Development Talk

Trey Smith, a researcher from South Carolina, is currently interning at DEVELOPMENT WORKS and shares his views on the news of Obama as the Democratic presidential nominee…

I can remember sitting in history class and hearing the common refrain from teachers and professors; This was a watershed moment in the history of humankind.

Watershed moments are simply critical turning points in history. They are instances when the structures that have dominated recent history are torn down and there is a possibility to build new, better structures in their place.

For the United States, and perhaps for the world, June 3, 2008 was a watershed moment as Senator Barrack Obama clinched the Democratic nomination for President. His nomination victory came over an old stalwart of the Democratic Party, Senator Clinton who only a year ago was viewed as the presumptive nominee with the greatest of certainty. What makes this a watershed moment is not the fact that Senator Obama is the first African American to have been nominated as the head of a major party’s ticket. Rather, what makes this a watershed moment is the way in which he achieved this nomination victory.

The reason that Senator Clinton had been seen as invincible was that she was a master at party politics and political maneuvering. She new how to effectively use focus group tested slogans, how to tell voters and media what they wanted to hear, and how to run a campaign that would use the traditional structures of politicking to her advantage or, if need be, how to use those structures to tear down her opponent. This was a time-tested formula for success.

Yet, Senator Obama escaped certain defeat by simply changing the rules of campaigning. Instead relaying on the political structures and campaigning strategies of the old guard. He sought to raise the bulk of his campaign money from grassroots efforts that utilized the internet, he sought to inspire people instead of filling them with fear, he engaged with the issues in a meaningful way rather than mindlessly toting the party line, and he refused to use negative campaigning against his political competitors. His message of hope built up a confidence in voters that change could be achieved and that the undesirable things that turn us away from politics or give us pause about the government’s abilities or intentions were not rooted in stone, but could be torn down and built anew.

However, on the same day as Senator Obama’s nomination victory an article appeared in the Cape Times in which Mamphela Ramphele argued that the South African government wasn’t currently capable of managing a modern democracy. In her cutting article she argued that the transition from the apartheid government to a democracy was done in an unsustainable manner. She believes that South Africans were too caught up in the euphoria and excitement to recognize that the business of government is too complex to simply continue to exist on Madiba magic. Of course the euphoria was well justified, but her worry is that it under the happiness and hope there was little substance in regards to how the new democracy should operate.

I am forced to agree with Ramphele in that fourteen years on the euphoria has started to fade and as it does, the curtain is drawn back on a government that is functioning poorly. Government ineptitude and corruption ensure that even though South Africans now have the right to vote, their votes aren’t accomplishing much. Presumably in every election since 1994 the majority of South Africans have voted to elect politicians that would seek to rectify the gross economic disparity and yet very little has been done on this issue. And as we look into the near future, the culture of corruption and government inefficiency doesn’t seem to be fading any time soon. Thus, one has to wonder if the watershed moment of 1994 is approaching a moment in which an opportunity was missed; because while the old structures were torn down, the new structures that replaced them were not adequate to the challenges of a modern democracy.

This should serve as a warning to Senator Obama and his swarms of supporters. While the hope and desire for change that he has stirred can’t be denied, it must not obscure the work that must be done. Changing the political culture is never easy and will always require sacrifice. If America is given the opportunity that a watershed moment provides, it must not rest on its laurels. It must rush to manifest the enthusiasm and excitement into meaningful structures that districted better than the old ones and capable of dealing with the sundry of new problems that the future will bring. Otherwise, in 2022 Americans will be looking back at 2008 and wondering if the chance for meaningful and sustainable change was missed.