By Elíades Acosta Matos                                                        Read Spanish Version

The election of Barack Obama as the United States' 44th president and his inauguration on Jan. 20 have placed on the table of public opinion the topic of symbols and their possible readings. If anyone is fully aware of the enormous cultural and political weight of symbols, it's Obama.

The figure and discourse of the new president, his charisma, brilliance, composure, boldness, charm, cold blood and intelligence return, on a symbolic level, a leadership its country lost due to the clumsiness and mediocrity of George W. Bush. The alliances have renewed themselves automatically, and an almost unanimous applause greets him at all his public appearances. With notable exceptions, among them one of Fidel Castro's reflections, titled "Against the current," and an article by Ignacio Ramonet that analyzed, with fair concern, the composition of Obama's Cabinet, few have stopped to scrutinize with a critical eye the first measures taken by his administration.

In the specific case of the Israeli aggression against the Palestine people of Gaza, Obama defended his silence alleging political reasons and explained that the country should have only one authoritative voice. But he forgot two essential principles: one, that it is legitimate and excusable to raise one's voice against crime, because it is a matter of ethical principles, rather than political principles. Two, that if the voice of the nation had to be the voice of the departing president, the world would prefer that he would keep his mouth shut.

This lack of rigorous and objective analyses of the projections and decisions of the new U.S. president remind us that few things are as dangerous in the contemporary world and in world politics than to write a blank check to the president of the world's most powerful nation. This was dramatically demonstrated after the events of Sept. 11, 2001.

On a symbolic level, Obama's rhetoric operates with arguments and concepts taken from some "left lite" close to social-democracy. Categories such as "social justice" and "change" were never before wielded with such force by any U.S. politician of Obama's level. Independently from the fact that in his public speeches he has never fully explained where social injustice emerges from and how it reproduces itself (and consequently against what economic and political forces we must struggle to fully uproot it), it remains to be seen how the president of the most overwhelming capitalist and imperialist nation wants to carry out such concepts -- or can do so.

The constant repetition of such concepts in his speeches clarifies nothing but leave a cloud of ambiguities and confusions, especially among the less-informed and less-militant sectors of the left itself. We are reminded of the actions of the cultural war, so appreciated by today's neoconservatives, who were toppled and are now in flight.

Obama's statements that in his presidency and under his leadership the differences between Democrats and Republicans, between left and right, will be erased are subtle and very adequate to introduce elements of confusion from capitalism, because they constitute a deceitful call to halt the political and ideological struggle for the sake of a false and impossible reconciliation of things that are opposed by their nature. This involves, in the first place, social classes that were counter to each other ever since the genesis of capital.

To accept this affirmation without a challenge is the equivalent of jettisoning all the revolutionary theory and practice of the past 150 years, especially the theory that began with Marx and Engels' "Communist Manifesto." That document made its debut in the field of ideas by speaking out loudly and clearly and not being ashamed to point out the true causes of poverty, exploitation and social injustice.

Another symbolic element to bear in mind with regard to Obama is his biography, cleverly exploited by the hagiographers and political pundits. It matters little that he lived with his Kenyan father only until the age of 2 and that he met with him again only once, just before the father's death. This element has been trotted out to gain the support of the most humiliated and offended citizens of his country and the Third World. On the other hand, the image of the American white mother with a history of counter-cultural rebellion and affinity with the left has also been widely used.

It is unimportant if a man with this background is today part of power elite or if he was yesterday a student at Columbia University, an institution in the aristocratic and selective Ivy League. We have been oversold the idea that, through elections, the discriminated and progressive groups have finally achieved power in the United States through this new president. He has carried out, we are told, something similar to a peaceful and democratic revolution that (oh, what a coincidence) leaves a feeling in the air that it is a superior and mature system, because it respects the people's will and is capable of rectifying a long history of errors.

This young man (barely 47) has proclaimed himself the representative of a different and innovative way of doing politics, even though the novelty is not only that he sends personalized messages to the cell phones of millions of Americans. For generational reasons, he is not related to the major confrontations of the 20th Century, among them the Cold War and the Vietnam war, so therefore he is seen as much more capable of understanding post-modern sensitivities and the challenges and opportunities of our times.

