The inauguration of Barack Obama today is not only an American celebration, but also a worldwide one with potentially positive repercussions that have already begun and are unlikely to subside. As we await what is being built up as the speech to end all speeches, drawing insightful historical parallels between this momentous event and another may illuminate its global significance while bringing to light a spirit, a zeitgeist, that is flowing from inside the U.S. outwards in a way that none has since capitalist proselytizing during and after the Cold War.
Few events in one nation's history have shaped the course of others and so the world to the same degree as the French Revolution of 1789. The radical shift from monarchical autocracy backed by an oligarchic elite to a more democratic form of government, one of its eventual results, brought those who were previously excluded from the national political system into it and into power. Before long, people in other countries caught on to the idea their political systems can be more inclusive if they are made to be, and once they become so it is difficult to degenerate into exclusivity. There are striking similarities and differences between the spirits or zeitgeists of 1789 and 2009.
Thanks to Obama and past leaders, minorities and immigrants around the world now have a proven model for both becoming part of the national political systems that have previously excluded them and sharing power more equitably from within. Already, Rotterdam has its first mayor of Moroccan descent; leaders in racially divided Brazil are beginning to shape Obama-like campaigns; Europeans of African and Arab origin are seeing their enclaves not as confines but as platforms; Asians in Arab countries are questioning the legitimacy of their servitude. And though their time may not yet have come, they and we are aware that a catalytic event like the French Revolution has occurred and there is no turning back the clock.
The irony of this parallel is, of course, that what Obama and his supporters have done could not have happened by one man alone, nor is it French in being distinctively American (so far), nor is it a revolution in the word's usual sense. The French Revolution took place from outside and against a political system and was violent; the Obama Revolution took place from inside and renewed a political system and has been non-violent. Some reporters have started to dub this rippling of minority and immigrant political empowerment the "Obama effect;" more precisely, Obama is one of many if a most potent cause just like the French Revolution was then.
Extending this empowering spirit or zeitgeist to encompass global political systems in addition to national ones remains possible because of these current events creating the future.
