OBAMA IS BEAUTIFUL WORLD

I got mad with my best friend this week.
“What do you mean you’re not voting?” I asked. I must have sounded as though I was accusing someone of murdering babies. “You’re joking, right?” I added.
He proceeded to count down the number of reasons why he couldn’t, and didn’t, need to vote. Because he had forgotten to file an absentee vote. Because his home state, New Jersey, is “bluer than blue.” Because “everyone’s mother and grandmother and great grandmother is going to vote for Obama anyway.” Because he would have to drive 10 hours up and down between Baltimore and New Jersey just to vote.
“Because your dog ate your absentee ballot.” I said.
“You’re being unreasonable,” he said.
“Your loss, not mine,” I retorted.
That night I sat watching NBC with my roommate. From my window in Eddy Street, we could see tons of fireworks going off in Trumansburg. We could hear the shouts of people going crazy with joy. It was also her birthday. “Happy Birthday, Chandhni,” I said, as Obama gave his acceptance speech. At the same time, I was having a three-way gmail chat with my mom and dad, who live in Singapore, who were typing deliriously in caps and emoticons, as they watched CNN on the other side of the world, where it was still light.
I was telling them that I loved the burst of idealism on facebook. I loved having a boss who campaigned on weekends for Obama in October. I loved those dudes selling “Pallin is Gorges and not much else” t-shirts on Ho Plaza.
But at the back of my mind, I also wondered how much of what I felt was unfounded emotionalism, because I was looking at this from the viewpoint of an non-American accustomed to a political culture of resignation, and thus idealizing the sense of excitement and hope I saw around me. I grew up in Singapore, where people tell me they spoil their ballots, because there is no point voting for a ruling party that is going to win, or a weak opposition, they say. Between the devil and the deep blue sea, they rationalize, the choice not to make a choice, is nevertheless, a choice.
DIY youtube videos like “OBAMA IS BEAUTIFUL WORLD” [sic], or “The Rams for Obama” (involving rather bewildered children, some still in diapers, made to do a choreographed dance in support of Obama) are hysterically funny, but they make me question the value or the amount of thought that drives that emotionalism, and they make me question what drives my blueness, as a non-American.
And I also wondered whether I had a right to tell my best friend to vote.
Collective events are always strange moments, because even as the camera zooms in on a crowd of pure joy, each person is joyful for a very particular reason. This moment, so historical and so collective, is at the same time so deeply and personally felt, that perhaps it is known only to oneself.