The World Wants Obama Coalition

Global attitudes survey reveals Obama has dramatically changed impressions of the US

2009-07-26T17:34:00.002+01:00

The latest annual Pew Global Attitudes Survey reveals a dramatic positive shift in opinions of the US just six months into Barack Obama's presidency, this is in spite of the global economic crisis, which the US is widely blamed for triggering.
Even in countries where disapproval of the US remains high, there has been a substantial shift in the numbers of people who believe that the US President will do the right things in world affairs, compared to during the Bush administration.

67% expect US-international relations to improve under Obama

2009-01-20T10:22:00.005Z

In a poll of 17,000 people in 17 countries for the BBC, 67% said that they expected US relations with the rest of the world to improve under President Obama (even higher than the 47% polled before Nov 4th who expected an improvement if he was elected).

Watch & discuss inauguration live with Avaaz

2009-01-19T12:42:00.004Z

Our friends at Avaaz, the global online movement for social change, have arranged for a live stream of the inauguration tomorrow, with the opportunity to discuss the event, the issues as Barack Obama becomes the 44th US president.

Event coverage starts at 11am (local time), Tuesday January 20th live from Washington DC - local times include: Rio (2pm), London (4pm), Geneva (5pm), Hong Kong (midnight).

(the map shows the distribution of Avaaz members worldwide)

Meanwhile, Malcolm is back in the US for the third time in six months to blog the inauguration. The BBC has photos of people in Brazil, Kenya, Ireland and Sudan preparing for inauguration celebrations.

The World Wants... Lincoln

2008-12-06T14:44:00.002Z

Delving back into history a little, Barack Obama will not be the first President from Illinois to receive international moral support. In 1862 textile workers from Manchester, England, who were suffering economic hardship as a result of the Union blockade on Confederacy ports (from where they sourced cotton), wrote to Abraham Lincoln to nevertheless express their support for him because "the vast progress which you have made in the short space of twenty months fills us with hope that every stain on your freedom will shortly be removed, and that the erasure of that foul blot on civilisation and Christianity - chattel slavery - during your presidency, will cause the name of Abraham Lincoln to be honoured and revered by posterity. We are certain that such a glorious consummation will cement Great Britain and the United States in close and enduring regards." Lincoln wrote back saying that their self-sacrificial support was: "an energetic and re-inspiring assurance of... the ultimate and universal triumph of justice, humanity and freedom."

Obamania in the "arc of instability"

2008-12-04T08:03:00.002Z

Refering to the "arc of instability from the Mediterranean to Islamabad", veteran British columnist Simon Jenkins, on a visit to Lebanon, writes: "At last this exhausted region is energised - by its old foe. From the Mediterranean to Islamabad, people battered for a decade by dreadful US policies are in the grip of Obamania." He observes: "Any traveller to these parts at present is overwhelmed by Obamania. From the dinner tables of Lahore to the lecture halls of Beirut's American University, the president-elect carries an astonishing burden of expectation. To a people for whom George W Bush became synonymous with mindless anti-Americanism, Obama's race, name, moderation and lack of bombast have risen like a messiah from another land." Jenkins thinks that their "hopes are unreal", including expectations that "Obama will back the Saudi plan for the Middle East and push Israel to the negotiating table. He will end the occupation of Iraq. He will calm relations with Iran and recognise that US aggression has aided only extremism. He will unleash his general, David Petraeus, to negotiate with the Taliban. He will stop bombing Pakistan villages and recruiting thousands to al-Qaida. Obama will aid Pakistan's secular schools, not its army." Jenkins is doubtful that these expectations will be met but nonetheless "Obama's store of goodwill must be unprecedented for a US leader in modern times. Were he to visit Cairo or Beirut or even Tehran, he would be greeted as a custodian of promise. An area battered by dreadful US policies for a decade wants only a smile, a nudge and a promise to do better from a country that has done it such harm. It is not the plausibility of these expectations that is significant but the fervour with which they are held."

Obama's victory dramatically boosts views of America in the UK

2008-11-12T09:07:00.001Z

Building on all the anecdotal evidence of improving views of America around the world since the election, here is some hard opinion data. It comes from a daily poll by PoliticsHome of a politically balanced panel of 5,000 voters across the UK who are asked to say every day whether they have a positive or a negative impression of a selection of countries. You can see the dramatic change after the election, with the USA surging past Japan, France and Germany in the net approval ratings.

Postcards to the president

2008-11-10T15:50:00.005Z

Reuters has filmed a series of video messages from people in a dozen countries congratulating Barack Obama on his election victory and offering suggestions, requests and advice. You can submit your own video message on YouTube, tagging it postcardstopresident. This builds on Reuters excellent Voices without Votes project. Here are some views from Iraq (mainly in Arabic, except for the first one, translations in the reuters article).

