Calls with Ban

Today I went to a board meeting for a local domestic violence shelter. At about the same time, President-Elect Barack Obama phoned up Ban Ki-Moon, the Secretary-General of the United Nations, to talk global affairs. According to New Zealand's Scoop, Obama called Ban to "discuss how to address current crises and strengthen the partnership between the US and the United Nations." Is it perhaps just a tiny bit exciting that an incoming U.S. President feels it is important to want to work with the head of the UN to address world issues? Yes, excitement is an understatement.


President-Elect Obama and UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon

Am I jealous that Obama can just pick up the phone and talk to Ban while I'm eating my Panera Bread sandwich in the good ol' south? Perhaps a little...but not sure who to be more envious of...Ban talking to Barack or Barack talking to Ban? What's a gal who has revolved around global issues her whole life to do?!

I'll make up for it by attending the unveiling of National Geographic's Portrait Exhibit tonight and meeting His Excellency, Ambassador Said T. Jawad tonight, Afghanistan's Ambassador to the United States.

For those of you interested, here are the comments the Secretary-General had to say about President-Elect Obama following the election.

"True partnership requires sharing the burdens of development and diplomacy, of progress and peace. It requires partners who listen to one another, learn from each other and, most important, trust each other."
- Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon, in a statement to the public/press

"I fully support the Millennium Development Goals. In the 21st century, progress must not just mean freedom – it must mean freedom from fear and freedom from want."
- President-Elect Barack Obama, in the UNA-USA 2008 questionnaire

Waging Peace in Africa

With all the news we have heard of our troops overseas and the defensive measures they have focused, on rather than the rebuilding of infrastructure and encouragement of peace initiatives, it is almost odd to see a unique departure of policy in such an important region. Nonetheless the Chicago Tribune reports a $450 million effort by the US Department of Defense to establish a footprint in Africa by building schools, digging wells and essentially, creating an environment where peace can flourish with our help. Peace, what a concept.


U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates (R) stands with President of Djibouti Ismail Omar Guelleh

Welcome to a New Age

America, you have done it. You have spoken with a loud, resounding voice and silenced the naysayers. You have ended an era of unilateralism and a long tunnel of seemingly endless political darkness. I was not in perhaps the most likeliest of places when the call was made, when Barack Obama was declared the President-Elect, slated to become the 44th President of the United States. I was holed up in the back of the Supervisor of Elections office, working with media locally and via phone, nearly every major news network.

We had a story of our own worth telling here. At the University of Central Florida, my alma mater, students wrapped around the arena, waiting up to 5 hours in line to vote. The last vote was cast 4 hours and 45 minutes after the poll lines were closed and after the concession speech had been made so graciously by Senator McCain; at approximately 11:45 PM. National media picked up on the story of the hundreds of college students who wanted to vote and would vote no matter how long the line was. It was inspiring to see the helicopters on TV, tracing the line out the door of the youth who in fact, had showed up to make their voice heard.

If this image, doesn't change your mind about what hope and promise we have in our future and in our world, I don't know what will.



And the UN perspective on the Election Outcome (via the New York Times)

UNITED NATIONS | By Neil MacFarquhar Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon, habitually a taciturn diplomat in his public statements, bordered on effusive in talking about the president-elect. While careful to highly praise both candidates, he called Mr. Obama’s election a “historic opportunity’’ for a stronger working relationship between the United Nations and the United States.

“I am very optimistic that we will have a very strong relationship, a renewed partnership under his administration,’’ said Mr. Ban. The secretary-general quoted from several campaign speeches in which the president-elect voiced support for diplomacy, development and even the United Nations itself, often considered a radioactive issue for the American electorate.

“He values highly the resolution of all the conflict issues through dialogue,’’ Mr. Ban said. “He has expressed publicly that he is willing to meet anybody, any country, so that will provide good opportunity not only for the United States, but also the United Nations as a whole to resolve all issues through dialogue.’’

Relations between the Bush administration and the United Nations have been notably tense, although the hostile surface rhetoric often masked a working rapport on numerous issues, particularly development in Africa.

Still, Mr. Bush did not appoint a United Nations ambassador until nine months into his first term and one of his envoys, John Bolton, once suggested that nobody would notice a difference if the top 10 floors of the Secretariat building were lopped off.

The Bush administration disparaged numerous treaties advocated through the United Nations, including the Kyoto Protocol on global warming, the International Criminal Court and the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. His administration also withheld funds from the United Nations Population Fund and worked against a treaty limiting small arms trafficking, among others.

Mr. Ban suggested all that might change. “I also expect the United States will take a more active participation in all United Nations organizations and activities,’’ he said.

The secretary general noted that in February 2007 he and Mr. Obama met by chance on a shuttle flight from Washington to New York. The senator asked him many questions, particularly about nuclear proliferation issues involving Iran and North Korea as well as the challenges of reforming the United Nations itself.

“He was very engaging and he knew a lot about the United Nations and I was very much encouraged,’’ Mr. Ban said.

