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President Jagdeo urges Diaspora to vote for Obama
President Bharrat Jagdeo
Democratic Presidential candidate Barack Obama
While it is not customary for Heads of State to comment on elections and the results in other countries, President Bharrat Jagdeo moved away from that tradition yesterday by publicly stating that he hopes Barack Obama wins the elections in the United States of America.
The Guyanese President stated yesterday that, during a recent meeting with the Caribbean Diaspora in New York, he had urged that they vote for Obama.
He declared that if he had the opportunity and was allowed, he would have personally been campaigning for Obama.
“We all know how far the United States of America has come…just in my lifetime there was racial segregation, people of colour could not have drunk from the same fountain, eat in the same restaurants as whites; they could not have attended the same movie theatres as white people, and they had to go to different schools; and this policy had the blessings of the state.”
It was not until 1955, when Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat in a bus to a white person, that the modern Civil Rights Movement was born.
“We all know of the struggles that were led by Martin Luther King for freedom and to end this despicable policy, and this happened all through the 50’s and 60’s, and even extended into the 70’s…So, in such a short historical period, I am very pleased that a son of an African immigrant could very well be the next President of the United States of America,” Jagdeo said.
By making Obama president, Guyana’s Head of State said, it would prove that the United States have put their sordid history behind them.
“But Barack Obama being the next President of the United States of America would have great symbolic value. His message is universal.
He has never pandered to partisan interests… His values are universal. And if you look at his campaign carefully, he remained focused on the issues…He has had a very dignified campaign, and I think that that message is important.”
Barack Obama is special in another way, President Jagdeo said, noting that despite the fact that he has had the best education in the United States of America, he nonetheless chose to be part of the ghettos of America as a community organiser.
“People who have that kind of education often end up on Wall Street and making money…but he did not…He chose the life of an organizer, and I am sure because of his contact with ordinary people, with poor people as a community organizer, that his understanding of the issue of poverty would be greater and that his policies will be focused more on that community.” While he is a devoted Christian, Jagdeo said, at an early age he was exposed to Islam.
As such, Jagdeo believes that in today’s world, especially when Islam is vilified largely because of ‘ignorance,’ he will have a more enlightened policy to fight against terrorism and the resolution of the Palestinian/Israeli conflict, which is the source of much of the grief and hardships in the Muslim world.
“I do not think that any President of the United States will have the kind of empathy that he will have with people from different countries and poor people, because he understands it first hand.”
President Jagdeo stated that Obama will also have a better understanding of the difficulties that small developing countries face.
“I hope that he wins on Tuesday, and I hope that our Diaspora would turn out in large numbers to support him,” Guyana’s Head of State said.
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