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In Overcoming Our Pasts, a Bridge

Posted on November 5, 2008 by davesgonechina

On November 4, 2008, across the United States, people took to the streets in celebration when a winner was announced:

On July 13, 2001, across China, people took to the streets in celebration when a winner was announced:

In 1861, the United States began a bloody civil war, partly because of the election of a man from Illinois, primarily because of a national shame that has lingered since.

In 1839, China entered a war that would leave a sense of national shame in the years to follow.

In both cases, these symbolic victories can’t heal the deep wounds that they address; the Olympics did not end China’s insecurities for good, nor will Obama’s victory allow America to “transcend racism”. But they are powerful changes that shift an entire nations self-image forever in positive and deeply felt ways. Both announcements inspire a national sense of pride and purpose, both energize the young, both speak to enormous national and political issues that stretch across centuries and generations and yet feel vitally, deeply personal.

And it is in comparing these moments that we can better see one another. In our hopes, and our dreams.

My hometown, NYC – Harlem, this one is yours.

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3 thoughts on “In Overcoming Our Pasts, a Bridge”

  1. davesgonechina says:
    May 24, 2020 at 6:23 pm

    @Stuart: no doubt, one was a top-down exercise in image control, the other participatory democracy.

    I wrote this post because I’ve been seeing some Chinese commentators saying they don’t get it – why so excited, Obama’s just another politician, he’s the first African-American president but that’s a rather empty symbol when there are far more serious problems such as the financial crisis and the wars.

    There’s a parallel there with the Olympics – why were so many Chinese so excited, the Olympics is just a big sports pageant, Beijing’s hosting is an empty symbol when China has so many huge problems with poverty, openness and freedom of speech (as you rightly point out.

    But in both cases individual citizens felt something very similar: a moment arrived that they thought they might never see, a crowning symbolic glory that represents the culmination of a century and a half of struggle, the feeling that their country had finally “arrived” at some mythic destination that would signal a new era.

    I do tend to think that Obama’s election is the beginning of something more substantial than the Olympics, for the reasons you cited. But in those two moments, in 2001 and 2008, the hope and joy is very similar. The jury is still out on the transformative effects of the Olympics in Chinese society, and Obama isn’t even president yet. Maybe in a year or two we’ll have a better idea of whether these symbolic events translate into something concrete.

  2. stuart says:
    May 24, 2020 at 6:23 pm

    “But they are powerful changes that shift an entire nations self-image forever in positive and deeply felt ways.”

    For sure; but there are some pertinent differences.

    Spectacle was the embodiment of one event, and a desire for real and lasting change the essence of the other. The latter will endure beyond the glow of the former.

    That the Games had a profound effect on China’s self-image is not in doubt, but it was organised, not unrelated, as a propaganda exercise aimed at changing its image in the minds of a watching world and boosting CCP popularity at home. And what we saw was impressive, but hardly representative of China and what the country stands for.

    Whereas democracy and freedom of speech were ill-served by BOCOG, on Tuesday last, Americans of all ethnicities and faiths turned out in record numbers to choose their next president after months of scrutiny, debate, and campaigning. By an overwhelming margin they elected an African American. It was a sight to see.

    I’m neither Chinese nor American, but I followed both OG and The White House campaign closely and sense a qualitative difference in the feelings of self-worth evoked at the denouement of those events. For China, the OG was all about how it wants to be seen and the need to be associated with superlatives. It was about grandeur and fireworks, but not substance.

    Barack Obama’s seminal victory the other day was of far more enduring significance. It wasn’t first and foremost about how Americans want to be viewed by the rest of the world, but a profound statement of what America is and wants to be.

    Perhaps I can best sum up the difference like this:

    Show any Chinese the opening and closing ceremonies of the Olympics, or some of those wonderful ‘gold’ moments, and they will swell with national pride; show any decent citizen of this planet Obama’s victory speech, be they American or not, and their hearts and minds are touched by a nation that has expressed its faith in human progress.

    In this sense, there’s simply no comparison.

  3. stuart says:
    May 24, 2020 at 6:23 pm

    “…a moment arrived that they thought they might never see…”

    Yes, you’re right about that thinking back. I happened to be visiting China for the first time during July ’01 and the euphoria when the announcement was made was quite something – although I didn’t really understand the feeling behind it at the time.

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