Barack Hussein Obama and the U.S. Election

by Tony Wilson

I write this from the United States, where I am spending a long weekend in the sun avoiding the fall monsoons of Vancouver. I am reminded of Alistair Cooke’s BBC Radio Program, Letter from America, where for more than 58 years, he would extol the virtues of his adopted American Republic for listeners in the U.K. and the world. It was ironic that when he died, rogue morticians at the New York funeral home that prepared his body for cremation carved off his limbs and sold his 95-year-old bones on the black market for dental implants and bone grafts. Such is the irony of America. It has the best of everything. And the worst.

America is a country of inexplicable ironies and deep divisions. It’s a country that historically promoted justice in the world but in the last eight years, used its justice system to torture prisoners of war and hold them without trial contrary to the Geneva Conventions and the Rule of Law. America is fiercely proud of its democracy, yet allowed its Supreme Court to pick the winner of the Presidential Election of 2000. It was founded by men who abhorred the concept of a “state religion,” yet over the past 25 years, allowed its religious fundamentalists to set the national agenda like Mullahs of Iran. America had the support of the world after 9/11, but squandered it all by invading Iraq on false pretences, causing untold suffering and chaos. America’s a country that abhors socialism, yet bailed out the entire financial services sector in October to the tune of $700 billion, proving that socialism exists in America, but only if you’re very rich (or were very rich). It stands for “freedom,” but only if that “freedom” includes “freedom of enterprise.’ It despises “taxes,” but hasn’t figured out that only taxes can pay for wars and bailouts; taxes being the price you have to pay for civilization.

It’s a country that Canadians sometimes sneer at, in part because the Americans we meet are either rich, famous or beautiful (so we’re jealous), or they don’t know where Canada is on the map (so we’re annoyed). But despite the past eight years, we must not forget that the United States turned the tide in two World Wars, protected Europe from post war Soviet aggression, fostered prosperity in Canada and around the world and is the birthplace of Apple computers, Pat Metheny, the airplane and jazz. There are lots of countries we Canadians could have had on the other side of our 4000-mile border, but we probably have the best (and not just because it’s sunny and hot here in Palm Springs by the pool).

I’m privileged in my legal practice to deal with American lawyers and clients who are decent, intelligent and engaging people, just as concerned as the rest of the world that their country was in the process of becoming a rogue state of its own making. I have met other Americans over the past eight years who proudly call themselves “Bush refugees,” opting to leave the United States and immigrate to Canada.

The election of Barack Hussein Obama, 160 years after the end of slavery, is, I believe, a transformative event in world history, and not just because his middle name is “Hussein.” I believe this event will re-instill in Americans the belief that anything is still possible in their country.

But as this is a humour column, I have to say how inspiring it is that a former law professor can go so far in life. Who’d a thunk it?

Vancouver Franchise Lawyer Tony Wilson practices at Boughton Law Corporation in Vancouver, and has written for the Globe and Mail, Macleans Magazine and Canadian Lawyer. twilson@boughton.ca | www.boughton.ca/people/lawyers/tony_wilson

He will teach Contract Law 2009 at Simon Fraser University as an Adjunct Professor in the School of Criminology and thinks he might now have a chance of becoming President too.

This article was published in the December 2008 issue of BarTalk. © 2008 The Canadian Bar Association. All rights reserved.