His ambiguous anecdotes about his moderate consumption of alcohol and drugs during his student years humanized him in the eyes of the public, converted him in an example of self-improvement and publicized the facilities his country provides for people to succeed and reinsert themselves into society. And his archetypical image -- which reflects and represents almost every social class, race and profession -- is enhanced when he publicly describes himself as an educated, well-informed man who is not ashamed of being an intellectual and being familiar with the new technologies, as happens with the younger generations, because much of his success is due to the fact that he understands that today's politics and ideas cannot succeed without the Internet.

What I've said so far is intended to activate the rational and analytical thinking of people who face new times, times that are coming with this new administration and will force a rethinking of many previous certainties and discourses. The days of the Cold War, when a handful of creative youngsters working for U.S. government agencies could transform the perception of reality through cartoons, radio broadcasts, the spreading of rumors and the distribution of magazines, today seem like the days of a prehistoric past.

Today, everything is more complex and at the same time simpler. However, the certainty remains that the cultural tools are most useful to advance, promote, impose and defend the interests of a superpower such as the United States. Tools of ideological and cultural struggle are the concepts of the "soft and intelligent power" that back the international projections of Barack Obama's administration. The ideological challenges this implies for countries like Cuba and Venezuela, for example, are enormous.

For the Cuban Revolution, for its people, its artists and intellectuals, moments of testing are at hand. The battle of ideas will enter a brand-new phase. The self-preservation instincts of a system like capitalism, which is being flogged by a crisis of an unprecedented magnitude, will impose itself over its imperial dreams, which have foundered on the streets of Baghdad or the Afghan mountains. Imperialism knows that if it doesn't evolve it will disappear. That is why we are witnessing and well-thought-out rescue operation, not only in the field of finance but also in the fields of ideas and symbols.

Barack Obama's presidency, aside from its positive or negative results, shows that the system is willing to transform anything that does not alter its essence, willing to articulate its habitual hegemonic methods, so long as they remain untouchable.

But in the field of ideas and culture, which is where the real extent of the promised changes will be measured, there is no infallible or invincible formula. The proposals of soft and smart power are neither infallible nor invicible, either. An interesting article by Josef Joffe, published in The New York Times on May 14, 2006, under the headline "The perils of soft power," is illustrative.

"Soft power does not necessarily increase the world's love for America. It is still power, and it can still make enemies. [...] Hundreds of millions of people around the world wear, listen, eat, drink, watch and dance American, but they do not identify these accouterments of their daily lives with America [...] These American products shape images, not sympathies, and there is little, if any, relationship between artifact and affection." (1)

Certainly, what will prompt humanity to believe in the United States under the government of Barack Obama, and to believe in Obama himself, will not be the rhetoric of a soft and intelligent power, well-packaged though it may be or pacifying though it may be, compared with the apocalyptic statements of the previous administration. What will be essential will be the practical policies that the current administration will enact; they need to be sufficiently honest, effective, fair and timely, so they may help remedy the huge ills that corrode the planet.

If the United States under the new presidency insists on continuing to be what it has been until now -- an imperialist and hegemonic power -- then the vote of confidence given by the American voters and the rest of the world to that young, black, brillian and charismatic man who entered history by wielding the word "change" was worthless, simply because it changed nothing.

In the days of Rome, especially for the Gauls, Jews and Germans, Rome was Rome, no matter who sat on the imperial throne -- Caesar, Nero or Constantine.

The time has come to find out if the man who holds in his hands the reins of the world's most powerful nation symbolizes continuity or change.

Let's hope it's change. April 30 will mark the first 100 days of the new mandate of the United State's 44th president.

As our grandmothers used to say: "Works are love." Let's hope that the black lady who lived on the shores of Lake Victoria, or the white lady in Kansas, taught the same to their grandson, Barack Hussein Obama.

1. Josef Joffe: "The perils of soft power", The New York Times, May 14, 2006.

Elíades Acosta Matos is a Cuban writer and essayist. He has written numerous essays and books, among them "Apocalypse according to St. George," "From Valencia to Baghdad." Hist latest book, "21st Century imperialism; The cultural wars," will be launched at the 2009 Havana Book Fair. Acosta was chief of the Department of Culture of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba.