On the Italian press in recent days there have been many articles linked in some way to Obama and his election. Among others I was particularly impressed by the following one published by "La Repubblica" of November,11 entitled "When a dream becomes reality" and written by one of the best minds of the generation before mine, Adriano Sofri.
This is the link to the full article (in Italian): Quando un'utopia si trasforma in realtà.
Without any doubt "dream" is the keyword for this election. If I had to summarize the reason of Obama’s victory in a single word, "dream" is the one I would use. His dream became the dream of many others, in the U.S. and throughout the world, considering the huge interest in his campaign, and the joy that exploded all over the planet after the election.
Old Europe was not blind to it, and millions of people, mainly disappointed by home politics, have found in this man the hope they were looking for. And the sign of renewal has found a rich soil in the perception that most Europeans have about America.
Sofri says:
America - La Merica - and the American Dream gradually became synonymous. Europe, although it has made a great leap, it is not the European dream, unless for some of those who have drown in the channel of Sicily. Nearby, dream is in decline, and surrogates go ahead.
There is a lesson in the fact that the three contemporary personalities who have handled the dream with more confidence had an African ancestry: Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela and now Barack Obama. Mandela says that everyone must afford their dream. His is an example. He had plenty of time to cultivate his dream, his expectation.
Martin Luther King evoked a dream in the dream, the dream of blacks into the American dream, and he embodied it in his life and death. Obama describes America as a great joint-stock dream company, shared by everyone. In his best speeches, redistribution of the American dream is joined with redistribution of income. In his rhetoric, dream sounds democratic.
And more:
In addition, the call to open up the eyes came in the midst of a global storm.
Obama pleads for dream in the eye of a financial cyclone, asphyxiation of the planet, endless war, relapse of the cold war, terrorism, nuclear proliferation and imperial decline. The invocation - Let us dream - has empowered the American candidate from all corners of the earth.
But round the corner there is a danger: expectations are too high and too spread to be disregarded. It is not easy to satisfy dreamers from the whole world. Sofri continues:
A so overwhelming event is regrettable for the political realism that is willing to take revenge by prefiguring disappointment. For realism, dream is nothing but the prologue of awakening, and illusion announces disappointment.
This is time, they say, for cool passions. Ernst Bloch, the most devoted to hope philosopher, described history as alternating hot and cold currents of exaltation and banality. It reminds of the difficulties found in some old bathtubs to mix hot and cold water.
Today doesn't seem a great moment for dream, a very outdated merchandise.
We allow something only to the night dreams, of which we are partly responsible but declare us irresponsible: a little time, too much to do. The rank of dreams is falling more and more.
Dreams are no longer prophetic or cautionary, and no more revealing. You think of dreams when you are sick, and you need someone to translate them, explaining why you feel not so good. What is a dreamer, for us? Someone harmless enough he can't be a terrorist, stupid enough he can't become a statesman.
It happens in the nights and more in public life. It is hard to persuade (and be persuaded) that reforms can be radical and not accommodative and compromising, so it is hard to admit that democracy, poor as it is, is able to dream and make people dream.
Civil dream is not in luck. We called it utopia, we got drunk of it, and then we swore not to do it more, not even a drop. Surrogate dreams go undisturbed and demagogues ask people to give the worst of themselves, being the same of their leaders.
But then, where did this vocation to hope come from? From the perspective of seeing a dream realized in a sea of disappointment and cynicism. And how could it happen that an African American senator was able to awaken the dream asleep in all of us? Sofri explains:
The dream evoked by Obama is that of the one who, being able to give his best, asks others to do the same, to do it together, and that they can make it. No matter it is a slogan: you feel that it's true, you want it to be true.
We must, as Gandhi said "be the change you would like to see in the world"; Obama and the world came to an unpredictable appointment. It was not sure that it could happen, it was not sure that it could happen with the right person.
In a famous Spike Lee's TV-spot, Gandhi was speaking in his hut, and throughout the planet people were listening, from the Red Square, an office in London, an African meadow, from New York, the Coliseum in Rome and a market in Canton. It ended with the question: "If he could communicate like that, what kind world would this be?" Gandhi's speech said: "If you want to give a message to West - he spoke to a crowd of Indians – it must be a message of love, of truth. I want to capture your hearts. Let your hearths clap at unison with what I say. A friend asked yesterday, did I believe in one world? Of course I believe in One World. And how can I possibly do otherwise?".
And it happened. With a young man, with shirt sleeves rolled up. They voted for him, those who use the web, with rates between 80 and 95 percent worldwide. Those who do not use even the electric light voted in their hearts even more fervently.
And now you could also disappoint us, Obama. But when was it the last time we had some illusions?
Such a long time passed that I don't even remember it.
It's time to believe again.