We enjoy discussing about all kind of topics within the Sama Team, even the more controversial ones. And surprisingly, it appears everything connected to Barack Obama is controversial. A year after Barack Obama was elected US President, many people say the US President’s performance has dismayed even his biggest admirers, at a time when the country is facing the worst recession since the Great Depression of the 1930s…

The subject becomes controversial when we try to define the ‘why’ it is so hard to change things. Maybe it’s because we (many amongst non American people) were expecting too much change too quickly. In October 2008 Max Dana wrote on her blog : Will the World of Obama ever become a reality? and in January 2009: Martin Luther King Jr. and Obama’s election: Free at last?.

At this time, some of us thought Max was being pessimistic but when we read her post again several months later, in retrospect, she was right to try to keep things grounded. Here is an extract taken from Martin Luther King Jr. and Obama’s election: Free at last? :

Barack Obama being the first black president of the United States is an historical event, although to me, it’s far from being the main point. Like Obama said: ‘The country is facing economic crisis of historic proportions’, so no matter what the color of his skin is, he’s got a lot of work to do. Maybe this is where I take some distance from the ‘President’ because I know it’s going to be hard and like I said in my post about the portrait of Obama: I don’t think a man (or a woman) of good will alone as a president, can change everything; one man cannot implement change all by himself. I’m not being pessimistic here, I just think the higher the expectations, the more prone to disappoint. I’ve heard so many people having such a strong faith in Obama, considering him almost like a Messiah and singing his praises, it’s really begun to baffle me. I understand the expectations, the need to believe in someone capable of changing things but at the same time, I think our support (to anyone we believe in) should remain the most impartial possible because we should be able to carefully observe and criticize if needed so our judgement will not be motivated by our disappointment. Because there will be some disappointments, some bad choices and maybe even some misunderstandings. Of course it will never reach the catastrophic results of the previous administration, but as much as I want things to get better and I hope for a deep-level change, Obama’s goals will be hard to reach, but not impossible…

The truth is Barack Obama has not yet turn all of the campaign promises into policy, but many of us are likely to show leniency toward Barack Obama (more than we actually show to the French President Nicolas Sarkozy…). Maybe it is the ‘Obama effect’ still working on us…

But again, looking back, if we had been less enthusiast maybe we wouldn’t have expected so much. Maybe it’s because we want (or need) to believe in miracles sometimes. The reality of the facts and plights is also hard to accept. Obama or not, it’s going to be difficult to put everything back on the right track.