This diary, my first at Dkos, attempts to describe my own experiences growing up around the world, and how this has affected by political beliefs and my decision to support Barack Obama. While I probably would have ended up an Obama supporter regardless--I'm a college student in Illinois, after all--I've had some time to think about how and why exactly it is that I support Sen. Obama.
My early, early upbringing isn't particularly spectacular: my parents, both teachers, lived with me and my two younger brothers in suburban Minnesota. I went to a public school and wasn't terribly concerned with politics. My earliest political memories are going to vote with my mom and dad (and hearing my dad say that he voted for a republican for mayor, since it was someone he knew personally and trusted) and some sort of fundraiser/campaign event for Paul Wellstone in 1996. I'm not sure exactly what the event was, or how my parents got invited (although my dad did teach at the same high school as Sen. Wellstone's daughter), but my whole family somehow ended up at the event. I remember shaking Wellstone's hand, and, for some reason, being very very impressed with the fact that the house had two basements. Such was my 4th-grade state of mind.
This somewhat stereotypical, quasi-idyllic existence would quickly become very different than most in 1998, when my family made the decision to move to New Delhi, India. This decision, more than anything, has been responsible for much of my political development and involvement.
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Now, some people have been kind enough to inform us that simply living abroad isn't enough to give you any sort of insight on foreign policy or world affairs. In my experience, this isn't the case. When my parents decided that they wanted to travel and see the world, and consequently got jobs at the American Embassy School in New Delhi, they definitely were not of the opinion that this experience would be meaningless to me and my brothers.
Terrorism and poverty
Al Qaeda's new recruits come from Africa and Asia, the Middle East and Europe. Many come from disaffected communities and disconnected corners of our interconnected world. And it makes you stop and wonder: when those faces look up at an American helicopter, do they feel hope, or do they feel hate?
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Freedom must also mean freedom from want, not freedom lost to an empty stomach. So I will make poverty reduction a key part of helping other nations reduce anarchy.
Barack Obama, Aug 1 07
We arrived in New Delhi in August, 1998. That month, the US Embassies in Tanzania and Kenya were attacked by members of Al-Qaida. This was the first time terrorism had ever seemed real to me: suddenly, everyone was really paranoid about security. I remember reading in the newspaper about how we had someone named Usama Bin Laden to blame for all of this. In the next few months, several feet of reinforced concrete were added to the fence around the US Embassy in New Delhi (and, since 9/11, several more feet on top of that have been added). Since I both lived and went to school across the street from the embassy, seeing this construction was enough to make me realize that these security concerns were real.
Also across the street from our apartment/my school (some teachers got housing on campus, so we lived at school. It was kind of lame, but also convenient), not directly opposite the embassy but nearby, was an example of geopolitics at its finest. Several hundred people occupied a jhuggi, or slum, living and working without running water and with minimal electricity. In a display of geopolitics at its finest, the Embassies in the area tolerated their presence, since the alternative--the land was owned by the government of Iran--would have been far less palatable.
The contrast between the absolute poverty of the jhuggi and the modernity with which my daily life was concerned was not lost on the 6th grade version of myself--in fact, in the winter, when people burned dried cow feces to keep warm, the haze got pretty bad and it definitely didn't smell good. We did what we could to help--volunteering with an afterschool program for kids and other residents of the jhuggi, fundraisers to provide the kids with school uniforms (education was free if they had uniforms and school supplies, which unfortunately were beyond the reach of many of these families), but there still felt like so much more that wasn't being done--and this was just one slum in one small corner of Delhi.
Looking back--and I know I might have a tendency to give more meaning to events than they actually had back then--I can see exactly how critical the issues of confronting terrorism and poverty can be. Since the two may often be linked, it is crucial that policies for confronting both be part of a grander scheme of dealing with the world. In this election, Barack Obama offers exactly that.
Bill Clinton
I respect him as a former president, so it's disappointing, but we are not going to stand by and let Barack's comments be distorted by anyone
David Axelrod
In March, 2000, I got a really cool opportunity for any 7th grader: I got to skip class (yay!) and go and meet the President of the United States (awesome!). At that point, even after the Monica Lewinsky scandal and anything else, Bill Clinton was still a pretty awesome guy. I got to shake his hand, and also meet Madeleine Albright and Chelsea Clinton.
Whatever my feelings towards Mr. Clinton then, I can't say I've been impressed with his conduct on the campaign trail thus far. While, granted, I was an Obama supporter before he seems to have gotten out of hand, his actions have struck me as alternatively desperate and unfair.