Meanwhile, the Guardian newspaper has set up a Flick group to upload images as a message to President-elect Obama.

Change.gov

2008-11-08T10:54:00.004Z

Check out the President-elect's new website, the appropriately named www.change.gov. It has pages outlining Obama's plans on foreign policy, Iraq and the environment. You can share your visions and there is even a section to apply for jobs in the new administration, and it appears from the application for that non-American may be considered for some positions (I submitted an expression of interest, semi-seriously, as my American wife is now open to ending her self-imposed exile abroad)... Only 73 days to go before his inauguration.

What was your election night story?

2008-11-08T10:19:00.002Z

I take it many of you were up all night on the 4th? Please write up your experiences in a comment or on our facebook page.

I was watching the results come in with Iraqi & Lebanese friends in Beirut, and Obama's stirring acceptance speech came in at 7am local time, just before I had to catch a flight back to London. I had spent the previous few days in Syria and Lebanon wearing one of the excellent Obama t-shirts designed by our friends at Agent Actif in France with the slogan "Na'am Nustutiyya" (Arabic for "Yes We Can") and received so many enthusiastic comments from taxi-drivers, shopkeepers and staff at the United Nations office where I was squatting for a few days to work. (To be fair, there was also some cynicism - after 8 years of the Bush Adminstration, and many decades of US interference in the region under both parties - many people are waiting to see how Obama acts in office before they give him their approval).

The role of international support in Obama's victory

2008-11-08T10:08:00.007Z

As we begin to come down from the high of celebrations and recover from lost sleep it is worth reflecting on what, if any, role international support had in Obama's election. We've had skeptical comments on this blog from both Americans who were angry that foreigners should take such an interest in their elections and from Obama-supporters who were genuinely concerned that international support could be used against Obama. In fact the McCain campaign did tried to do this at times, for example by accusing him of being a mere "celebrity" like Britany Spears, after huge crowds gathered to hear him in Berlin in June, and also by drawing attention to approving comments spoken by a Hamas official. However Carl Cannon, the Washington Bureau Chief of the Readers Digest (who wrote about TWWOC a few months ago), includes international support as one of his ten reasons why Obama won:

"Americans have been concerned with our standing in the world since Thomas Jefferson prefaced the Declaration of Independence with the notation that “a respect to the decent opinion of mankind” required Americans to lay out their case to the international community. We are still doing so—and the Reader’s Digest global poll shows that the world is still listening, and still watching what we do. They are especially interested in our presidential elections. This time, they wanted the only child of a visiting Kenyan student and an independent, young white woman from Kansas to become the leader of the free world. They got their wish, in one small part because Americans still desire the approbation of the world."

A new America

2008-11-07T09:10:00.001Z

At Newseum you can browse the front pages for 5th and 6th November of over 300 newspapers around the world (thanks to Ben at Avaaz for a pointer to this). Here are a few of our favourites:

Add a message to Avaaz's wall in Washington DC

2008-11-06T11:27:00.000Z

Add a message to Avaaz's wall in DC: "As citizens across the world, we congratulate you on your election, and celebrate your campaign commitments to sign a strong new global treaty on climate change, close Guantanamo prison and end torture, withdraw carefully from Iraq, and double aid to fight poverty. No one country or leader can meet the world's most pressing challenges alone, but working together as one world in a spirit of dialogue and cooperation, yes we can bring real and lasting change. "

Africans declare public holidays to celebrate Obama's victory

2008-11-06T09:55:00.001Z

Both Kenya and Southern Sudan declared today (November 6th) to be a spontaneous public holiday in celebration of President-elect Obama's victory.

Obama's message to the world

2008-11-05T09:58:00.002Z

In his historic acceptance speech last night, President-elect Obama addressed us as well: "And to all those watching tonight from beyond our shores, from parliaments and palaces, to those who are huddled around radios in the forgotten corners of the world, our stories are singular, but our destiny is shared, and a new dawn of American leadership is at hand. To those who would tear the world down: We will defeat you. To those who seek peace and security: We support you. And to all those who have wondered if America's beacon still burns as bright: Tonight we proved once more that the true strength of our nation comes not from the might of our arms or the scale of our wealth, but from the enduring power of our ideals: democracy, liberty, opportunity and unyielding hope."

Send a message back to Obama and America by posting a photo on: WelcomeBackAmerica.org

Watch the results come in

2008-11-04T13:07:00.003Z

There are lots of sites to look at. The BBC has an hour-by-hour guide for the night ahead, and the big US news networks all have pages to display results and will call states for either candidate as soon as most of the votes are counted including CNN and Fox. To get some perspective on this historic day, you can see maps of the outcomes of all past US elections since 1789.

