By Namrud Berhane

After his controversial loss in the 2000 presidential elections, Al Gore went around joking that he "used to be the next president of the United States of America." The controversy surrounding that election earned it more of the world's attention.

US policy affects those beyond its borders, and so the world naturally follows what happens there. In addition, it is home to millions of migrants who flock there from all parts of the world, millions around the world have blood relatives in the US.  

And this time around the world is watching more closely than at any other time, because, for the first time in the history of America, an African American and a woman have come this far in a presidential campaign.

And Senator Barrack Obama is now contending as a presidential candidate for the Democratic Party.

Meanwhile, views and opinions about an African-American possibly being the next president of the United States, are being hurled from all corners of the world, especially Africa.  Some are even using the occasion to advance their interests.

In Kenya, the leading newspaper Nation dedicated ten pages for a piece on Barack Obama.

 A contender for parliamentary seat in that country, according to one report, told a crowd: "Maybe Raila Odinga didn't become Kenya's first Luo president, but Barack Obama will be America's first Luo president." The crowd roars. Shouts of "Obama for president" fill the crowded, dark hall. Odinga, who lost last year's contentious presidential election [in Kenya], is from the Luo ethnic group, the same as Obama's late Kenyan father. Encouraged by the swell of cheering, the aspiring politician goes on. "Once Obama is president, American visas will be free and easy for Kenyans."
Obama's 86-year-old grandmother in Kenya tells international media that she will be in Washington when he is sworn in as president.

In Ethiopia, a picture showing Obama holding an adopted Ethiopian child (Ashagre Shanko) makes front page news.

And in Libya, the leader Muammar Ghaddafi gave a crowd a different perspective of what it would be like for Africa if Obama became the president of the United States:

"We fear that Obama will feel that, because he is black with an inferiority complex, this will make him behave worse than the whites," Gaddafi told a rally at a former US military base on the outskirts of the Libyan capital Tripoli. "This will be a tragedy," Gaddafi said. "We tell him to be proud of himself as a black and feel that all Africa is behind him because if he sticks to this inferiority complex he will have a worse foreign policy than the whites had in the past."

Americans on the other hand argue that this signals that they are a democratic society that has come a long way fulfilling the ideals of the founding fathers, that "all men are created equal."

But the vision of respect for peoples' innate right to freedom regardless of their race, ethnic background or creed did not become a reality overnight; it was a gradual process.

233 years down the line, America has yet a lot that it wants to change. And an African American is promising to bring that hope and change.

"So now that Obama has burst on the scene as a real contender, the question becomes: Is America ready to elect a black man to its presidency? For sure an Obama nomination would be a powerful update on the black condition in America and signal-wide acceptance of the enormous diversity of its population," an American writes on a web page.

And enormously diverse is the population of the United States of America.
On a New York street, Orthodox Jews dressed in their trademark black overcoats black hats and keeping their hair and beard long, speak in Hebrew as they wait on a taxi. Across the street a truck with the sign Hallal Foods caters for the Muslim community. Less than ten meters away a woman hands out invitations for a film showing at one of the buildings of the Church of Scientology, on the background you hear an Asian accented man with broken English inviting people to try his hot dogs, an attractive young woman walks briskly past you  speaking on her cell phone, her words are Spanish.....

In San Francisco, Castro Street is adorned with the flag that has the colors of the rainbow. California is the second U.S. state, after Massachusetts, to make marriage licenses available to same-sex couples.

If you are one who has, let us say "conservative" views and question the gay issue, then you are told that this is how far America will go to protect people's right to make choices.   

Each state and city has its own distinct color and flavor which is a result of the intermingling between the diverse cultures that America's immigrant population has brought with it.

Little Ethiopia in Washington and Los Angeles, Little Havana in Miami Florida, Little Brazil in New York, China Town in San Francisco, Little Italys in San Diego, San Francisco, New York, Cleveland...

The whole world in an area of just 9,629,091 square kilometers.
Each year more and more people from all around the globe migrate into this
"land of opportunity" seeking better life and freedom, and a safe haven from those who persecute them.

So, is America really a land of opportunity where every one gets a chance to fulfill their "American dream"?

An acquaintance of mine who left for the US over a decade ago is now a citizen of the country and serves in the military. He informs me that he believes the US is truly a land of opportunity.

"I have the best access to education, I can make money, I can advance my career to a level I choose to advance it, and that is why I call America the land of opportunity."
Another who is a doctor by profession says he left after he won the Diversity Lottery.

"I still have a certain attachment to my country of origin, but a dead man can't be patriotic. I was trained to be a doctor, a lot of money was spent on me but I was living an impoverished life and did my work at the risk of losing my life."

He spoke of how he had accidentally pricked his finger while stitching a woman in the surgery room, blood tests showed that the woman was infected with HIV.

"Can you imagine, the hospital I worked for could not provide me with the medication that I had to take immediately. I could not buy it myself because the drug cost more than what I made in a month. Had it not been for some kind person who bought the drug for me, I would have been a goner. That is when my heart sank and I began to think of ways of getting out."