" This is our chance to answer that call. This is our moment. This is our time, to put our people back to work and open doors of opportunity for our kids; to restore prosperity and promote the cause of peace; to reclaim the American dream and reaffirm that fundamental truth, that, out of many, we are one; that while we breathe, we hope. And where we are met with cynicism and doubts and those who tell us that we can't, we will respond with that timeless creed that sums up the spirit of a people: Yes, we can."
- President-Elect, Barack Obama

What an Obama Win would mean…

"Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we've been waiting for. We are the change that we seek."
- Barack Obama

I sit here in a coffee shop on a Saturday, sending out news alerts to the media with accurate information to get out to voters about voting locally. As I sit here, thousands of people are standing in line across the country, waiting to cast their vote early. I have already made my plans to show up at the polls early on Election Day, hoping that there will be a line at 7 AM when I go to vote; that people will be lined up around the blocks to cast their vote and make a stand for what they believe in the most important election we might ever see in our lifetimes.

In the famous words of Barack Obama in his 2004 DNC speech, “I believe that we have a righteous wind at our backs and that as we stand on the crossroads of history, we can make the right choices, and meet the challenges that face us.”

Since the fateful day I first saw his speech at that 2004 convention, I felt a connectedness to the man who spoke beyond the politics as usual, who offered hope instead of fear, who called on the best of America, rather than being afraid of the worst. As someone who also has a strange name with a father with dark skin from a foreign country who emigrated to America, and a mother from the heart of America with fair skin, I share more than just politics with this man who stands on the precipice of changing history. He speaks about growing up as an outsider and it is as if my own words were being spoken. Perhaps only my own brothers and sisters can hope to know someday the kindred spirit I share with Barack Obama.

In my position as a national non-profit leader, I am called upon to remain fair to both political parties, to exercise careful consideration in speaking of politics. However, I am also asked to question the candidates on where they stand on the issues I care about, the United Nations, multilateral cooperation, environmental sustainability and the future of our planet…and John McCain did not even bother to answer the questionnaire we sent him to ask him intelligently and thoughtfully how he felt about these issues that mean so much to the globally-minded. Barack Obama answered the questionnaire with clear-cut statements and while calling for a level of reform, he made it clear he understood our interdependence in the world and that the United Nations is the forum for our global voice. He went a step above and sent a personal letter to one of my fellow national board members.

It isn’t that people don’t believe anymore. People have been downtrodden for the past eight years, given reason to think their voice did not matter with the handling of the 2000 election, which resulted in eight years of a downspiraling economy, an expensive and unnecessary war and combative relationships or total avoidance of other nation states and a loss of respect in the world. As an international traveler, I am tired of hearing, “you aren’t what I thought an American would be like.” Over the past years, our voices would be muted, but not stomped out. The downtrodden have banded together silently in coffee shops, libraries, community centers and colleges around the country, talking about our wishes and dreams for the future, never fully believing someone could stand up for these quietly spoken desires.

Barack said it best when he said, “Americans... still believe in an America where anything's possible - they just don't think their leaders do.”

Call me an idealist if you wish, but I have remained hopeful for the future all these years. From the times of my life as a little girl in the southeast U.S., praying for a brighter future than seemed possible or was promised, looking for my own place in the world with my tanned skin and dark eyes; I have always looked to the future and my fate as the sanctuary for my life. Being called “Muhammed Ali” and laughed at in school while being prodded for the curry in my lunch box, I knew that America could be better than this; I knew these moments were preparing me for a future with no limit to my success.

When Barack Obama called upon Americans in 2004 to “make the right choices,” I wonder if he knew the true power of that statement; that it would take another four years and his own candidacy for the U.S. Presidency for Americans to see their own power to vote and to choose…and for the first time in history, to choose someone untypical, someone with a different color of skin, a different personal history and origin, someone who could understand the mixture of culture and backgrounds in our country, with the ability to bring together people from all over the world, and to understand and act intelligently upon the issues we care most about, someone we could be proud of and call our own, for the highest office in the land.

I don’t know what will happen when the sun sets on Tuesday, November 4th, 2008. But I know what I will choose, and I know that I have explained to those in my life why I am making this choice and have asked them to exercise their right to vote and take careful consideration of the issues when they do. I will be at the elections office in the battleground of the country for this election, fielding calls to the media, and watching the results as they come in. In the heartland where 537 votes decided our President in 2000, I will do my job to make sure voters have accurate information, and empower them to take action to vote; all the while silently hoping they will vote for hope, and not for fear.

Americans are tired and weary of fear. We are done with the unintelligible statements that play to the lowest common denominator. We are ready for a President that calls on us to be our best, regardless of where we come from or how strange our name might be. Perhaps my idealism has been in vain all these years, or perhaps I am standing with other Americans, united at the crossroads of history, and we will see a true miracle happen with our own eyes. Someday I will tell those who come after me about this election and how I stood at a rally with 40,000 people in the battleground for the Presidency to support an unlikely candidate. I hope that I will be able to tell them that America stood up and together, brought an end to the fearful and seemingly endless road we had been on for so long – that we struggled through the darkness and the hard times, and never gave up, that when we practiced the one freedom that truly makes us “by the people, for the people,” the right to vote, we all sang out in one mighty voice like the old gospel song, “This little light o' mine, I'm goin' let it shine.”

Vote for Hope

“The UN’s work in development addresses the dire needs of one billion people living in extreme poverty…Progress and renewal at the UN will come from reform, not neglect…The United States must champion reform so the United Nations can help us meet the challenges of the 21st century. Let us provide bold and effective leadership to reinvigorate the UN so it finally achieves the potential that Roosevelt envisioned and upon which our common security and common humanity depend. The UNA will continue to play its critical role in this important effort. Keep up the good work.”
- Barack Obama, in a letter to UNA National Board Member Josh Weston