American friends - Please vote today, because we can't

2008-11-04T11:37:00.001Z

The world waits for Obama...

2008-11-03T12:20:00.003Z

It is hardly worth posting articles from endorsing Obama, there are too many to begin to enumerate and link too. Pick up any newspaper, browse a blog, turn on a TV, google for "Obama + country X" and all around the world and you will find a hopeful expectation that on Tuesday Americans will elect a President who has won our respect and who is not only the world's clear favourite from amongst the two candidates, but someone of principle and ability who we genuinely believe will be a great president for both America and the rest of us.

One eloquent paragraph worth quoting comes from Johann Hari, writing in the UK Independent, explains that the election of Obama would reinforce "one of the reasons why so many of us love the United States, even as we hate some of its actions. The country is capable of many crimes – but it is also open and free enough to produce the antibodies that begin to put them right. It gives us Dick Cheney, but also Noam Chomsky. It gives us Jim Crow, but also Barack Obama. Is there any better symbol of how the American Revolution can correct itself than the realisation that the first 26 Presidents of the US could have owned the 44th President as a piece of property?"

Gather for Obama: election night and victory day!

2008-10-31T18:49:00.006Z

All around the world, plans are being made by international Obama supporters - both Americans abroad and non-citizens - to gather to watch the results come in on Tuesday and then party through on Wednesday, when we trust we will all have something to celebrate! To find events in your country/city have a look through our sidebar links for relevant groups, search international groups on barackobama.org, facebook, democrats abroad (here's a list of their planned events/contacts in 80 countries) and meetup. Some highlights:

Paris, France - La nuit Obama
London, UK - ObamaWatch Election Results Party (+events in other UK cities)
Rome, Italy - all night pancake party on 4-5th Nov
Moneygall, Ireland - Hardy Drew & the Nancy Boys gig in the hometown of Obama's great-grandfather

Please post details about other events in the comments, and/or on our facebook page. I'll be in Beirut on election night, following it with Iraqi and Lebanese friends, and then flying back to London on victory day.

The Economist endorses Obama

2008-10-30T08:53:00.000Z

The Economist (based in the UK but with an global circulation), arguably the most influential international news weekly, has strongly and reflectively endorsed Senator Obama. In the past it has endorsed a mixture of Republican and Democrat candidates. Extracts from the editorial:

"Obama.. has clearly shown that he offers the better chance of restoring America’s self-confidence... A man who started with no money and few supporters has out-thought, out-organised and outfought the two mightiest machines in American politics—the Clintons and the conservative right... Political fire, far from rattling Mr Obama, seems to bring out the best in him: the furore about his (admittedly ghastly) preacher prompted one of the most thoughtful speeches of the campaign. On the financial crisis his performance has been as assured as Mr McCain’s has been febrile. He seems a quick learner and has built up an impressive team of advisers, drawing in seasoned hands like Paul Volcker, Robert Rubin and Larry Summers. Of course, Mr Obama will make mistakes; but this is a man who listens, learns and manages well.... In terms of painting a brighter future for America and the world, Mr Obama has produced the more compelling and detailed portrait. He has campaigned with more style, intelligence and discipline than his opponent... Mr Obama deserves the presidency."

Although approving of much of John McCain's Senatorial record, the Economist concludes: "If only the real John McCain had been running... The Candidate McCain of the past six months has too often seemed the victim of political sorcery, his good features magically inverted, his bad ones exaggerated. The fiscal conservative who once tackled Mr Bush over his unaffordable tax cuts now proposes not just to keep the cuts, but to deepen them. The man who denounced the religious right as 'agents of intolerance' now embraces theocratic culture warriors... rather than heading towards the centre after he won the nomination, Mr McCain moved to the right... On the great issue of the campaign, the financial crisis, he has seemed all at sea, emitting panic and indecision... The choice of Sarah Palin epitomised the sloppiness... Had he become president in 2000 instead of Mr Bush, the world might have had fewer problems. But this time it is beset by problems, and Mr McCain has not proved that he knows how to deal with them."

Avaaz advert raises international voices for change

2008-10-29T08:05:00.003Z

Our friends at Avaaz, the global advocacy group, have created an excellent video in which people from many countries speak about what is good about America, and call on Americans to vote for a change from the disastrous Bush years. The write: "How Americans vote will influence whether we see a timed end to the war in Iraq, if we form an international consensus to tackle climate change, how we deal with the situation in Iran and North Korea, and whether we finally prioritize the fight to end global poverty. We've produced this global ad echoing the voices and concerns of the billions outside the US who can't vote... US Avaaz members have asked for this help. The ad doesn't tell people who to vote for, but its overriding message of tolerance, diplomacy, human rights and equality is unmistakable. If the ad hits the media airwaves, it will reach the nation's undecided voters just as they are starting to tune in -- and are determining which issues will underpin their vote."

