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President Obama: do you remember Johnnie?
For the past few months I have been reading Dreams From my Father by Barack Obama, written before he was even a U.S. senator. Reading Dreams now that Obama is president gives me a lot of hope for the future of the world and not just for the United States of America.
But the words of President Obama during his campaign, and some since he has been elected, worry me. I wonder if he has forgotten what his co-worker, Johnnie, said to him many years ago when they were organizing in Chicago and Obama had just been accepted at Harvard University. I think they might be changed today to read, “President of the United States. Goddamn. I just hope you remember your friends when you up in that fancy White House.”
Who were his friends back in those days? The people in the housing projects who had been abused by political and economic structures for years. Around the world today it is this type of persons who would like to be President Obama’s friends. But they are not the only ones who want this friendship. Those who have dominated the political and economic world for centuries also want to be his friends. Somewhere along the way he is going to have to choose. A number of politically astute people I have spoken with in Venezuela are not optimistic that he will opt for the powerless. The coming Fifth Summit of the Americas should give some clues in this regard.
Recently President Obama attended the meeting of the G20. Three Latin American nations (Argentina, Brazil and Mexico) who will be at the Summit were also part of the G20 meeting as was Canada. But I think the dynamic of the Summit of the Americas will be quite different because of the collective presence of the Latin American and Caribbean leaders.
Almost all of the G20 nations have large populations, over 40 million. Almost all of the Latin American countries have small populations. G20 nations Argentina, Brazil, and Mexico plus Columbia are the exceptions. That means that the leaders of the Latin American countries have the opportunity to be more in touch with their people, most of whom are among the world’s underprivileged. These two meetings may point up once again for Obama the contrast between the Harvard reality and the Chicago housing projects.
The economy was the principal concern of the G20 meeting. I think people will be the main concern at the Summit. One might say that people in the underdeveloped world were the concern at the G20 meeting also. I don’t think they were, unless capitalism and socialism are synonyms. They are not. It is a question of where does one put the emphasis. The G20 was about what is in people’s pockets; the Summit will be about what is in people’s hearts and minds. That may involve money, but the question is who is going to get it? The banks and insurance companies and their executives? Or, will more be invested in health, education, and social well-being? Why is it the International Monetary Fund and not the International People’s Fund?
In addition to a different focus, I think President Obama is also going to encounter a different environment at the Summit meeting because of the relationship among the Latin American and Caribbean leaders. A kind of camaraderie has developed among these in recent years.
Moreover, the countries they lead are beginning to sense a feeling of interdependence. A new social, and not just economic, block of countries is developing.
Taking all this into consideration, President Obama’s relationship with the individual leaders will be interesting. The president of the United States at this moment is something of an outsider to this group. (The same might be said of the Canadian prime minister.) Individual presidents from this part of the world have met with Obama, but that doesn’t indicate automatically relationships.
He also comes with another disadvantage. The United States and its presidents have dominated the Americas for a couple of centuries. The other American countries have felt and resented this domination, although many of its leaders joyfully played ball with the U.S. This situation has changed in recent years. Today there is a widespread feeling that the sovereignty of each country must be respected and many of the leaders are willing to speak out in favor of this concept.
Writing about the Summit, the international press has put emphasis on relations between the U.S. and Cuba. The secretary general of the OAS, José Miguel Insulza, has said that the nations should not pressure Obama in this regard during the Summit. They really don’t have to do so. There has been enough pressure on him within the United States from the Congress, the Midwest farmers, and ex-Cubans that even more changes will be taking place than those he has announced this week.
A more important indicator of the United States’ relationship with the other nations of the Americas will be what will happen between Obama and Hugo Chávez. Ignacio Lula da Silva of Brazil is president of the largest and most populous country of the southern region. He is an extremely important actor in the current dynamic. But it is Chávez who draws the biggest crowds and press attention wherever he travels in the world. Hugo Chávez’s presence at the meeting cannot be ignored by President Obama.
In spite of being vilified by the commercial press in many countries, and especially in the U.S., Chávez has been at the forefront of developing a new vision for this part of the Americas. His relationship with almost all the other leaders in the area is one that Obama should envy or at least hope to have someday also.
Chávez is the principal promoter of unity within the area and has done more to promote interdependence among the southern nations than any other leader in recent times. He has brought a message of hope and the possibility for change. Most importantly, his main supporters are the kind of people that lived in the Chicago projects where Obama worked as a young man. It is this type of person that makes up the majority of Latin American and Caribbean countries.
If Obama and Chávez show signs of becoming friends, dramatic changes will begin in the relations of the U.S. and its southern counterparts in this part of the world. If the relationship is cold, then it will mean that Johnnie’s concern is still valid: “President of the United States. Goddamn. I just hope you remember your friends when you up in that fancy White House.”
by Charles Hardy ©
Charles Hardy is author of Cowboy in Caracas: A North American’s Memoir of Venezuela’s Democratic Revolution, published by Curbstone Press. Other essays by Hardy can be found on his personal blog Cowboyincaracas.com. You may write him at cowboyincaracas@yahoo.com.