On the Death of Bin Laden

Justice must be served because, unlike revenge, justice is a moral imperative. Without justice, there can be no peace, no progress and no closure.

With the commando raid in Abbottabad that resulted in the death of Osama bin Laden, there is now a sense of closure, not just for the families of the victims of the 9/11 attacks but for Muslims as well. The violent ideology of bin Laden and al-Qaida held Muslims captive for a decade and created existential difficulties for them. With the demise of the terrorist mastermind, Muslims, especially American Muslims, heaved a huge sigh of relief.

Tahir Anwar, the Imam of the South Bay Islamic Association of San Jose, California, struggled with words to express his relief. “It is actually beyond relief,” he said. “Beside killing thousands of innocent people, Bin Laden damaged our religion and society. Other than a few extremists, his message of violence never resonated with Muslims. He was a marginal figure who inflicted tremendous suffering on people. I am happy that the head of the snake has been cut-off and there is now one less evil person on earth.”

The Quran is clear on the question of justice. “O you who believe! Stand out firmly for justice, as witnesses to Allah, even as against yourselves, or your parents, or your kin, and whether it be against rich or poor, for Allah can best protect both.” (4:135)

Dr. Rajabally, a frequent speaker in Islamic conferences who also runs a shelter for abused Muslim women and victims of domestic violence in the San Francisco Bay Area, hopes for two developments to occur in the wake of bin Laden’s death. First, that the recruitment of the vulnerable to fanatical causes around the globe will stop and second, that the U.S. government will treat American-Muslims as an ally in the fight against terrorists and not subject them to racial profiling and similar indignities. “Islam is for justice,” said Rajabally. “Bin Laden committed injustice on a global scale. He gave Islam and Muslims a bad name. He treated Muslims who did not agree with his violent methods – the overwhelming majority of Muslims – as his number one enemy. We are grateful that justice has been finally served.”

Bin Laden was no martyr. He created a personality cult out of his feral fantasy and unbounded egotism, even as America helped create the monster that he became. Many impressionable young Muslims unfortunately fell under his sway only to undermine their faith and waste their lives. Bin Laden preached an ideology of violence in the name of Islam that was rooted not in theology but in ruthless political ambition.

The Arab Spring that is currently transforming the Middle East is proof of how insignificant bin Laden had become. One could argue that he still wielded some influence among the Arabs but after the Tunisian uprising, he became completely irrelevant. While he tried to channel Muslim anger against U.S. foreign policy for his own political hegemony, the revolutions by Tunisians, Egyptians, Libyans, Yemenis and Syrians are signs that Muslims are taking responsibility for their own condition instead of blaming others for it. In that context, ideologues like bin Laden lose all credibility.

American-Muslims were heartened by President Obama when he said “… the United States is not, and never will be, at war with Islam … Bin Laden was not a Muslim leader; he was a mass murderer of Muslims. Indeed, al-Qaida has slaughtered scores of Muslims in many countries, including our own. So his demise should be welcomed by all who believe in peace and human dignity.”

In spite of these considerations, I must confess to being disturbed by the raucous celebration that broke out when bin Laden’s death was announced. How can the death of a human being, no matter how vile, be a cause for celebration and exultation? What should have been a somber occasion turned into a festival with street-dancing and fist-pumping. There is something morally repulsive and spiritually eroding in taking pleasure in the death of a human being.

With the bin Laden "event" behind him, Barack Obama has all but ensured a second-term for himself as president of the United States. Unless something goes horribly awry, and this president has proved extraordinarily lucky in everything he has done so far to make that possibility remote, look for Obama to deliver his second inaugural speech in January of 2013.

Now that bin Laden is dead, America must get out of Afghanistan and Iraq fast. Unlike George Bush, Barack Obama can claim that the mission has indeed been accomplished. There is no need to linger in those countries anymore. What should have been a war on ideas after 9/11 became two viciously polarizing wars of death and destruction, costing thousands of lives and trillions of dollars. Only in withdrawal can come the ultimate closure.

Obama Will Regain His Audacity

The midterm election was a rude wake-up call for President Obama but it's not the end of the story. We have perhaps read only the first few chapters in a book of many chapters. The death of the Democratic agenda is greatly exaggerated.

Barack Obama has received his dose of humility just in time. Any longer and he would have put himself beyond rescue. All this talk of elitism, detachment, arrogance, 'I am right, you just don't get it' attitude is mostly true.

But what most Americans tend to overlook is Obama's enormous ability to rediscover himself. Anyone who has read his two autobiographical books know it. Why pundits are not using this trait in their judgment is odd. Perhaps it means that they haven't really read the books. Superficial perusal maybe but no serious study for clues to the president's character.

Since his election to the highest office in the land, Obama tried too hard to please his critics while neglecting his support base. He failed in the first and lost big time because of the second. Candidate Obama that young independents flocked to two years ago began to wonder who they really voted for, because the occupant of the White House certainly didn't resemble their hero, their hope.

The enthusiasm gap widened when Obama lost his sense of purpose and began courting the fat cats who gave us the financial crisis that destroyed millions of American families. Although blessed with a gift for words, the president couldn't explain healthcare or the stimulus or the financial reform in a way that common Americans could understand. Obama's packages were too little, although not too late.

The ultimate irony: A man borne on the wings of audacity suffered a failure of imagination.

But here's the thing: Obama can, and will, regain his audacity in support of his principles and in opposition to his implacable foes. It's in his genes.

Americans told him through their votes that they don't like his style and even the substance he has shown so far. They don't like the sense of superiority he exudes. They want a doer in these tough times but find in him an ivory-tower thinker with little or no appreciation of the difficulties they are facing. They want democrats to shed their timidity and boldly take on the Tea Party.

Obama will absorb these lessons in the days ahead and become candidate Obama again. He will recapture the magic by sheer force of will and reconnect with his constituency. He knows that this is the biggest challenge of his career. He will rise to it, not because of the prospect of a second term, but because he knows in his guts it is the right thing to do.

'Fahrenheit 451' and the Quran Burning Issue

Ray Bradbury’s famous 1951 novel uses ‘451’ in the title to denote the temperature at which book paper burns. Who would have guessed that fateful number would compel worldwide attention in the early 21st-century?

The pastor from Florida (he will remain nameless, for he has had far more than his fifteen minutes of fame already) who threatened to burn the Quran seems to have had a change of heart. He and his flock of fifty will not burn copies of the Quran after all on the ninth anniversary of 9/11.

The pastor is claiming that his decision is based on a quid pro quo: Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf has agreed to move the Not-At-Ground-Zero mosque farther away from Ground Zero, and therefore, he will not go ahead with his planned bonfire.

Imam Rauf has denied any agreement with the pastor. It now appears that this was yet another attempt by the former hotel manager from Gainesville, Florida, to focus media attention on him.

There are two points worth noting about this Quran burning issue.