Bush
"George Bush won't be on the ballot this November," Obama said to loud cheers.
Feb 12 08
In 2000, after 2 years in India, we moved to the bustling metropolis of Hong Kong, just in time for me to start 8th grade. Just a few months into that school year, we had the 2000 Presidential Election. I remember that my brother and I were doing some sort of grunt work at the big American Chamber of Commerce election party, and watched the results roll in on CNN all morning (morning HK time is roughly evening here, so the polls closed around 6 am). I remember telling my brother on our way home that afternoon that by the time we got back we'd have a winner, and that Gore would win Florida no matter what. Whoops.
As the neverending recount business wore on, what people kept wondering was how the hell Bush was even close to winning. The more we watched, the more surprised I got that it was that close. For the rest of the year (and much of the next 4 or so) Bush-bashing was a fun form of political expression (one friend of mine was very fond of pointing out that John Ashcroft, Bush's pick for our nation's top lawyer, couldn't even win a senate seat when his opponent died right before the election).
I want a president that not only some Americans can be proud of. I want a president that won't make your average person living abroad think we're completely insane. I want, in essence, the exact opposite of George W. Bush in the White house next January. Barack Obama will give us that.
Iraq
I don’t oppose all wars. And I know that in this crowd today, there is no shortage of patriots, or of patriotism. What I am opposed to is a dumb war
Oct 2 02
I remember when we invaded Iraq. It was a Thursday (March 20, 2003). I remember watching from the couch in the library at school (I think I was theoretically researching something for Biology class, but that's beside the point) and wondering what it all meant. I can't say I was terribly convinced by the President's case for war, or the way that it looked like it was going to be carried out. It didn't seem like as awesome an idea as lots of people thought it was.
The invasion of Iraq dominated the news for about 2 days. There were other things happening in Hong Kong that we were a teensy bit more concerned about, like SARS. One week after the invasion started, the Education Department announced that all Hong Kong Schools would be closed. My school ended up getting almost an entire month off. It was kind of weird--I could sleep in, make myself a peanut butter sandwich and finish whatever small amounts of "classwork" I had each day and still have the entire afternoon free to do whatever I wanted.
The early invasion of Iraq, then, at least as far as I was concerned, happened in 5-minute segments during the second half of the TVB Pearl Newscast. We watched the news every day to get the latest infection and death numbers from the SARS outbreak, as well as the latest theories about how it was spreading, and then just kept it on while lesser topics like the war got reported on. It was kind of weird.
Iraq today is a mess. I still can't see any easy way out of it. At the very least, then, we need a president who realized it was a bad idea at the start and hopefully has the good sense not to get us stuck in any other mistakes.
Democracy
There are times when I think people here in the US take democracy for granted. I worked as an election judge on Super Tuesday here at my precinct at college in Illinois, and I was surprised how few people ended up actually coming to vote. Granted, it was a primary and many of the voters registered in the precinct have since graduated and gone onto bigger and better things, but the fact that our biggest "rush" saw 6 voters in the polling place at the same time can't be that good of a sign.
One of the biggest political issues in Hong Kong is at the heart of democracy itself: Universal Suffrage. The people that don't think Hong Kong is "ready" for democracy really annoy me--the concept that you have to be "ready" to choose your own leaders doesn't strike me as particularly valid. And when they offer bullshit reasons--like that too many Hong Kong people believe what white people have to say about Tiananmen Square--it just makes things worse. I've done what a gweilo can do to support the pro-democracy parties, even attending--and making fun of Hu Jintao at--this year's July 1 pro-democracy protest on the 10th anniversary of the Handover to the mainland.
So it really annoys me when people find excuses not to vote, or simply take their right to vote for granted. Since I'm not convinced that people are going to magically decide they should go out and vote every chance they get, I want something to make people want to vote again. Barack Obama offers that chance.
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While this diary is long, and doesn't give any breaking news, I hope it can serve as an example of how my own experiences living abroad have helped form the basis of core political beliefs and ideas. I know, as candidate diaries go, it's a bit light on the actual candidate and a bit heavy in personal reflection, but it's what I've got. In the end, much of what draws me to Obama is the similarity of our personal experiences. Throughout Dreams from My Father he discusses being torn between two worlds and not knowing where to fit. After having been raised both as a US Citizen but also in the contexts of India and Hong Kong, I know what that feels like. I hope that, come November, we can elect a president who knows how American actions have ripple effects around the world and can restore my and the world's faith in our country.