Obama's win will usher in a brave new world

• If the Senator wins on Tuesday, the world will never be the same

HE WANTS TO FUNDAMENTALLY transform the narrow-mindedness of the American psyche, which has been brainwashed into believing that making loads of money is the only worthwhile goal in life (and all Arabs are terrorists).

Obama has rightly pointed out that the United States stands alone in the Western world as a country that does not provide subsidies in basic services, such as healthcare. His own mother died prematurely partly because her insurance company refused to cover her medical costs.

One of the great ironies of the United States, one of the richest countries on earth, is that people who cannot afford healthcare have no choice but to forego treatment and die.

Those who are too poor to afford higher education must resign themselves to menial jobs because universities are too expensive.

Obama believes that lack of opportunity is to blame for the asymmetrical growth experienced in the US, where the rich get richer (and get more tax breaks) and the poor sink into a never-ending cycle of debt and impoverishment.

He also wants the US to take on the role of pacifist, rather than aggressor, in conflicts that it cannot afford and which have made the world a much more dangerous place.

Obama’s ideas aren’t exactly revolutionary. Many European countries, such as Sweden and France, are already implementing them.

But the fact that he has the audacity to introduce these ideas in a country that is deeply individualistic, which believes that poverty is a result of laziness, not the result of unjust social and economic systems, is revolutionary.

If Obama wins tomorrow, he will put the world on a path that it desperately needs to be on. Countries that have blindly adopted the crudest forms of man-eat-man capitalism, such as Kenya, will have to rethink their policies and see the wisdom of introducing a more humane type of capitalism and a more just social order.

Protectionism and subsidies will no longer be shunned, but will be seen as prudent and practical economic strategies to combat the excesses of liberalisation, globalisation and free markets.

If this is socialism, then yes, the world is on its way to becoming socialist.

Ms Warah is an editor with the UN. The views expressed here are her own and do not necessarily reflect those of the United Nations.