The Cross-Cultural Candidate

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In this election year, cross-culture has become a major issue with Obama as a candidate. I am obviously elated to see that happening and while I am going to write mostly positive things about him in this text, I need to stress that I have nothing against McCain & actually admire the guy greatly. McCain & Obama represents two drastically different approach. The contrast could not be greater.

In Obama's book Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance, the entire text is a description of how Obama, his father & his mother are constantly filling the gap between the various cultures they interact with or incarnate. The life of Obama seems to have position himself as a bridge between various culture or culture generated by various artificial barriers. First, ethnicity, which is the greatest fake barrier of all. Obama did not really have to make a choice between one of his ethnicity until he came back to the USA from Indonesia. He ended up identifying himself with the black community culture rather than the white one. As far as I heard him talking about race, he does not seems to make such difference for himself, but positioning himself from the black community angle provides him the level of empathy necessary to advance delicate arguments that could not be interpreted the same way if it was made by a white person.

In terms of religion, Obama holds a Muslim name but see himself as a Christian affiliated with the black church. It is interesting to note that some emails, designed to smear Obama presenting him as a Muslim, will, few line below, remind everyone that he is also the member of a radical Christian church. How anyone can reconcile this paradox is a mystery for me.

With this campaign, Obama has already created a major displacement of stereotypes, much more than Hillary Clinton could have ever done with gender as the only major factor of change.

Since McCain & Obama present such high contrast, let's compare the 2 approaches from the cross-cultural stand point.

Obama represents a multitude of cultural identities... especially minorities. His life story, raised by a single mother, is the life story of many poor kids worldwide, regardless of origin. His experience at integrating various social circle prepares him to be a fantastic diplomat... not just between nation, but also between artificial walls erected in the name of ideology, religion & a priori.

McCain has been raised in a military family. Courage, dignity, solidarity are part of his DNA. Everything in McCain is well framed. His moral standing clear and clean. Everything is seen from the prism of strategy & tactics for efficiency to achieve a goal & realize a vision.

Obama is a lateral thinker. McCain is a top-down thinker.

On the war on terror, the most divisive theme of all, Obama sees the challenge as a political/cultural problem, while McCain continue to see it as Bush do, a military problem.

In order to win the election Obama needs to shift the narrative as it as been framed so far by the Bush administration. McCain is just following the present narrative and proposing his vision to write the rest... and that include finishing the conflict in Iraq on a good note hoping to forget 4 years of slug & more than 4000 dead for not very much.

If Obama win this election, the narrative will shift almost 180 degree. Iraq will not be the focus anymore of a strategy against terrorism. The "culture war" on an international level will become the main approach. Of course, that does not means Obama will not use military power... especially if Iran do something stupid. But the militaristic approach will not be the end to "changing hearts & mind"... Seeing the recent results of that approach, I deeply understand why American are so eager to give a shot at someone with a funny name, an unusual appearance & little legislative experiences.

With McCain we are suppose to expect toughness against potential enemies. With Obama we can expect him to "confound" potential critics and enemies of the US... but because diplomacy is perceived as weakness, especially in the Arab world, we should expect a challenge toward Obama as soon as he takes place in the oval office, as it happened with JFK & the bay of pigs.

Being the cross-cultural candidate opens up many opportunities & the younger generation sees it clearly in Obama... but cross-culture is also a leverage that can increase or decrease spectacularly various problems. Electing Obama can be a great positive, but open, also, a huge unknown for the next 4 years.