One is that the pastor and his likes do not represent America and its values, a point emphasized by both President Barack Obama and secretary of State Hillary Clinton. This includes the few thousands who befriended the pastor on Facebook and who mailed him copies of the Quran to create a bonfire.

The other, the more significant point, is that the threat by the pastor to burn Islam’s divine text should motivate Muslims to reflect on their own relationship with the Quran.

Lunatics and extremists have in the past burned, and will no doubt burn again, sacred texts to draw attention to their delusional and psychopathic mindsets. We shouldn’t really get worked up over this.

But where do we Muslims stand with respect to the Quran? Do we not dishonor the Book through negligence and indifference? How many of us dust it off only when a loved one departs the earth? Do we set aside time to read and understand it every day, even if for a few minutes? Does the Quran speak to us equally when we experience both joy and sorrow? And what about those Muslims who, responding to the pastor's threat, incline to violence? Do they not read in the Quran that "Nor can goodness and evil be equal. Respond to evil with doing good deeds to the evil doer. Then will he, between whom and thyself was hatred, become as though he was thy friend and intimate!" (41:34)

The Quran is a guide for the living and not a trope for the dead. The power and the beauty of the Quran becomes manifest only when it becomes an intimate companion to the living.

Some of us have a habit of acquiring multiple copies and translations of the Quran. We proudly display our “collection” on the shelves in our personal libraries or on our smartphones. But when it comes to actually studying the Book with seriousness and concentration, on or off Internet-enabled gadgets, suddenly time becomes scarce.

In contrast, there are Muslims who can afford only one copy, and a tattered one at that from overuse, that they study with awe and reverence every day. They read and they ponder and they give thanks for all the blessings they enjoy from the Creator, even if these blessing are not apparent to their affluent co-religionists.

In these challenging times, Muslims must remain patient, respond to what is bad with what is good, and rely on God for help and guidance. That is the surest way to defeat fanatics and extremists.

Apple, Mindshare and Passion

It has become almost a cliche to say that Apple has a lock on mindshare unparalleled among technology companies. It is still 48 hours away for customers to buy iPads but the excitement and anticipation is reminiscent of the Harry Potter books. Can any other company equal this?

The iPad may not solve global warming and world hunger but you will be hard-pressed to convince the aficionados. Besides games and entertainment, the iPad is expected to make the health care process smoother and easier and, consequently, less expensive. Looking up patient records and sending data seamlessly to physicians for remote diagnosis are just two of the potential applications that can make the iPad an indispensable tool in hospitals and homes. Coming in the wake of Obama's revolutionary health care reform, the iPad is already poised to make history.

But there is a story behind the iPad story. And that story belongs to Steve Jobs. Nowhere will you find this story more eloquently expressed than in Jobs' commencement address at Stanford University in 2005.

"... it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me," said Jobs. " The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life ... Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don't lose faith. I'm convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did."

That is the story in a nutshell. Jobs loved what he did and that's why no setback could set him back. The great physicist Hans Bethe expressed the same sentiment: "Never work on a problem for which you do not have an unfair advantage." Where does the unfair advantage come from? From love for what you do.

Millions of Americans are now without jobs. The long shadow of recessions is unlikely to disappear soon. Yet if you are passionate about something - and you have to have something to be passionate about - nurture it and sooner or later the sun will shine through. As Jobs said, "Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life ... have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary."

So, no matter how useful the iPad may turn out to be, it will always be secondary to the story of the man who loves what he does and never loses faith in himself.

D-Day for Health Care Reform in America

The D-Day (as in “Defining-Day”) for health care reform in America arrives tomorrow, Sunday, March 21, 2010. Barack Obama has staked his young presidency on this bill. He will not become a lame-duck president if the bill fails to pass but there is no doubt that his image and effectiveness, at least in the short-term, will take a major hit.

Even among his die-hard supporters are those who feel that the president’s “obsession” with health care has diverted attention from the foremost problem facing America today: loss and lack of jobs. When Americans worry about having a roof over their heads or putting food on the table, seeing a physician becomes a luxury that can temporarily be dispensed with.

Yet there is also no denying that universal health care coverage is a right, not a privilege. Sure, the cost to the economy will be in hundreds of billions of dollars but can we, as a civilized and humane society, allow money and politics to trump what is fundamentally an ethical and moral issue? What kind of society will ours be if insurance companies continue to deny or revoke with impunity (the case of Jerome Mitchell, a 17-year old college freshman from rural South Carolina, is one of thousands of such cases) the coverage of Americans when they are afflicted with life-threatening conditions?

The idea underlying insurance companies is: Grab as much premium as possible from the healthy but exclude those who are sick. This macabre 'survival of the fittest' business model is unacceptable in any civilized society.

Obama’s administration has to bear responsibility for the cliffhanger that the health care bill has become. We Americans abhor serpentine language. We believe that if anything is worth fighting or dying for, we should be able to understand it without having to master the language of lawyers. Yet there has been no coherent explanation by the president or the democrats about why and how the heath care bill makes sense economically, socially and politically. Simply evoking the moral principle has played into the hands of Republicans. Their shrill warning that American capitalism, as we have known it for two hundred years, will die if the health care bill were to pass, has resonated with many fence-sitters simply because Democrats have not matched them in the “easy-to-understand” department. This is particularly ironic given the president’s reputation as a wordsmith and his facility in distilling an issue to its essence in words that can capture the imagination of Americans, as we saw repeatedly during his presidential campaign.

The American most passionate about health care reform was the “Liberal Lion of the Senate,” the late Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts. That his seat is now occupied by a Republican who is against health care reform shows how far the fortune of the Democrats has fallen in a single year.

Yet I believe that tomorrow House Democratic leaders will find 216 votes to make the health care bill the law of the land. Like most Americans, I am a prisoner of hope (especially today, the first day of spring!) and I cannot accept the fact that 216 of our representatives will miss out on this historic milestone that will affirm the right of every American access to health care. It is almost as historic a milestone as the election of an African-American to the highest office in the land, and there will be enough, just enough, votes to see the bill through.

Missing the Real Obama

I do not believe, as many Americans do, that Barack Obama has fizzled in his first year as president. But I do believe that he could have done better than what he has, given the support and the goodwill that propelled him to his historic victory in 2008.

Let’s first put the Massachusetts election in context. Republican Scott Brown’s victory over Democrat Martha Coakley for the late Ted Kennedy’s Senate seat does not signal a seismic shift in the political landscape of America. It simply means that Coakley, who ran the most inept and asinine campaign in recent memory, lost to the better and more knowledgeable candidate. Brown may derail the health care reform bill and tarnish Kennedy’s legacy but that will not imply that the Republican Party has suddenly become resurgent and is poised to sweep away the Democratic agenda. In fact, Brown’s victory might just be the wakeup call Democrats needed to stop their internal squabbles and get their bearing right.

