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'Congratulations, America': World Reacts To Obama

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The Tampa Tribune

Published: November 9, 2008

The election of Barack Obama as president of the United States captured the attention of the world. Following are excerpts from foreign newspapers on the election of the nation's first black president:
BusinessMirror
(Makati City, Philippines)

As from this morning, Americans will no longer swagger uncertainly with the nervous arrogance of the last superpower in a world teeming with envious challengers, but walk confidently with the justifiable pride of citizens of truly the greatest country on earth.

Congratulations, America, and welcome back. Take your seat at the head of humanity's table.

The New Zealand Herald
Barack Obama offers Americans and the world a refreshing new spirit in the White House.

He presents himself as much more than an Afro-American. His politics, he says, are post-racial and post-partisan. The "change" that has been his campaign theme cannot be summarized in a set of policies or even a coherent philosophy. He can express it only as different from the way things have been done by the Bush administration, which would be change enough for most.
Jerusalem Post
Those who would factor Israel into their decision understand that our preeminent strategic concern is the Iranian threat. The "best president for Israel" is the man who can best internalize the scale of the Iranian menace, and most effectively persuade Americans - and responsible players in the international community - to stop the mullahs before it's too late.
Jamaica Gleaner
The emphatic win by Barack Obama of the United States' presidency is nearly as much a victory for the world as for the man himself and the people of the United States.

America is much closer to resolving its internal contradictions and making whole the ideals of the founding fathers. But as imperfect and exasperating that we, too, often found America and Americans of the gum-chewing, loud-talking, arrogant variety, there was still something decent and noble we thought about the United States.

The country might be drunk on its success, but there was a clear moral compass in America that forced us, against the grain it seemed sometimes, to express admiration. Then came the lot who have run things these last eight years, unilateral marchers in hobnailed assertion of sole superpower status, articulating doctrines of preventive strike and regime change.

It is the hope that Mr. Obama will rebalance these ideas - not that he will be weak and effete - that make the world excited about his presidency. America should remain muscular and strong, but the hope is that a moral core will return to Washington and the rest of us not viewed as mere pawns.

The Cocorioko, Sierra Leone

God's hand is on America. No nation can remain so blessed without the hand of God. No nation can continue to set the pace in the world without the delicate and omnipotent caress of the hand of God. As a rapt world watched in disbelief, America elected her first black President ever as Barack Obama, the son of a goat herder from Kenya who fathered him with an American woman after he came to the United States to seek the American Dream, swept to power in an amazing victory over John McCain.

By voting in Barack Obama last night, America demonstrated that she is the greatest nation in the world, with the most durable democracy, with preparedness to demolish all color barriers that once tarnished her name.

By making a black man tread the lofty stairs to the White House, America has moved further forward, with hope and a commitment for change that will benefit other nations.

By giving a black man the opportunity to rule the greatest nation on the face of the earth, America has given a new dimension to human relationships and world political dynamics that will transcend all barriers of color.

Dagens Nyheter,

Stockholm, Sweden

It is over. A record-long presidential election campaign and a lengthy power vacuum in the White House. The period during which President George W. Bush was counted out became unusually long.

Since the United States is such a big power - financially, militarily, politically - this power vacuum was a risk for the world at large. Hence, it is probable that a lot of people sigh with relief today, even if they are disappointed with the result.

Soon the White House will have a new resident, so won't it all return to what has become so ingrained? Won't George W. Bush's extended powerlessness become a parenthesis in the history of Washington's always powerful men?

We cannot know yet. What we do know is that the lengthy vacuum in the White House has left traces all over the world: among bankrupt Icelandic banks, disappointed pension savers in Western Europe, among bombed out villagers in Afghanistan and among confined Palestinians in Gaza.

The Guardian, London

The Founding Fathers would have been astonished by the very suggestion of a black president. Their failure to tackle slavery, which the best of them acknowledged was incompatible with the values of the American Revolution, remains the largest stain on their legacy.

But their success was to devise a constitution flexible enough to survive their own failings as well as those of future generations. Author Susan Jacoby argued last week that one of the greatest failings of the current American generation was ignorance.

The overwhelming majority do not know who wrote the constitution or when, or that there are three branches of government, two of which will be changed today, or that there are nine justices of the supreme court.

But look at what has happened in this presidential race and it is not just about one man's oratory. The intensity, emotion and length of this campaign, with a backdrop of war and recession, has re-educated millions.

They include Hispanic and Latino Americans, traditionally antipathetic to elections, who by registering have learned a lot more about their rights than how to conduct a caucus or vote for a proposition. They include record numbers of young people, by Jacoby's measure the most ill-informed of the lot. The record turnout means that voting matters once again. Not a bad legacy for Washington, Adams and Jefferson et al.

The Toronto Star

Americans reshaped their very history, born in freedom and slavery, by electing their first black president, in a gesture of reconciliation and redress that left many weeping with joy and relief.

In handing not only the White House but also Congress to the Democrats, they also rebuffed the powerful Republican neo-conservative ideology that has dominated their political life since Ronald Reagan won election in 1980.

Bush's serial incompetency has badly discredited an ideology notable for indifference to the United Nations and preference for hawkish unilateralism and its conviction that small government, unbridled markets and tax cuts are the answers to every problem.

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