Bon voyage, Barack Obama

THE inauguration of Barack Obama as the 44th US president was a profound and historic moment for America and the world. That an African American could become the country’s president and commander-in-chief only 43 years after the signing of the Civil Rights Act, which ended segregation, suggests that America has travelled a long way. If Obama’s election and the scenes at the inauguration on Tuesday — which was attended by some two million people, blacks and whites, women and men, old and young, Muslims and Christians — demonstrated anything, it is that the country may have finally put to rest the ghosts of slavery and segregation, of exploitation and discrimination, that have haunted it for so many years.
While people in America and around the world have reasons to rejoice at the swearing-in of the new US president, not least because it also marks the end of the tenure of George W Bush, the massive challenges that Obama will have to face from his first day at the Oval Office cannot be overstated. He will be expected to revive the US economy which is in the middle of a terrible crisis, end two long and difficult wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, find a lasting solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict, tackle international terrorism and global climate change, and fight poverty and disease in America and the rest of the world, to name but a few of his challenges.
These are challenges that the new president must face head-on. While we hope that he is able to revive the US economy, which is important from our point of view because a significant portion of our readymade garments exports go to the US, we are more interested in his ability, over the coming months and years, to chart a new course in US foreign policy. We hope that the new president will ensure that the US adheres to international laws and agreements and bases its diplomacy on respect, cooperation and multilateralism rather than on using the might of its power. In particular, we hope that the new president will not only engage diplomatically in the Middle East but will go out of his way to prove himself and his administration as an honest broker in the Arab-Israeli conflict.
We also hope the Obama administration will re-think the US ‘war on terror’ and realise that there is no military solution to the problem; the war will have to be fought on many fronts, sophistically and simultaneously. At the same time, we expect the new president to put an immediate end to torture and human rights abuses that have been carried out during the Bush administration and with its active support. In this regard, we commend him for ordering a halt to prosecution of prisoners at Guantánamo Bay as one of his first executive acts.
From Bangladesh’s point of view, it is very important that the new president tackles climate change by reducing greenhouse gas emissions in America as well as by helping countries like ours to adapt to the impacts of climate change. It is encouraging that Obama has promised to make energy efficiency one of the central tenets of his presidency, but it is of particular concern to us that his administration might promote bio-fuels as an alternative energy option, which would drive up the price of food and threaten our food security. Instead, we hope that his administration sets strict energy efficiency standards at home and invest money on research to find efficient ways to use renewable energy such as wind and solar.
There are many challenges in front of the new president, but none of the challenges will be insurmountable if Obama and his administration take an open, transparent and inclusive approach to solving the problems. We wish him and his administration the best.