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Obama must beware of turning into a
cult:
His speeches are studded with religious rhetoric. A chapter in
his book is entitled 'Faith'
By Dominic Lawson
26/02/08 "The
Independent" -- - At this stage, it must be
desperation rather than strategy: Hillary Clinton has unleashed
the potentially deadly weapon of ridicule against Barack Obama.
The almost hoarse Senator from New York told supporters in Rhode
Island yesterday: "I could just stand up here and say [that] the
sky will open, the light will come down, celestial choirs will
be singing and everyone will know we should do the right thing
and the world will be perfect."
Mrs Clinton did not mention her rival in this peroration but it
was a very pertinent caricature of Mr Obama as the new Messiah.
In fairness to Obama, the greatest claims for his near-divinity
come not from his own lips but from his supporters. One of them
is his own wife Michelle, who announced: "Our souls are broken
in this nation. Barack Obama is the only person who understands
that ... before we can work on the problems, we have to fix our
souls." Even such a political veteran as the eighth-term
Illinois Congressman Bobby Rush says Obama's political career
has been "divinely ordered". His language is moderate compared
to that used by some of Obama's youthful supporters, who talk
openly of being members of "a cult" and of their rallies as
being "religious experiences".
More surprisingly, seen-it-all reporters seem to have undergone
a similar epiphany. MSNBC's Chris Matthews – somewhat to the
consternation of his co-hosts – declared that Obama "comes along
and he has the answers. This is the New Testament". The
experienced Washington correspondent for The Australian, Geoff
Elliott, reported: "You know something special is going on. The
atmosphere at his events is such that one wonders if Obama is
about to walk out with a basket with some loaves and fishes to
feed the thousands."
Obama has a stock line which seems to play straight into the
notion that he is an instrument of the divine. To a number of
audiences, he has declared: "My job is be so persuasive that if
there's anybody left out there who is still not sure whether
they will vote, or is still not clear who they will vote for,
that a light will shine through that window, a beam of light
will come down on you, you will experience an epiphany ... and
you will suddenly realise that you must go to the polls and vote
for Obama."
To be fair to Obama, this is said in a manner which just leaves
open the idea that he is not being entirely serious. Yet I don't
believe that those applauding this riff see it as elevated irony
– and it is slightly creepy even as a joke. Perhaps it isn't a
joke at all, but completely sincere: Obama's speeches are
studded with religious rhetoric. For example, last October he
told an audience of 4,000 that he hoped to be "an instrument of
God" and that "I am confident that we can create a Kingdom right
here on Earth".
This sort of rhetoric from an American politician is not a
novelty. There has been a strong sense ever since Independence –
indeed it is at the heart of America's own sense of uniqueness –
that this is a nation chosen by God, a sort of New Jerusalem.
Barack Obama is certainly not the first campaigner for the
presidency to use almost Biblical language to tell the American
people that they and they alone can "save" the world from sin
and wickedness.
Yet in recent decades the American Left has shunned such
religiosity, regarding similar language used by the so-called
"religious right" with extreme distaste. In such a strongly
churchgoing country as the US, this was always going to limit
the appeal of the Democrats. Anyone who has read Obama's book
The Audacity Of Hope will already have known that the junior
Senator from Illinois had no intention of ignoring this
constituency, were he ever to run for the presidency.
There is an entire chapter on this, entitled "Faith". In it,
Obama wrote: "The discomfort of some progressives with any hint
of religiosity has often inhibited us from effectively
addressing issues in moral terms. Some of the problem is
rhetorical: scrub language of all religious content and we
forfeit the imagery and terminology through which millions of
Americans understand both their own personal morality and social
justice."
He also wrote that for Democrats to shun religiosity is "bad
politics" adding: "When we shy away from religious venues and
religious broadcasts ... others will fill the vacuum." Well, if
there ever was such a vacuum, Barack Obama is filling it now. As
he will certainly have anticipated, many erstwhile Republican
voters are seduced by this form of rhetoric and have been
indicating that they will vote for Obama. In fact, he has
invented a word for these voters: he calls them "Obamicans".
It is interesting that this seems to have been an unmitigated
benefit. Not only has Obama successfully made an appeal to
Republicans who viewed other Democrats as godless, but the Left
has, by and large, ignored its scruples and refused to criticise
its candidate's studied use of specifically Christian language
and imagery. As a result, Obama has got away with claims to
metaphysical virtue which would have been denounced as
medievally idiotic presumption, had they been uttered by a
Republican candidate.
To Obama's credit, he does not follow the religious Right in
denouncing his opponents as wicked. The worst you can say is
that this is implicit in his message, rather than explicit.
Nevertheless, there is an underlying strain of intolerance in
Obama's message of unification. In his victory speech in
Wisconsin last week, he made his usual attack on "special
interests". "We must put aside the divisions in Washington. We
must work for a higher purpose" – or perhaps that should be
Higher Purpose. Yet to stigmatise "divisions in Washington" is
just acceptable rhetoric for denouncing the workings of a
complex pluralistic democracy. For "divisions" read
"disagreement" – or "opposition". Obama, of course, is a
democrat as well as a Democrat; but there is something in this
form of rhetoric that has echoes of fascism, with its idea that
the squabbling of mere politicians should be overthrown in
favour of one man's uniquely wise interpretation of the National
Will. Phrases such as "everything must be changed" were also the
stock-in-trade of fascist orators, raising hopes which ended in
the most dreadful disillusionment – and worse.
I think Barack Obama understands this risk. For all the fever of
his rallies, his own oratorical style never descends into
ranting, still less foam-flecked hysteria. Yet the frenzy he has
engendered contains within it the seeds of bitter
disappointment, or even tragedy. There is the question of his
own physical safety. Less morbidly, what will be the reaction of
his supporters if he should fail to be elected President?
Perhaps most troubling of all, what will be their reaction if he
is elected, but the celestial choirs fail to appear and the
world refuses to be perfect?
d.lawson@independent.co.uk
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