But there is little doubt that the euphoria we experienced in the wake of Obama’s election as the first African-American president in U.S. history is rapidly vanishing. There are two main reasons for this: The President’s continuation of his predecessor’s policies in Iraq and Afghanistan, and his inability to turn the economy around.

We have just reached a dubious milestone: The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have topped $1 trillion in taxpayers’ money since 2001, and the President is expected to request another $33 billion to fund more troops in 2010.

To put this in context: 20% of all Americans are either jobless, underemployed or simply have given up looking for work. One out of every eight U.S. mortgages is in default or foreclosure, one out of every four homeowners is burdened with underwater mortgages, and one out of every eight Americans is on food stamps. Hunger and homelessness are on the rise and relief is nowhere in sight.

The stimulus package has not removed or reduced the stress on homeowners and job seekers. The economic “wizard” in Obama’s cabinet continue to spin the fantasy that the recession, at least in their formula-rich spreadsheets, is over. Meanwhile, at least six Americans are responding to each job opening, even if they are over-qualified for it.

Greg Mortenson, author of Three Cups of Tea and Stones for Schools, has built schools in the remotest areas of Pakistan and Afghanistan. In his many meetings with hardened Afghan warriors, Mortenson came away with one simple message: education is the best antidote to the Taliban. As journalist Trudy Rubin has reported, the title for Stones Into Schools came from a hardened former mujahedeen commander in the remote Badakshan province of Afghanistan who talked about how much his country needed rebuilding. He told Mortenson that there has been far too much dying in these hills. “Now we must turn these stones into schools.” Even warriors want peace, says Mortenson, a lesson he learned by sitting down repeatedly with shuras (representative gatherings) of elders. He says one of the biggest American problems after the 2001 invasion was the lack of such attention paid to what Afghans themselves wanted. We should have consulted with shuras, and listened to, and respected, elders, according to Mortenson.

Most Americans desperately want President Obama to succeed. One rising concern is that Obama has lost touch with his dedicated and passionate supporters. He has to renew his connection with the grassroots. Many Americans are beginning to view his presidency as imperial and catering to the wealthy. This perception has to change.

A constant in the calculus of American politics is that the presidency changes the President. Some it elevates, others, it drags down. Here’s hoping that, in spite of recent setbacks and falling poll numbers, Barak Obama will quickly find his stride and decisively place himself in the first group.

The Dickensian Decade

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to heaven, we were all going direct the other way …”

Can we use the stirring words of Charles Dickens to describe the first decade of the twenty-first century, the “Oughty-Noughties” (2000-2009 or the 00s) as it has come to be called?

Answer: A qualified “Yes.”

The decade began with the bursting of the dot-com bubble in March of 2000. Eight months later, George W. Bush claimed the presidency of the United States after the “hanging chad” farce in Florida and a strange and unprecedented 5-4 decision by the U.S. Supreme Court.

On September 11, 2001, homicidal maniacs claiming Islam as guidance hijacked commercial airliners and crashed into what they perceived as American symbols of power, the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon in Washington, D.C. Close to 2,300 Americans and an estimated 500 foreign nationals from 91 nations perished in the attacks.

In response, the U.S. went after the Taliban in Afghanistan with almost universal support. The Taliban were swiftly routed but victory proved elusive as a quagmire set in, reminiscent of Vietnam. Eight years later, the war continues as a corrupt Karzai regime hangs on to power.

Support for American policy quickly dried up as President Bush used the pretext of weapons of mass destruction and a manufactured Al-Qaida connection to attack Saddam Hussein’s Iraq in March of 2003. The invasion, boasting technological “shock and awe,” seemed at first to be as easy as winning a video game but the occupation proved catastrophic. America’s moral authority came undone in waterboard torture pits and in the horror dungeons of Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo.

As of now, the Iraq war has alone caused almost 100,000 civilian deaths, euphemistically called “collateral damage.” Sectarian violence is a daily occurrence and the Iraqi government remains weak and dysfunctional. The toll the two wars have taken on the families of American soldiers killed and injured is incalculable.

In technology, the Internet gold rush that collapsed in 2000 regained some of its luster, as social networking became all the rage. MySpace (2003), Facebook (2004) and Twitter (2007) became household names. Web 2.0, the read/write Web, turned everyone (well, almost everyone) into a blogger and a “pundit.” How far the democratization of ideas and opinions go and what influence it has in speaking truth to power, however, remain to be seen. Apple revolutionized the music industry with its iPod products and leading universities of the world made many of their courses in various disciplines available online. Cloud computing went mainstream and software and hardware breakthroughs blurred the distinction between smartphones and PCs.

Amazon’s success with the Kindle, introduced in November of 2007, raised an intriguing question: Will eBooks replace physical books, and if so, when? “When” is difficult to say but it is clear that, where the technology is available, sale of eBooks is rising dramatically against the sale of ink-on-paper books. As Amazon Chief Jeff Bezos noted, however, the Gutenberg model has had a 500-year run, making the physical book probably the most successful technology ever.

Among many achievements in science, scientists mapped the human genome sequence and CERN’s Large Hadron Collider first sputtered and then came to life as two beams of protons collided head on at a combined energy of seven trillion electron volts, setting the stage for answering fundamental questions about our universe in the new decade.

In 2008, Barack Obama was elected the first African American president of the United States. Americans were drawn to his platform of change and hope. The world breathed a sigh of relief and the nation’s stature in the world went up almost overnight. But a global economic meltdown, brought on by Wall Street charlatans, Ponzy schemers, unscrupulous bankers and hedge-fund hucksters, threatened to undermine his presidency from day one.

Massive stimulus money pumped into the economy seems mostly to have rescued the industry titans and their acolytes, however. Financial future of the average American appears bleak at this point, with job losses and home foreclosures not seen since the Great Depression of the 1930s. The crisis has spread worldwide and it will clearly be a while before the Great Recession is actually over.

Still, the election of Barack Obama to the highest office of the land was like light breaking forth after an unending night of darkness. Sadly, the president has committed more troops to Afghanistan, although withdrawal from Iraq is expected to take place during the middle of 2010. The new year will test the young president’s mettle, his ability to deliver on the message of hope and change that carried him to victory.

Perhaps the most significant global issue of the decade was climate change and our response to it. Most of us, with the exception of rabid right-wingers and congenital contrarians, recognize the existential threat that global warming poses to the earth. Yet consensus on how to mitigate this threat has fallen prey to nationalism. For the biggest emitters of greenhouse gases – China, the United States, India, Russia, Japan – national economy trumps the survival of the planet.

Still, the Copenhagen Climate Summit in December of 2009 raised the expectations of common and indigenous people around the world to soaring heights, a reflection, perhaps, of the hope they invested in Barack Obama.

