From his previous book after leaving the White House: My father's dreams, many expected from Barack Obama the expiatory narrative of his days as ruler. Who else who less, every leader has taken advantage of the release from the position of power to relate some misunderstood decisions. Or motivations that in past moments of his mandate could be misinterpreted or not understood from the most personal prism.
But no. That first book by ordinary citizen Obama was an introspection of the type who had become president under the special conditions of his race and origins. All a hymn to the old American dream that dreams could still be achieved based on perseverance, illusion and trust in a country open to anyone who strives to prosper with firm will, wherever they come from ...
And yet this second book out of the White House already does contain a political base on his years at the helm of the world.
The book mainly reveals the conception of politics as a tool freed from the ballast of ideology, slogans and doctrines, understood actions and Democratic or Republican labels.
Politics for Obama should be part of the title of this book: Hope. Every dawn new problems appear, or existing ones spread even further. At times, the population observes politics as a pulpit where politicians release empty words, an area whose sole purpose is the immediate present from which to fish for votes while frantically fleeing forward, to a future that looms at times sinister if not at least worrying.
The problem is that when someone like Obama demands new ways of doing politics, he is branded as naive, as preaching unreal goodism. When the unreal should be the confrontation by spurious interests; discord as sustenance to win votes; the hatred and fear that awakens terrifying populisms ...
Hope comes from the good sense of guys like Obama. Only in a world of madmen like the current being sensible means swimming against the current in a river swollen by fear, hatred and easy politics that appeases those feelings of defenselessness of the people.
Obama imbues his ideas with personal experiences, with anecdotes, with purely political aspects. He is known as a public figure and does not deny that aspect of a personal story. But in my opinion the important thing is the background. The literature in this book speaks of that hope for the United States and, considering the globalization of any social aspect, also for the world.
You can now buy The Audacity of Hope, the new book by Barack Obama, here: