THE ADVENT OF OBAMA -11/23/08 (revised 5/9/09)

Make no mistake. Have no doubt. Things will never be the same. Change has come and most of the civilized world is rejoicing.

The "civilized world" does not, however, include all of America. There still exists a number of communities in the United States which, although their inhabitants possess electricity, computers, automobiles and other material things , they are not themselves "civilized". While such people might argue to the contrary, the possession of things is a poor barometer of a person's or nation"s intrinsic worth or value, particularly from a religious perspective.

But therein lies the rub: there are many people who consider themselves "civilized" but deny the existence of a a religious perspective, especially one which incorporates the judgement of human behavior.

From a religious point of view, of course, to be "civilized" means to behave in such a manner toward others as one would like others to behave towards oneself. This is a Biblical injunction (sometimes referred to as "the Golden Rule") shared by most world religions, including Islam.

But the problem is that there are segments of America which desire to do things to others that they would not like done to themselves; e.g., torture. Such people can be described as living an uncivilized life ; that in and of itself is not a major concern to the religious community, however. It is the fact that proponents of this idea seek to silence the voices of those opposed to it which causes the problem. Most of these proponents are, and have been, opponents of people who preach and/or practice Islam in America.

Such people may in fact surround Obama but they are not cheering his election and they fear the consequences of the change that he has already brought about. Their fear is somewhat justified, for they will no longer be "first in line" to receive the material benefits to which they have become accustomed. These people lost more than just an election; they lost part of their civilization. In Biblical terms, it is,or has been, "the end of the world" for them.

Thus, one of the problems Obama faces is that of distinguishing between the civilized and the uncivilized nature of those who surround him and who wish to influence his decision-making. This is not an easy task for Barack Obama, or for anyone else placed in a position where their decisions affect the welfare of many other people.

Part of the difficulty is derived from the deceptive nature of the physical cues that most Americans use to make judgments about themselves and others. Thus, an popular index of "civilization" is an ability to read and write. Such an ability, commonly referred to as "literacy," is considered by many Americans a sine qua non for being "civilized".


Many Americans may thus live in the physical boundaries of the United States of America, but they are often less civilized than many illiterate farmers living throughout the world. This belief in the superiority of one's own civilization is reflective of an ideology which uses technology markers as indicators. Examples of such markers include running water, electricity, automobiles, and computers.

A sub-text of such thinking is the conceptual correlation between the presence of poor people and the absence of literacy and other markers of advanced technology. This subtext then interacts with racial classifications which are stamped at every registered birth or hospital admission ins America.

The advent of Barack Obama challenges such thinking because he recognizes that the relationship between technology and civilization is not linear, and that civilization has more to do with how people treat each other than it does with how high one's IQ or FICO scores are or whether their residences are equipped with flush toilets and electricity.

Barack is uniquely qualified to dance the multi layered waltz that history is now playing before world audiences.

Unfortunately, he may have been required to downplay the influence of his father's Islamic faith in order to get elected; but he has shown no signs of running away from the basic Islamic principle of justice. So long as he remembers the poor and the orphans, Obama will win the hearts and minds of the billions of Muslims throughout the world and, by so doing, usher in the kind of New World Order which will stun the political mischief makers both in and outside of America.