But while it roared in like a lion, the Summit went out like a lamb. There were no lasting binding agreements. A limited deal was reached in which both developed and developing nations agreed to “list national actions and commitments” on cutting carbon emissions. Wealthy nations also offered billions in aid to help countries like Bangladesh and the island nation of Kiribati, threatened with the worst effects of climate change. Significantly, leaders also gave their assent to a 2 degree Celsius cap on global warming.

The real success of the Climate Summit is in the impetus it has given to green technology and clean energy. Entrepreneurs are racing to produce energy-efficient devices and systems, ranging from innovative fuel-cells and green building materials such as ultra-insulated windows and glass to roof-top gardening, clean-coal technology and high-efficiency solar and wind systems.

It is also not without irony, and some measure of justice, that Al Gore, who lost the muddled 2000 presidential election to George Bush, won the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize for his contribution to raising global awareness of man-made climate change.

So there you have it, a decade dominated by terror, bad governance, war, unregulated greed and financial terrorism, but also a decade in which sanity replaced insanity toward the end, in which Muslims overwhelmingly rejected Al-Qaida’s message of nihilism and asserted their message of moderation (the Nidal Hasans and the Abdulmutallabs reflected systemic failures), in which awareness of the earth’s fragility entered our consciousness and spurred us to action, and in which we recognized, as never before, that our prosperity and well-being depended on the status and education of women throughout the world.

We may have begun this decade in the winter of despair but perhaps it is not too far fetched to suggest that a spring of hope beckons as we end it.

Happy New Decade!

Obama Seeks Cooperation with Muslims

Turkey is living proof that Rudyard Kipling’s “Oh, East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet” is an anachronism. Both physically and metaphorically, the nation is defined by the confluence of East and West. Turkey has flourished because of this confluence. That it is a Muslim nation makes it that much more important in the post 9-11 world in which the idea of a clash of civilizations unfortunately still resonates with many.

That's why Barack Hussein Obama’s address to the Turkish Parliament on April 6 seemed like the arrival of spring after a bleak winter. “So let me say this as clearly as I can: The United States is not, and will never be, at war with Islam. In fact, our partnership with the Muslim world is critical not just in rolling back the violent ideologies that people of all faiths reject, but also to strengthen opportunity for all its people … I also want to be clear that America's relationship with the Muslim community, the Muslim world, cannot, and will not, just be based upon opposition to terrorism. We seek broader engagement based on mutual interest and mutual respect. We will listen carefully, we will bridge misunderstandings, and we will seek common ground. We will be respectful, even when we do not agree. We will convey our deep appreciation for the Islamic faith, which has done so much over the centuries to shape the world -- including in my own country. The United States has been enriched by Muslim Americans. Many other Americans have Muslims in their families or have lived in a Muslim-majority country -- I know, because I am one of them.”

Of course, Obama had to deal with issues specific to Turkey. He gave his unqualified support for the country’s entry into the European Union. “Turkey is bound to Europe by more than the bridges over the Bosphorous. Centuries of shared history, culture, and commerce bring you together. Europe gains by the diversity of ethnicity, tradition and faith -- it is not diminished by it. And Turkish membership would broaden and strengthen Europe's foundation once more.” (Leaders of France and Germany promptly poured cold water on any such possibility). He commended Turkey’s tentative acknowledgment of its dark past vis-à-vis Armenians but reminded his audience that much still needed to be done. He praised Turkey’s recent overtures to its minorities. “For democracies cannot be static -- they must move forward. Freedom of religion and expression lead to a strong and vibrant civil society that only strengthens the state, which is why steps like reopening Halki Seminary will send such an important signal inside Turkey and beyond. An enduring commitment to the rule of law is the only way to achieve the security that comes from justice for all people. Robust minority rights let societies benefit from the full measure of contributions from all citizens.”

The president also sought Turkey’s help in negotiating with Iran, in the importance of two-state solution for Israel and Palestine, “living side by side in peace and security … That is a goal that I will actively pursue as President of the United States.”

The Ankara speech was suffused with symbolism but I wish Obama had also addressed the ferment transforming Muslim countries currently run by despots and dynasties. The Web has let loose a million Muslim voices. From Cairo to Karachi and Jakarta to Jeddah, through blogs and unconventional forums and festivals, young Muslim activists - women and men - are integrating Islam with modernity, reducing the influence of the traditional, hidebound ulema in their lives and on their societies. It is no longer an either-or proposition for them: devout or liberal, religious or secular, with no middle ground. These activists are discovering values in Islam on their own, without being hectored by Imams who focus only on God’s punishment and rarely on God’s mercy. It has given them the confidence to meet the demands of the 21st century on their own terms, just as a young and brash Muhammad Ali took on the Jim Crow South of the ‘60s in his inimitable way.

Obama could have touched a nerve with these young Muslims, telling them that he too had to forge his path in life when he was their age, and that self-discovery and a sense of purpose can transform people and nations, not inherited privilege and foreign aid.

But all in all, this was an inspiring beginning. Predictably, Obama has come under attack by rabid right-wingers for acknowledging in Strasbourg that America has been arrogant in the past and in Ankara that many Americans have Muslims in their family, or have lived in a Muslim-majority country, which he knows because he is one of them.

“You have belittled America! You have been a closet Muslim all along!” these deeply-disturbed people are braying. Most Americans are impressed with the president’s performance, however, and are relieved that the antagonism and distrust that characterized George Bush’s foreign policy are giving way to friendship and respect with Barack Obama at the helm.

Students Missing From Education Reform

Education has attained the status of weather: Everyone talks about it but no one does anything about it.

Well, not exactly. President Obama made education a centerpiece of his campaign. He talked about the central role of education in his life to get to where he was. He promised to follow up on his educational vision if he became the president.

In an address to the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce today, the president fleshed out his vision. He called for more charter schools ("laboratories of innovations"), merit-based pay for teachers while holding them more accountable, emphasis on early education, tougher curriculum standards, and renewing commitment to learning from cradle to adulthood. “It is time to give all Americans a complete and competitive education from the cradle up through a career,” said Obama. “We have accepted failure for too long. America’s entire education system must once more be the envy of the world.”

The president had done his homework on teachers. He is determined to push the same methods used in Finland and Singapore, two countries with the finest public education systems in the world today, to treat “teachers like the professionals they are .... New teachers will be mentored by experienced ones. Good teachers will be rewarded with more money for improved student achievement, and asked to accept more responsibilities for lifting up their schools.”

The president made a compelling case for raising the quality of education in America. Where it fell short was in his lack of emphasis on the responsibility of the students themselves. “It is time to expect more from our students,” the president declared. We have known that for years, but how? We talk about teachers, teachers' unions, administrators, parents, communities and school districts but leave out the most important element in the ecology of education: students.

