With OBAMA, an End to the Era of “The...

The president’s election inspires hope for healing around the word.

As the shouts of joy over Barack Obama’s electoral victory fade from every continent, something more long-lasting is taking hold: a sense of possibility rooted in the United States’ electoral-year triumph of hope over identity-based politics and fear.

The elevation to the White House of the biracial grandson of a Kenyan village elder and cook is a reaffirmation of the United States as a unique land of opportunity, comprised of citizens who trace their heritage to every corner of the globe. It also lifts the hearts of people everywhere who believe in judging fellow human beings on their character and not on their skin color, ethnicity, gender or creed.

The global promise of the 2008 U.S. election is the American people’s decisive, cross-generational support for an inclusive, pragmatic and non-ideological approach to the challenges we all face, whether in the U.S. or elsewhere in the world. Their rejection of racial and cultural stereotypes, and their commitment to the belief that everyone can play a part, offer the hope that with U.S. leadership, a compassionate, mutually respectful era of peace-building might emerge. In 2009, we have a chance to move toward a true resolution of the Arab-Israeli conflict. On a broader scale, we also have the opportunity to begin to close the economic, educational and opportunity gaps that needlessly divide so many of us.

We can look to Obama’s example. To prevail, Obama overcame falsehoods and innuendo. Most disturbing was the widespread assumption that if Obama were a Muslim, as rumored on Internet sites, he would be unfit for the presidency and even dangerous. As former U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell bravely asserted when he endorsed Obama, in America, every young person—Muslim, Christian or otherwise—is entitled to believe that he or she might become president.

Minorities in the United States now understand that there is no limit to the possibilities of their own lives. Obama’s victory also expanded the world of possibilities to people of all races and religions in all corners of the globe. Of course bigotry remains alive in the United States, as it does around the world. Yet Obama’s election has dealt it a remarkable blow. In his gracious concession speech, John McCain noted that Obama had inspired “the hopes of so many millions of Americans who had once wrongly believed that they had little at stake or little influence in the election of an American president.” Many Americans recognize that, regardless of how they voted, the world is now looking at their country with renewed hope in its democratic ideals.

Our job, for those of us around the world who believe in the principles of justice, pluralism and peace—principles that are at once democratic and Islamic—is to transform this turning point and that hope into permanent and concrete gains. To do this, we must make a choice. When Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, the great warrior-turned-peacemaker, was assassinated, my husband King Hussein of Jordan issued a summons: “Let us not keep silent. Let our voices rise high enough to speak of our commitment to peace for all times to come. And let us tell those who live in darkness, who are the enemies of life and true faith, this is where we stand. This is our camp.”

At the heart of these words is the belief that the division that matters most today is not between Arabs and Jews, Sunnis and Shiites, Christians and Muslims or, indeed, between ethnic, national or religious groups. It is not, as some have alleged, a clash of civilizations. The division is between those of us who seek to co-exist in mutual respect and cooperation and those who seek to subjugate others through absolutist dictates—political or religious. It is between those who seek peaceful, just resolutions to conflict and those who seek to achieve their objectives through violence and repression, in the form of suicide bombings.

In saying this, I do not mean to simplify the achingly complex. Mediation among historic rivals requires more than good intentions. We must all choose to move forward with conviction, courage and compassion in the unwavering pursuit of justice, equity and freedom. This is the antidote to extremists everywhere who remain mired in hate even at this moment of great hope.

We must also look at ourselves, not just those we regard as our opponents.

I am an Arab-American by birth, granddaughter of Orthodox Christian Arab immigrants to the United States. I was raised and educated in a Judeo-Christian society. At the age of 26 I embraced Islam, married a Hashemite direct descendant of the Prophet Mohammad (PBUH), and for 30 years have endeavored as a public servant to build bridges between these different worlds. To whom do I owe ultimate allegiance? The answer for me lies in the tenet of every major religious and ethical tradition—including the three Abrahamic faiths of Judaism, Christianity and Islam—to want for our neighbors that which we want for ourselves. Is this an impossible personal standard? Yes, sometimes. But as a guiding aspiration, there is no substitute.

