bid is often faulted for his lack of experience. He is, even his fans admit, running on the strength of two autobiographies. But it his personal biography that gives America a filter to reimagine itself and for the rest of the world to consider what promise the idea of Obama holds of a world more at ease with itself. The fact of his race is obvious, but that racial inheritance came to Obama in a more international form that any candidate has ever brought in the race to the White House. He was brought up by Kansas grandparents in Hawaii after his Kenyan father became estranged from his mother. He spent primary school years in Jakarta, after his mother married an Indonesian. After a childhood away from mainland America, he excelled at university, going on to become the first black president of Harvard Law Review. Soon after law school he published Dreams From My Father, showing a nuanced internationalism in talking of his Kenyan and Indonesian families. In the more recent Audacity of Hope, seen to be his political manifesto, he wrote of reconciliation in the public sphere.

If Obama does emerge victorious after the grueling year ahead, he would have amply proved merit. But for now, the fact that the idea of President Obama has become a possibility counts for more. At a time when the US administration urgently needs to repair its image to its own people and to a divided world fearful of violence born of that division, that idea holds the assurance of a more tranquil and cordial future.