Teachers and schools can never take over the job of educating a child completely. And they are not meant to! It may take a village to raise a child, an awfully nice-sounding idea, but it is a partial remedy at best. The critical question to ask is, why do so many of our kids suffer from lack of motivation? It’s a phenomenon that cuts across race, gender, income and social standings. You can blame lack of parental guidance, high-tech distractions, a noxious culture, whatever, but ultimately the mystery remains. If you are the parent of a school student whose only aim in life seems to be entertainment and hanging out with friends, how do you instill in him or her discipline, motivation, hunger for knowledge?

All across America, parents and teachers who dutifully offer everything asked of them to educate their wards are asking: “What are we doing that’s not right?” Who will tell them that they are doing the best they can, that it is most often the kids who have to shape up, who have to shun the path of ignorance and get on the road to knowledge?

I hope President Obama focuses exclusively on students next time he talks about education. He is an inspiration to kids. His life story evokes wonder. He can be more persuasive on our children than perhaps any parent or teacher at this particular juncture of history. He can use his talent, eloquence and his own story to energize and motivate them to acquire knowledge. If he can pull off this feat, there is a chance that our educational system will once again become the envy of the world.

Obama, Thoreau and the Inaugural Address

Anticipation for Barack Obama’s inaugural address mounts.

The nation is in the grip of a terrifying recession. Americans are losing their jobs right and left. There is no clear exit strategy for the disastrous war in Iraq. The government is bailing out non-performing industries that may cost future generations their future. Layoffs, bankruptcies and Ponzi schemes dominate the news. The winter of despair stalks the land.

Against this backdrop, can mere words perform miracles?

History teaches that they can. Think Lincoln, Roosevelt, Kennedy. Uniting a nation torn by a brutal civil war, putting America back to work by conquering fear, passing the torch to a new generation of Americans – the words of these presidents nourished the soul and renewed the American spirit.

Barack Obama must deliver the goods when he addresses the nation on January 20. We are looking for hope and inspiration, not numbers and statistics. Facts and plans can come later; what we want now is to see the light beyond the darkness that surround us.

While Obama will probably evoke Lincoln in his speech, another American he should consult is Thoreau. The Bard of Walden was no Utopian. He made allowances for life’s idiosyncrasies and yet taught us how to lead lives of dignity and fulfillment.

Hard, honest and meaningful work (unlike, say, the work of speculators and money managers) was central to Thoreau’s vision of life. “I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestionable ability of man to elevate his life by conscious endeavor.” With millions of people losing their life-savings to Wall Street greed and cruelty, we need to be reminded that “goodness is the only investment that never fails.” Obama has promised dramatic changes in the status quo but he should also tell us that ultimately “things do not change: we change,” that “what lies behind us and what lies ahead of us are tiny matters compared to what lives within us.”

Thoreau spoke uncomfortable truths with clarity and grace. His words were tough, true, lyrical and soaring, a synthesis impossible save for a few. While telling us unflinchingly of what lay beneath our feet, Thoreau also made us look up at the stars. His is a supremely difficult act to emulate but that’s what the 44th president of the United States must do in his inaugural address if we are to rise above our current crises and become a beacon to the world.

“As President, I am giving up smoking for good!”

(I hope Barack Obama will deliver a speech like this after taking office as the 44th president of the United States. He will inspire millions of smokers around the world to give up nicotine addiction).

My fellow Americans,

As you know, I have inherited a long and daunting list of crisis that will severely test me and my cabinet in the days to come.

But there is one personal challenge I have decided to confront that I expect will give my presidency a head start.

Those who have read my memoir, Dreams from My Father, may recall my fondness for smoking. I begin several sentences with “I lit a cigarette,” whether describing my experience as a community organizer in Chicago or visiting relatives in Kenya.

In photographs taken in 1980 by a fellow student when I was a freshman at Occidental College in Los Angeles, you can see me, a 20-year-old, with a cigarette in my hand. In another, I am puffing dreamily on it.

It is a fact. I have been lighting up since my teenage years and have continued to do so for years. I found cigarettes soothing in stressful times, even though I was aware of the damage it was doing to my lungs. Nicotine is intoxicating. It is, as my young friends may say, cool, a mark of social sophistication.

But now I am the president of the United States of America. I have a moral responsibility to set an example for you and for people around the world, particularly the young.

I am giving up smoking for good. No occasional falling off the wagon, no puffing in private. No more smoking, period.

I am not a superman. I do not underestimate the difficulty involved. Giving up smoking requires formidable will power. But as thousands of you in America and around the world prove everyday, it can be done. Smoking is behavior and we know that behavior can be changed for personal and common good.

Today, as in every day of the year, 4,000 of our kids between the ages of 12 and 17 will start smoking. Worldwide, about 100,000 people start smoking everyday, most of them kids.

Smoking kills over 1,200 Americans everyday, about 450,000 a year. Around the world, the toll exceeds 5.5 million a year.

Beyond lives cut short, there are other prices we pay as a society. The annual direct healthcare expense and productivity loss traced to smoking are estimated at about $100 billion each in America.

As president, I will take measures to reduce the power of Big Tobacco. Because it is a lethal product, I will subject cigarettes to more taxes than ordinary products. I will use the power of my office to exclude it from the guidelines of Global Agreement on Tariffs and Trades and from all future US bilateral and regional trade agreements. I will support the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC). The previous administration did not ratify FCTC but I will send it to the Congress and the Senate to swiftly ratify it.

Increasing public awareness of the harmful effects of smoking in America and Europe has forced tobacco companies to shift their attention to Africa, Latin America and Asia, where weak governments and corrupt officials often succumb to their enticements. My administration will hold American tobacco companies responsible if they dump their products through bribery and false advertisement anywhere in the world.

We cannot flood weak markets with tobacco while demanding that hard drugs do not flow into the United States. My administration will never tolerate such hypocrisy.

Youngsters say one of the biggest influences on them is seeing people they know or admire light up. I am making a personal appeal to Hollywood and to actors, athletes and other celebrities to stop glamorizing smoking. If even a single person looks up to you, and you smoke, renounce the habit and you will have performed a charity whose fruits others will reap for years.

A few pundits, probably well-meaning, have suggested that I should indulge in an occasional puff or two to relieve tension, now that the weight of the world is upon me. They worry that if I give up smoking, I will not only lose my svelte figure but also my steely calm, the very quality that made you vote for me in the first place. They predict that I will become irritable, nervous, forget social niceties and embarrass the nation if I stop puffing for good.

They are wrong. I am happily sacrificing the pleasures of smoking for the benefits its shunning will bring to me and to anyone inspired by my example.

I also assure you, I will not lose my calm or control because of the absence of cigarettes from my life. I am made of sterner stuff than that.

So, my fellow smokers, old and young: can we lick this lethal habit together once and for all?

Yes, we can.