Machiavelli mocked the idea of trying to do good in a world of so much evil. But isn’t the presence of evil precisely why we must aim for a higher standard? The Prophet Mohammed (PBUH) warned, “God has no mercy on one who has no mercy for others.” To paraphrase the great Babylonian thinker, Hillel the Elder, if our response to such suffering is cynicism, what are we?

During my work in areas of conflict around the world, I have seen the worst of man’s inhumanity, from the killing fields of Cambodia and carnage in Vietnam and elsewhere in Southeast Asia to the mass graves of Bosnia. I have lived with the utter despair and anguish of 6 million Palestinian refugees and now 5 million displaced Iraqis, many from each group now making their homes in Jordan. But I have also seen women, men and young people—Muslims, Christians and Jews, all children of Abraham—find common ground in their suffering and loss, and in their shared spiritual values. I have watched them choose—often at great risk to themselves—reconciliation over vengeance and hope over despair. I have watched them choose to dream of a common good for future generations. Their example should guide all of us.

In the realm of international relations, consistent and balanced diplomacy that allows a broad array of interests to be heard and respected is necessary. But this approach will only work if counterproductive attitudes that humiliate and provoke are avoided.

Just as African-Americans were right to spurn the false doctrine of separate-but-equal, so those seeking peace and reform in the Middle East should not be asked to accept double standards. The way to stifle extremism and hate is to offer an alternative vision that is just, equitable and humane.

A solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict exists today. It is the result of frameworks suggested by outside parties or negotiations among the parties themselves. Thanks to initiatives like the Clinton parameters, articulated during the last days of the Clinton administration; the Arab Peace Initiative of 2002, reaffirmed in 2007 by all the Arab states; and the 2003 Geneva Accord, we have solutions that guarantee mutual security and peace for Arabs and Israelis. What is needed to make these proposals work is the political will of the international community to bring about a two-state solution, Palestine and Israel and to ensure security guarantees for all.

With new leadership, the United States has a renewed opportunity both to end the Arab-Israeli conflict and to cut the lifeline of radical elements striving to prove that only violence yields results. This would empower the moderate forces in the Arab world who have little to show for their efforts toward building peace, and who are calling for pluralism, inclusion and diversity.

On the economic front, we must refuse to accept chronic poverty as inevitable. In recent decades, hundreds of millions of Asians have risen from subsistence living to the middle class. Before the recent financial turmoil, economies across sub-Saharan Africa were growing at an annual rate of better than 6 percent. Nonetheless, we know that 1.4 billion people live and die in extreme poverty and that global forces from climate change to the financial crisis exacerbate lives of deprivation and the potential for conflict.

Fighting poverty is not a hopeless task. We know what works: empower women, improve governance, encourage microenterprise, and rein in unnecessary military expenditures so investments can be made in education, child nutrition and health care. In 2008, we’ve seen how the world comes to the rescue when financial institutions face collapse; we must be as committed to helping those who live on the brink of personal financial collapse every day. President Obama’s emphasis on public service and personal responsibility highlights a fundamental obligation we each have to do our part, no matter where we live.

Obama’s victory was a rebuttal to the all-too-human tendency to dismiss whole categories of people as “the others.” There is no them, only us. His success is testimony to an American yearning for those same things—survival, dignity, security and a better world for our children—that are the priorities of people throughout the world. His challenge, and ours, will be to live up to the fundamental principle that every human being is endowed with certain inalienable rights; each is entitled to have those rights respected; and each must in turn respect the rights of others.

If we succeed, we will be able to point to this as the moment when we chose the right path and said, “Yes we can.” If we fail, we will find ourselves repeating past mistakes over and over again.