Lot's Wife Edition 1 2017

Yes, We... Tried
As President Barack Obama gracefully departed
the Oval Office for the last time, the words, ‘yes we
can,’ continued to linger. They remain the symbol of
his uncanny talent for drawing hope out of even the
darkest firmament of America. And whilst the hope that
was once so vigorously attached to his iconic campaign
slogan seems hesitant under the Trump Administration,
it continues to lull, albeit tentatively.
Or, perhaps it wasn’t. Perhaps being remembered for
what he represented, and not what he accomplished
merely points to the fact that Obama was an admirable
role model but an ineffective president. The tragedy
of reaching for the stars but ultimately, due to the
disappointing realities of governing, falling short,
is most evident in his foreign policy. His embrace of
the Bush Administration’s approach to the ‘War On
Terror’ saw an unprecedented escalation of drone use
with somber results. By February 2015, Obama’s covert
drone strikes killed almost six times more people and
twice as many civilians than those ordered under Bush.
Reflecting on these statistics makes President Obama’s
2009 Cairo address seem almost imagined. Following
the devastation of the Iraq War, it is difficult to find
another speech that captured the boundless optimism
and possibility that Obama embodied. At the time, it
was circulated that if a man with distant Muslim family
ties who had spent his childhood years in Indonesia, a
Muslim-majority country, couldn’t improve America’s
relationship with the Muslim world, nobody could. And
yet, the speech that once emanated hope that America’s
relationship with the Arab world would improve, it
now merely reflects the gap between what the Obama
administration might have been and what it actually was.
These once certain promises became the mood music
for the failing relationship between the United States
and the Middle East. The disastrous Libya intervention,
the inefficient diplomatic interference in Yemen and
the hasty request to remove Assad in Syria directly
contradicted the ‘new beginning’ Obama once promised
in Cairo. However, his failed foreign agenda also reflected
the fact that the days in which the United States could
create security and maintain world order are long gone.
Obama had the opportunity to choose which places
matter most and which can be left to run themselves,
and largely, this choice was never made. Instead, his
decisions only compounded the mistakes he inherited
whilst in office.
Domestically, the obstructionism Obama faced
from Republicans and the Right was historically
unprecedented. Indeed, one of his hardest battles
fought was bringing about the health care law known as
Obamacare. His goal, to help millions of Americans who
couldn’t afford health insurance, emanated nobility and
quickly overshadowed his other domestic endeavours. It
was desperately needed, and despite its many flaws, was
able to change the lives of countless Americans. However,
whilst it seemed to be a huge step toward the Democratic
dream of health care for all, creating the Affordable Care
Act brought neither affordability nor workability. It
turned out to be yet another dream that shattered and
bore little resemblance to his soaring rhetoric.
politics/society
What he did do, quite well actually, was hasten state
surveillance. But perhaps that’s the wrong way to
describe it. Because you see, Obama publicly declared
his opposition to the Patriot Act and Bush-era secrecy
whilst building his career. And yet, it didn’t take long for
him to quickly devastate progressive hopes by actually
expanding the illegal wiretapping of American citizens
that he was once so against. By 2012, XKeystone, a system
used by the National Security Agency, was storing as much
as forty-one billion records in thirty days. Meanwhile,
whistleblowers and journalists were being prosecuted
by the Obama Administration more robustly that any of
his predecessors. Whilst justified under the untouchable
umbrella of ‘national security,’ the ironic effect is that
storing such volumes of data make the detection of
security threats all the more difficult. Perhaps the
most devastating result is that Donald Trump has now
inherited such a powerful set of tools.
However, Obama cannot be dismissed as merely a
silver-tongued politician. The advancements made to the
LGBT community during the Obama administration were
striking. Indeed, marriage equality, the condemnation
of discrimination in the military and the appointment
of 11 openly gay federal judges were huge steps toward
a progressive future. While discrimination still
exists towards marginalized groups, Obama started a
conversation about this marginalisation with confidence
that was previously unforeseen in American politics.
The 44th President also faced dire circumstances
when taking office. The world economy was in the
worst financial crisis since the Great Depression and
the US was close to an economic meltdown. Yet, the
Obama administration were able to lessen the blow
of the Global Financial Crisis and see for America’s
relatively slow economic recovery, eventually bringing
the unemployment rate to below five per cent. Moreover,
amongst the promises he was criticized for abandoning,
one he did keep was not adding anymore detainees
to Guantanamo Bay. Barred by both Republicans and
Democrats in Congress from closing Guantanamo, Obama
nonetheless chipped away at the population by making
196 transfers to third-party countries. Indeed, the Obama
administration recognised that the closer Trump came
to placing his hand on the Lincoln Bible, the chances
of helping those remaining were drastically slimming.
As such, Obama worked tirelessly to get remaining
detainees, many of which were held captive mistakenly,
out of Guantanamo before he left office – even making
four transfers in the 24 hours leading up to Trump’s
inauguration.
Whilst these achievements are honorable, they are
few. The thought of what might have been if he had
governed in a more tranquil era overpowers the progress
that he did achieve. However, these missteps and missed
opportunities do not take away from his ability to describe
the nation’s pain with a delicacy, maturity and elegance
that is unlike any other of his predecessors. They do
not take away from his being an intelligent, eloquent,
disciplined and wholly admirable man. And they most
certainly do not take away from his ability to instill a
genuine, and unparalleled hope into the hearts and minds
of not just Americans, but all those willing to listen to the
reassuring words, ‘yes we can.’
A historical presidency
and a complicated legacy
article by emina besirevic, illustration by vanessa le
24-25