Cutting the Gordian Knot of America's Public Education System

In a recent opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal (12/1/08), Lou Gerstner, the former CEO of IBM and chairman of the Teaching Commission from 2003-2006, summarized his ideas for rescuing the nation’s failing public school system. They are forceful and provocative and merit attention from Obama and his education secretary.

Gerstner disarms his critics by putting America’s school reformation movement in context. “Despite decade after decade of reform efforts, our public K-12 schools have not improved.” That surely includes the efforts of the Teaching Commission that he led for 4 years. “Why,” he asks, “after millions of pages, in thousands of reports, from hundreds of commissions and task forces, financed by billions of dollars, have we failed to achieve any significant progress?”

As Gerstner notes, the problem isn't "what to do," nor is it a failure of commitment. Instead, he believes that “the problem lies with the structure and corporate governance of our public schools. We have over 15,000 school districts in America; each of them, in its own way, is involved in standards, curriculum, teacher selection, classroom rules and so on. This unbelievably unwieldy structure is incapable of executing a program of fundamental change. While we have islands of excellence as a result of great reform programs, we continually fail to scale up systemic change.”

To transform the school system, he identifies four key elements: 1) Set high academic standards for all of our kids, supported by a rigorous curriculum. 2) Greatly improve the quality of teaching in our classrooms, supported by substantially higher compensation for our best teachers. 3) Measure student and teacher performance on a systematic basis, supported by tests and assessments. 4) Increase "time on task" for all students; this means more time in school each day, and a longer school year.

(Italics are mine to indicate the enormous political challenge these requirements will pose for the Obama administration, even if only a subset is considered).

Who can quarrel with these suggestions? In one form or another, they have been proposed several times over the years, only to die on the vine, as Gerstner himself concedes.

So what can Barack Obama and Arne Duncan do to ensure that it's different this time? As Gerstner sees it, the particular solution he proposes is challenging but doable: a) Abolish all local school districts, saving only 70 from the 20 largest cities in 50 states. b) Establish a set of national standards for a core curriculum comprising, for a start, reading, math, science and social studies. c) Establish a National Skills Day to test every third, sixth, ninth and 12th-grader against the national standards and publish the result. d) Establish national standards for teacher certification and require regular re-evaluations of teacher skills. Teacher skills are to be judged against one criterion only: advances in student learning. Those who succeed must be able to earn well in excess of $100,000 per year while underperforming teachers must be purged. e) Extend the school day and the school year to effectively add 20 more days of schooling for all K-12 students.

Can such a solution, or variations thereof, be implemented? Local school districts will undoubtedly put up bitter fights. There will certainly be the inevitable, debilitating clash between Teachers’ Union and the “progressives.”

But the students themselves are hungry for change and parents and concerned citizens are supportive of overhauling the nation’s public school system. They have given Obama the mandate to do so. The 44th president must make it a priority of his administration to cut the Gordian Knot of America’s public education system and transform it into a source of creativity. America's future depends on it.

Obama Needs to Step it Up

Americans are looking for passion, not cool. They are currently more concerned with where the next month's mortgage payment will be coming from than with the global implications of a distant war. To be unflappable maybe a virtue but when you are taking on a war veteran in front of a national audience, you better rid yourself of timidity and start using words that are bold and a vision that is clear. In the debate last night at the Ole Miss, Obama did neither and that was disappointing.

Watching the lackluster give-and-take, I found the images morphing into this exchange:

Sen. McCain: Sen. Obama does not understand ...
Sen. Obama: Sen. McCain is absolutely right ...

What's this with McCain being right, no less "absolutely," in a debate where so much hangs in the balance? It looks like Obama is determined to win the congeniality contest that McCain vows not to.

The best that can be said about this debate is that two more remain in which the senator from Illinois can learn from his mistakes and become more sharp and incisive. He has to be far more convincing in projecting a presidential image, in not straining to prove that he can be magnanimous (he will get plenty of chance for that later) and in decisively proving to Americans that McCain is nothing more than an extension of Bush and his failed policies. One more thing: Please avoid the Kenyan narrative. Plenty of ink has been spilled on the topic. You are not going to persuade swing voters with that. In fact, you might just turn them off.

Come out swinging, Barack! Show some more passion!

P.S. (2 weeks later) Looks like "cool" in the face of provocations goes a long way. Obama's cool has been a huge plus for him. Now I understand what Hemingway meant when he defined courage as "grace under pressure."

Two Brilliant Opinion Pieces

Read two brilliant opinion pieces over the weekend. The first was by Randall Kennedy, a professor of law at Harvard University, who speculated on the possibility of Barack Obama losing to John McCain in the November election. “If that happens,” wonders Kennedy, “then what? How will I feel? How will other black Americans feel? How should people like me feel?”

The writer plumbs his soul to answer these questions, having fled the Jim Crow South of the ‘60s with his parents to escape racial abuses. The answers are poignant but also uplifting. Kennedy finds in Obama a potential president who could do wonders for the United States both at home and abroad. But his hope is tempered by reality. What is that reality? Race, which continues to plays a significant role in 21st century America, “not the hateful, snarling open bigotry that terrorized my parents in their youth, but rather a vague, sophisticated, low-key prejudice that is chameleonlike in its ability to adapt to new surroundings and to hide even from those firmly in its grip.” If Obama were to lose, “I’ll conclude that a fabulous opportunity has been lost. I’ll believe that American voters have made a huge mistake.” Kennedy speaks for many Americans across the racial divide. They yearn for a new dawn after the perpetual darkness of the Bush administration but if the republicans return, then after the initial heartbreak and anger, “I will find solace and encouragement in contemplating this … a major political party nominated a black man for the highest office in the land … he (Obama) will have bequeathed to all America something that should bring comfort and pride to even the most disappointed of his followers. He has reached the edge of the pinnacle. And shown that we can stand atop it.”

The other piece was by Paul Theroux, the renowned travel writer. What has really “electrified” republicans about Sarah Palin is not the quality of her Alaskan governorship (non-existent) but her image as a fearless hunter of … moose. The big bad moose has made Palin big too, at least in the minds of diehard republicans grasping at anything to excite their flagging spirit. Theroux puts all this in perspective: “It is as though, because of the animal’s enormous size and imposing antlers, bringing one down is a heroic feat of marksmanship. Nothing could be further from the truth.” This is where Henry David Thoreau steps in. Thoreau (1817-1862) observed the moose closely in Maine. Killing these myopic creatures was more “like going out by night to some woodside pasture and shooting your neighbor’s horses.” He found these gentle creatures to be like “great frightened rabbits.” Felling them, he felt, was no less than a tragedy.

