My Political Awakening: Obama Presidency and Beyond
I was a 17-year-old metalhead when Barack Obama was inaugurated as the president. I had an apathy towards politics before that, It never interested me as a teenager. When I was in maybe class 1 or 2; my Mom started keeping The Daily Star (one of the highest circulated English language papers in the country) on Fridays on the advice of my teachers as they thought it would improve my English language skills. A thin colourful magazine came with Friday edition; which I have collected for years. My exposure as a child to global events was through that Friday edition of The Daily Star and to whatever bias they presented in their editorials. Be it the US invasion of Iraq or a group of Bangladeshis in Gulshan (could have been Baridhara) supporting John Kerry’s attempt at the 2004 presidential election sporting t-shirts and tiny American flags. I never understood the context or big words as I read through the eyes of a child. The political apathy persisted through those early years.
As I grew up, my understanding of the world was shaped by my capacity to understand English fluently. The year could have been 2006/7 when I was exposed to this brilliant e-encyclopedia by my friends and my ICT teacher; Microsoft Encarta. I was an information sponge ever since I was a child, it was natural for me to be attracted to encyclopedias and thick history books. Encarta user-friendliness enabled to see the world by just typing in whatever I wanted to see. I did have access to the internet back then, but the speed in Bangladesh was stuck at 1 to 5 kilobytes/s back in 2007. Encarta was software developed in the US, so naturally, my exposure was very much skewed to an American perspective.
I got to know about the struggles of African Americas and the Civil Rights Movement. I was obsessed with MLK’s “I have a dream” speech. I also got to know about Malcolm X and the nuances between these two great men. I read about the presidents of the US through the ages. I read about the Civil War and why it happened; Abraham Lincoln and the Emancipation Proclamation. About the assassinations and the financial crisis of 1929. During my summer holidays, I used to sit for hours to study all the topics and attempt at the quizzes. I sometimes astounded my friends with my knowledge about the US even though I have never travelled abroad till then. It made me very proud, I was a very below-average student at school; but try throwing me a question about world history, I would answer back without taking a breath. I gained the honorary title of “walking encyclopedia” by my peers in school, although now I understand; it was made in jest.
I did read about world history from other parts of the world as well. The years of Margaret Thatcher in the UK and the Falkland war. About the assassination Archduke Ferdinand and World War I. About the rise of the Nazi Party in Germany and World War II. About the Holocaust and the heart-wrenching story of Anne Frank. I studied in a local English medium school here in Dhaka, so my exposure to history before Encarta was through a Hong Kong-based textbook; it did expose me to world history but it was skewed and outdated. My need to know more and to go beyond my school textbooks was probably my first steps towards a political awakening. Local politics was not the most exciting but I did read about the earlier history of Bengal from the 1920s to the 1970s on my effort as many of these topics are present in the textbooks but not cover in-depth and often through a nationalistic lens.
Through my years of Encarta, I learnt about the Democratic and Republican Party and these parties had crucial roles in the history of the US. It was exciting to learn but politics never ringed a bell in my head as it should have. Encarta was discontinued by Microsoft in 2009 and I remember being so disappointed and disheartened. Subsequently, I got to know about Wikipedia around that time and the floodgates of politics on my face. I learnt about the political systems, about democracy, dictators, communism and everything in between. About the Middle East Crisis, the Vietnam War and the Korean War. About America’s foreign policy and the Marshall plan. About the Cold War and Nuclear panic of those decades. All of these topics enveloped me, but it was the Obama presidency that made look into foreign politics seriously and maybe the single biggest reason why I took an International Studies major for my undergraduate studies.
As a teenager, I was oblivious and apathetic like many in Bangladesh; before being exposed to the reality of politics and how it shapes the world around us. I didn’t know about LGBTQ rights or the battle between liberalism and conservatism. I didn’t know faith had an intrinsic relationship with the modern political systems. As I got to learn about all these things, I was committed to a liberal worldview. I was attracted to this because I got to learn about the struggles of human beings against adversity. The Civil Rights Movement, The Nazis and the Holocaust and LGBTQ struggle through the 1980s and 90s. I accepted the liberal outlook on the world because it made sense to me. I didn’t want to stick to a group that did not accept differences and diversity among their members. My political views are my discovery and they have been shaped through my years of reading about these very topics that I write about today. I stand among a minority of liberals in Bangladesh who stand behind their words, but political apathy among my generation and the next is ever-present even in today’s world.
I clearly remember the day Obama was inaugurated, I was watching in live on TV with full spirits probably without understand what this moment in history meant for the US. An African American man was being sworn in the president in a nation where he would not be allowed to use the same toilet, eat in the same restaurants or attend the same schools and colleges as his Caucasian counterparts a few decades ago. They were second class citizens in their own country but throw the struggles of the leaders during the Civil Rights movement and later through the decades, it paved a path for this man. Barack Obama still stands today, as of the tallest figures in my political psyche. His presidency came with the advent of the 2008 financial crisis. He learnt to manage that and bring America’s growth back. He stabilized relationships with nations that American administration previously froze out for decades. He formed a healthcare system that helped many in a nation where healthcare costs are unimaginably high compared to the rest of the developed world.
The speeches, his oratory prowess matches that of Lincoln, King and Kennedy. His place in history is all but sealed. That doesn’t mean that I am not aware of his falls, no great leader is infallible. Their shortcomings are there as a reminder of that but it does not discount what they did for their country and the world. When he came in, he talked in line of LGBTQ rights that same the conservatives but in 2012, he made history; I remember the cover of Newsweek where he had embraced marriage equality for in a flashy cover. Being the first US president to support marriage equality for all. My views of LGBTQ were liberal even before that but from then it became open to the world after that; one of many changes in my life directly influenced by Obama.
At the end of this Trump presidency, I had given up on American politics completely. I deleted my daily bookmarks of US news portals that I followed since my freshman year in university; as they were now boring or infuriating me way too much. Their standing in the world has greatly suffered since the Obama years. I got to know that his book came out recently on Goodreads and it rang a bell in my head. I had forgotten how this man’s presidency changed my apathy towards politics and how he shaped my life in a broad sense. To get read his mind through his book just makes me so happy, A Promised Land will definitely on the best reads of the 21st century. Thank you for everything, Mr President.
A Promised Land is available for purchase at Bookworm Bangladesh. Please go out get this brilliant book from them and support the best bookstore in town!