Watch the ad, sign the petition and, if you can, contribute towards airing it:
http://www.avaaz.orr/en/for_all_of_us
The petition: "To the American Presidential candidates and people: We share the aspiration of the American people for a better, fairer world. We also see the disastrous effects of President Bush's foreign policies on climate change, human rights and international diplomacy. This election, we appeal to you for a fundamental change of course, to help the US and the world to come together and work for change."

Malcolm in Ohio

2008-10-28T19:44:00.003Z

British Obama supporter Malcolm Clark, who was blogging for TWWO from the Democratic Convention a few months ago, is now in Ohio helping with the final week of campaigning. For an international perspective on the ground check out his blog. From tomorrow he will be accompanied by an American documentary maker who is filming and blogging their road trip together around this key swing state.

Welcome Back America!

2008-10-23T10:42:00.003+01:00

This may be premature, but with the polls now showing that Americans at last seem to be in agreement with the rest of us... maybe now's the time to say "Welcome Back America!" Welcome back to the America of Washington, Lincoln & King. Welcome back to the America which has contributed so much to the world in the past, and we trust under Senator Obama will do so once again in the future. And good ridance, we hope, to the unilateral carbon-belching bully-boy America of Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld. We'll have to wait until 4th November (or the early hours of the 5th probably) before we can say that with real confidence. But when you're ready, send a photo and a message to welcomebackamerica.org

A new Obama t-shirt from France

2008-10-04T18:56:00.006+01:00

Simon at French graphic design collective Agent Actif has adapted his great Obama t-shirt design with a post-racial message. He also says the shirts have been selling well in France (the French are tending to go for the English version interestingly) and, elsewhere, Hebrew and Arabic are the most popular other languages. He's also added German and Brazilian Portuguese versions.

A vote for Obama

2008-10-04T17:53:00.004+01:00

We can't do it, but relying on American citizens to do the right thing, as below (from an absentee ballot cast by an American in Britain). After a worrying Palin bounce a few weeks ago, things are looking good now. The excellent FiveThirtyEight.com is currently predicting an 85% chance for a win. But we don't just want Senator Obama to win, but to win big - with a large share of the popular vote and a good number of the so-called "Red States". That will unite America around him and give him the momentum to take courageous steps for change, both addressing the domestic economy and in the international arena.

Israelis for Obama video

2008-09-27T14:35:00.013+01:00

No issue is more contentious than the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. America's longstanding support of Israel - consistent through Democrat and Republican administrations - is well known, and stands in contrast to global public opinion which, while abhorring violence from both sides, generally has more sympathy for the suffering of Palestinians living under military occupation than does the mainstream of American opinion. American elections have long required politicians to compete in expressing unwavering support for Israel no matter what, and Senator Obama in particular has had to go out of his way to demonstrate this (given his partial Muslim heritage). However, he caused a stir in February when he said, referring to the Israeli political party that is generally the most hardline as regards Palestinians: "I think there is a strain within the pro-Israel community that says unless you adopt an unwavering pro-Likud approach to Israel, then you're anti-Israel, and that can't be the measure of our friendship with Israel." That statement is perfectly reasonable and uncontroversial when heard from Israel, or anywhere else in the world, but given the intensity and tone of Israelophilia in the US, it was an extremely bold thing to say. It demonstrate that, while remaining well within the US mainstream (as his speech to AIPAC later demonstrated), he has a more nuanced attitude than most senior US politicians - and many Israelis appreciate this. The recognise that if they are to eventual achieve a peaceful cohabitation with Palestinians, they need a more evenhanded approach from the US which encourages peacemakers on both sides, rather than bolstering the extremists - as Bush's disastrous policies have consistently done. Given this, it is no surprise that Obama is the favourite in Israel (and among Jewish people worldwide), while also attracting strong support among Palestinians and other Arabs and Muslims. The YouTube video below gives an indication of the breadth of his support in Israel across the political and social spectrum.

From more, see coverage from Shmuel Rosner, Israeli paper Ha'aretz's Washington Correspondent. And for some opposing views, see JewsAgainstObama.org versus Israelis for Obama, jews4barack.com, rabbisforobama.org ("When 500 Rabbis agree on anything, you know that something is going on!"), jews4obama2008.net and jews4change.com