Thoreau was a subversive fellow, intolerant of pretensions and hypocrisy and “business as usual.” (It is “business as usual” that is at the root of the current Wall Street meltdown). Theroux writes a telling sentence: “American politicians seldom take notice of American writers, especially the boldest one, such as Thoreau, whose every word is at odds with their groveling and grandstanding and their sanctimonious cant.” This is as incisive a summary of the majority of our politicians as you will ever read. Theroux points out that in Thoreau’s mind, the moose and the pine tree were linked. “Every creature is better alive than dead, men and moose and pine trees, and he who understands it aright will rather preserve life than destroy it.” Sarah Palin notwithstanding, can a majority of Americans take Thoreau’s message to heart and vote with their conscience in November?

Falling off the "Bridge to Nowhere"

Concerned Americans are worried that John McCain's V.P. choice, Sarah Palin, may snare enough women voters, particularly from among Hillary Clinton supporters, to deliver the White House to the Republican Party in the November election. While the possibility exists, it is remote and likely to get remoter as Election Day approaches.

To suggest that women will vote for Palin because she is a woman is an insult to all women. Gender issues may make headlines but is never the deciding factor in any election. "McCain must think we are idiots," was a refrain heard from Clinton camp around the country.

With soaring prices of essentials and lack of affordable healthcare for millions of Americans, suggesting that voters will line up for Palin because she "electrified" a partisan crowd with a prepared speech is condescension at its worst.

Critics and commentators invariably underestimate the sturdy commonsense and the fundamental fairness of ordinary Americans. The average American can distinguish between style and substance with a clarity he or she is rarely given credit for. Palin's speech did not sway voters whose elemental concerns - food, housing, job, healthcare - the governor of Alaska found too lowbrow to mention in her speech. Her mocking, sarcastic remarks on Barack Obama may have drawn laughs at the convention laugh but outside, it angered and alienated many Americans.

Right-wing outlets like The Wall Street Journal and Fox News would have us believe that a single speech written for her by Republican operatives has magically transformed Sister Sarah into a combination of Margaret Thatcher, Joan of Arc and Laura Ingalls. This is laughable. Americans are not only not falling for it, they are finding it breathtakingly arrogant and offensive.

McCain's choice of Sarah Palin ("a bridge to nowhere", in the words of columnist Ellen Goodman) was a cynical and ruthless attempt to grab women voters. The ploy has failed even if the polls show a temporary surge for McCain-Palin. There will be a new dawn in America on November 5 and Democrats will be cheering.

Barack Obama and the Promise of America

Expectation was high, the symbolism heavy.

Forty-five years ago, on August 28, 1963, Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his profoundly stirring “I Have a Dream” speech on the Mall in Washington that changed America. Surely Barack Obama, a champion of change himself, would seize the moment with soaring rhetoric of his own to connect with King and inherit his mantle during his nomination acceptance speech.

In one of his wisest decisions, Obama chose not to compete in the rhetoric department with King, an impossible task anyway. Instead of soaring, he was down-to-earth. He had judged the mood of the American people perfectly and that sensibility turned his good speech into a great one.

America is hurting. Millions are out of work. Bankruptcies are multiplying. Families are selling off their possessions on eBay to put food on the table. Meanwhile, George Bush’s failed presidency continues to pour $54 billion dollars every six months on the Iraq war.

Against that backdrop, Obama made his case. He defined the American promise as one “that says each of us has the freedom to make of our own lives what we will, but that we also have obligations to treat each other with dignity and respect. It's a promise that says the market should reward drive and innovation and generate growth, but that businesses should live up to their responsibilities to create American jobs, to look out for American workers, and play by the rules of the road …”

Obama attacked McCain for being out-of-touch with ordinary Americans and with the crisis the country is facing. “I just think he doesn’t know.” “… John McCain doesn’t get it.” Tough, uncompromising talk. It will be interesting to see what verbal calisthenics McCain performs to respond to Obama.

Even before he was done with his speech, the conservative chattering class was attacking Obama. Leading the pack was columnist Charles Krauthammer who has been recycling his obsessive notion that Obama is a narcissist “devoted to crafting, and chronicling, his own life.” The junior senator from Illinois has apparently nothing to show in terms of ideas and experience. What Mr. Krauthammer conveniently forgets is that the worst presidents in U.S. history came with hefty resumes (James Buchanan (1857-1861), Richard Nixon (1969, 1974), to name only two). Barack Obama has not walked the corridors of power in Washington long enough to merit the appreciation of neocons. How dare this black pretender to the throne rise to the highest office in the land, whines Krauthammer.

However, in this defining moment, America needs a president who maybe poor in Washington experience but rich in life-shaping experiences. From Hawaii to Jakarta to Los Angeles to New York to Nairobi to Chicago, Obama acquired a sense of purpose in life that sets him apart from politicians the pundits revere. He is uniquely qualified to bring about the change the country desperately needs. Voters are finally beginning to get it, even as John McCain and the conservatives and the chattering class don’t. Call it destiny, call it cycle of history, call it what you want, but after eight disastrous years, America is ready to move from the darkness of despir into the bright sunshine of hope, with president Obama leading the way. November cannot come soon enough.

Obama by a Landslide

TIME magazine (May 19, 2008) analyzes the mistakes Hillary Clinton made in her quest for the democratic nomination. There are vague statements like “She misjudged the mood,” “She didn’t master the rules,” and so on. At best, this is Monday-morning quarterbacking. It would have been more relevant to identify why Barack Obama won the nomination (Hillary Clinton will undoubtedly concede in the next few days). There are many reasons: excellent grassroots organization, intelligent use of Web 2 technologies to spread the word, stirring speeches to inspire Americans, particularly the young. But one factor contributed to Obama’s nomination more than any other, and that was his opposition to the Iraq war when everyone, including Hillary Clinton and John McCain, competed to jump onto Bush’s bandwagon. He opposed the ‘rash war’ in Iraq in 2002 and never wavered in his judgment. This made him the candidate of substance that voters had been pining for, as opposed to candidates whose views were dictated by the shifting political wind.

There is an unfortunate tendency by pundits and Clinton loyalists to attribute Obama’s ascendancy to race. “Obama won the democratic nomination because blacks voted en masse for him,” has been the refrain heard from opposing camps. This is blatant racism. Nowhere is there any recognition that African-Americans voted for Obama because they decided that he was the better candidate on issues and policies. Nowhere is there any acknowledgment that if Hillary Clinton offered better choices and options for Americans, blacks would have voted for her. In fact, that’s how the campaign began, with blacks backing Hillary more than Obama. But as the campaign progressed, voters began to see that one candidate remained true to his principles, while the other resorted to race-baiting and polemics. A difficult choice it wasn’t.

I was surprised by the attitudes of my fellow Americans of sub-continent origin (India, Bangladesh, Pakistan). “Americans are not ready for a black president,” many of them insisted. On probing further, it became clear that what they meant was that they found the idea of a black president unacceptable. Probing further still, I came to the conclusion that this was due to a strange and curious combination of racism and narrow world-view. I don’t know about other states but certainly in California, many Americans who migrated from the Indian sub-continent are bitter that Hillary Clinton's chances of winning her party's nomination has dwindled to zero.