"I toiled back in Ethiopia and earned so much less than what I deserved, I could have tolerated that and waited for a better day, but to go through that particular risk was something beyond me. Now, I work and I get what I deserve. My kid has a better future. I love America."

Not everyone shares the same view though.

A young Ethiopian man in Washington says: "Not everyone makes it to that level, in fact most don't. So to describe immigrant life in such terms would only serve to disillusion people. A lot of young people, even older ones who have made families for themselves, have become temporary residents in their own countries, dreaming that someday they could come to America and make it big."

Somewhere between the conversation I picked up a very disturbing categorization of people- Commas, and DVs or cockroaches.

The Commas (people who are in Comma) are the ones that have gone to the US, stayed there for a long time but have achieved "little or no significant success."  These I am told were "ill-equipped" and could not properly adjust to the American way of life.

"You have some people who can not even speak a word of English after all this time. But they survive."

The cockroaches on the other hand are those who are new immigrants who have certain skills, have command of the English language and quickly find their ways in the system, manage to bring in more of their families into the US.

"For the Commas, this is not a particularly heartening development, so they are apprehensive and insecure that these new entrants will affect their chances," the young man who works at a hotel told me.

I suppose each migrant community in the US has its own Commas and cockroaches.

Insecurity is not only limited within the migrant population. Local communities are also expressing their fears that an increasingly growing immigrant population is beginning to affect their way of life. An estimated 12 to 14 million "illegal immigrants" live in the US currently.

Some put the number a lot more than that and propose harsher measures to prevent further inflow of migrants.

And such are the views of hardliners such as Congressman Tom Tancredo of Colorado and CNN's Lou Dobbs who uses the network to express his strong personal views on the subject. Dobbs has at times characterized the inflow of immigrants as an "invasion."

Dobbs argues that influx of low-cost illegal workers has driven down wages, swamped the medical care system, and even eroded the dominance of English.

Tancredo asserts Dobbs point and says that America is "importing its poverty."

A report that was released two weeks ago showed that the number of kids under the age of 18 living in poverty increased 73 percent, from 104,000 in 2000 to 180,000 in 2006, in Colorado. This was the largest of any state.
Tancredo reacted: “It is irresponsible for the media and the governor to not recognize the fact that immigration is largely to blame for this increase.”
“If Colorado were actually enforcing its own laws, we would reduce the number of people in that category. The research is clear. An increase in immigration leads to an increase in poverty,” he said in a press statement.
An article on the Oakland Tribune describes the situation there in the following manner, "Recently Oakland's new mayor declared that Oakland was a sanctuary for illegal aliens. That sends mixed signals for a city that is also seriously mired in crime with a depleted and demoralized police force.  This says that it is OK to commit a federal offense -- i.e., coming here illegally, fraudulently getting work (usually by stealing someone else's identity), flooding the hospitals so that they have to close, flooding also the jails/prisons, spreading drugs and terrorizing neighborhoods by fighting over turf.  Then the same mayor demands that the federal government should send a bunch of money their way. I'd say that is a bad way to start an administration."

As the United States of America seethes with these arguments and counter arguments, its "legal and illegal" immigrant population closely follows what is happening in it.  

Despite the advanced level of American media and peoples' access to information, one is surprised that Americans hardly know what is happening beyond their borders.

Major news networks such as CNN and Reuters rarely cover international matters when broadcasting for the US audience. When they do, it is about something that has direct connection, such as the war in Iraq. Local news papers operate much the same way.

The VOA which transmits its programs in numerous languages around the world does not transmit locally. VOA is responsible for dissemination of US policy and other types of information to foreign countries.

Is this one-way communication a choice made by the people of America, or is the media and those who own it there dictating what information to transmit?

There is no distinct answer to that question. Some say it is a mixture of both, others honestly say that they do not know.

Ironically, it is as if this little model of the world is in a comma, when it comes to communicating with the larger world. And Americans do not deny that it has affected their interaction with the rest of the world.

It becomes difficult for the politician or the decision-maker to convince the average American about other people elsewhere in the world.

In the words of one political campaign expert: "The response you will get could be 'why should I send my money or my kid to a country the name of which I can not even spell?'"

Is there a tendency to change how things are currently?

An encouraging example is the initiative taken by Al Gore to establish Current TV in 2005.

The medium, which has won the Emmy Award, is the first fully integrated web and TV platform on which users from all over the world can participate.
It's primarily focuses on young adults and relatively provides an extensive coverage of world issues.

Current TV prides itself on having "pioneered the television industry's leading model of interactive viewer created content (VC2). Comprising roughly one-third of Current's on-air broadcast, this content is submitted via short-form, non-fiction video "pods". Viewer Created Ad Messages (VCAMs) are also open to viewer's participation." It has over 51 million viewers in the US and UK.

Obama if elected as president, promises change for the American people, and how the United States of America will interact with the world.

Some will interpret that as change which will guarantee free and easy Visas into the US, and millions of others hope that the US will be more receptive to the voices coming from outside its borders and relate to those in a better way.