As for those Clinton loyalists who assert that they will not vote for Obama in November, I think the feeling will pass. The passions are still raw but six months offer enough time for reconciliation and closing of ranks. I have no doubt that once Obama formally wins the nomination, Hillary Clinton will urge her supporters to vote for him.

So what will happen in November, 2008? Here is my prediction: Barack Obama will defeat John McCain, increasingly seen as Bush III or the Son of Bush, by a landslide to become the 44th president of the United States of America.

Barack Obama's Challenging Race Speech

Barack Obama's speech today on race and religion was among the most powerful and poignant speeches ever. The words were stirring, evocative, and served as a call to action on the race front in America.

We often forget that it took the United States many years after the civil war to rid itself of the evil of slavery. “And yet words on a parchment would not be enough to deliver slaves from bondage, or provide men and women of every color and creed their full rights and obligations as citizens of the United States. What would be needed were Americans in successive generations who were willing to do their part -- through protests and struggle, on the streets and in the courts, through a civil war and civil disobedience and always at great risk -- to narrow that gap between the promise of our ideals and the reality of their time."

He addressed those who thought that he was where he was not by dint of his merit but as a result of affirmative action. At the same time, he rejected Reverend Wright’s racist remarks, repudiating his racism while harboring no hatred for the man. “On one end of the spectrum, we've heard the implication that my candidacy is somehow an exercise in affirmative action; that it's based solely on the desire of wide-eyed liberals to purchase racial reconciliation on the cheap. On the other end, we've heard my former pastor, Reverend Jeremiah Wright, use incendiary language to express views that have the potential not only to widen the racial divide, but views that denigrate both the greatness and the goodness of our nation, that rightly offend white and black alike …

“The profound mistake of Reverend Wright's sermons is not that he spoke about racism in our society. It's that he spoke as if our society was static; as if no progress has been made; as if this country -- a country that has made it possible for one of his own members to run for the highest office in the land and build a coalition of white and black, Latino and Asian, rich and poor, young and old -- is still irrevocably bound to a tragic past. But what we know -- what we have seen -- is that America can change. That is the true genius of this nation. What we have already achieved gives us hope -- the audacity to hope -- for what we can and must achieve tomorrow.”

He was blunt about the effects of racism in our society. “Segregated schools were, and are, inferior schools; we still haven't fixed them, fifty years after Brown v. Board of Education, and the inferior education they provided, then and now, helps explain the pervasive achievement gap between today's black and white students.”

Obama is, however, not one to give in to despair and cynicism. “But I have asserted a firm conviction -- a conviction rooted in my faith in God and my faith in the American people -- that working together we can move beyond some of our old racial wounds, and that in fact we have no choice if we are to continue on the path of a more perfect union. For the African-American community, that path means embracing the burdens of our past without becoming victims of our past. It means continuing to insist on a full measure of justice in every aspect of American life. But it also means binding our particular grievances -- for better health care, and better schools, and better jobs -- to the larger aspirations of all Americans -- the white woman struggling to break the glass ceiling, the white man who's been laid off, the immigrant trying to feed his family. And it means taking full responsibility for our own lives -- by demanding more from our fathers, and spending more time with our children, and reading to them, and teaching them that while they may face challenges and discrimination in their own lives, they must never succumb to despair or cynicism; they must always believe that they can write their own destiny.”

With this speech, I believe Barack Obama has convinced a majority of undecided Americans that he is the best candidate to be the next president of the United States. His words of hope, change, action, accountability and responsibility struck a deep chord with people from all walks of life and will prove to be decisive in the November election.

Also today, the Wall Street Journal carried an article by Shelby Steele called "The Obama Bargain" in which he suggests that Obama has used his race as a "bargain." As a bargainer, Obama makes "the subliminal promise to whites not to shame them with America's history of racism, on the condition that they will not hold the bargainer's race against him. And whites love this bargain - and feel affection for the bargainer - because it gives them innocence in a society where whites live under constant threat of being stigmatized as racist. So the bargainer presents himself as an opportunity (in italics) for whites to experience racial innocence."

This is a conspiracy theory of the most subtle kind. Mr. Steele should read Obama's speech in full (… we've heard the implication that my candidacy is somehow an exercise in affirmative action; that it's based solely on the desire of wide-eyed liberals to purchase racial reconciliation on the cheap …) and recognize that his thesis is not merely untenable, it is downright disingenuous.

Barack Obama is not bargaining for anything. His sight is set on a higher plane. He is telling us that together, we are more than the sum of our creed and color. He is calling for a reconciliation grounded in our common hopes and aspirations. It is the surest way to end racism in our country as we march toward a “more perfect union.”

Unstoppable Obama

With eight straight primary victories against Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama has caught the wind on his sail for good. There is no stopping him now as he surges ahead of his rival in what started out as a keenly-contested race.

Analysts are attributing many factors to Obama’s success – more money, more grassroots support, more sophisticated use of the Web, more this, more that.

They are, however, missing the most important factor: Obama has captured the imagination of Americans like no presidential aspirants in recent memory. Neither Ronald Reagan nor Bill Clinton comes close. The only apt comparison is with John F. Kennedy and his mythical, magical evocation of a new frontier.

It is now beyond Hillary Clinton to overcome Obama’s x-factor advantage. Hillary Clinton represents variations on the theme of "what is" but Obama represents a bold and new version of "what is possible." And as the poet Robert Frost may have said, that has made all the difference.

Hillary's Stunner in New Hampshire

How did Hillary Clinton pull the stunner in New Hampshire last night? Even though pundits and pollsters were busy eating crow, they took turns to "explain" Clinton's victory. Two words summed up their analysis: "race" and "gender."

Nonsense. Race, gender (and ethnicity) played no role in this primary.

There are four reasons why Hillary won.

First, it is in the American character to root for the underdog. With polls predicting a thumping victory for Obama, voters felt inclined to vote for Hillary. If Hillary swept the senator from Illinois in Ohio and polls were predicting a repeat for her in New Hampshire, it is most likely that Obama would have won in the Granite State.

Second, for the first time since she began her campaign, Hillary came across as a vulnerable human being instead of a micro-managed robot. Count on seeing the video in which she tears up many more times before this race is over. People like that. Yes, they admire guts and determination and straight talk, but they admire genuine emotions even more.

Third, Hillary spoke more substance on issues that mattered to voters in New Hampshire than Obama. There was no block voting; more women flocked to her because she addressed their concerns.

Finally, voters were fed up with the certainty of pompous pundits and pollsters. Let's teach these buffoons a lesson or two, many of them said to themselves as they stepped into the booth to register their feelings.

A hard-fought campaign is the fire through which presidential mettle is forged. No one can predict at this point who will win the democratic nomination but one thing is certain: the democratic nominee will be the next president of the United States.