Barack Obama’s win this week merits all the superlatives. Not just the spotless execution of his election campaign, but the man himself. And there has been no shortage of compliments going his way. In fact, you could be forgiven for thinking that the whole globe had taken part in his ascendancy to the White House, that he was our candidate and that we had all won. Here in France, where I am now, there has been public jubilation. Moreover it has been accompanied by a gleeful string of sentences such as: It’s about time Americans caught up with the modern world, finally America deals with racism, who would have thought Americans would elect a black man and so on. This is the kind of refrain I have been hearing ever since Obama first appeared as a contender in the race for the White House. In every country I have been during my travels I have heard discussions of the “wouldn’t it be fantastic, but they just won’t do it” variety and I myself found it hard to believe that a nation which had elected George W. Bush twice, could elect someone of the caliber of Barack Obama.

What is striking about Obama is not that he is the first black president. That is too easy a way to label his achievement. Yes, it is historical, he is the first non-white president and that deserves to be noted in the annals of history. But he has not become president of the US because he is black (or despite being black) but because he is an exceptional human being who inspires confidence and hope. Essentially what many of us non-Americans have been saying is that we would vote for him, but Americans wouldn’t. And now that we have been proved wrong, we should also come clean on another important fact — a fact that President-elect Obama highlighted in his acceptance speech: His story would only be possible in the US.

First, those of us who say we would vote for him generally live in countries where it is still unthinkable that a man born of a foreign father and from a racial minority would become the leader of the country.

Take France, for instance. French voices have often been heard sneering at American politics. There has been a definite sense of condescension and now almost self-congratulation that the US should elect the man the French would have voted for. In fact there were a number of surveys done before the election and Obama was the runaway winner among French voters. Yes, they would have voted for him to be president of the US. But would they have voted for him to be president of France?

Second, Obama is not someone who has succeeded despite being American but because he is American. He is very much a product of his country, he represents everything that the US can do well and why, for better for worse, the US remains a trailblazer for the rest of the world. All those phrases which sound nauseating in a Hollywood film, phrases such as “the land of opportunity”, “the triumph of democracy”, “all men are created equal”, “the land of the free” and so on, are manifestly true when you consider the Obama story.

So the time has come for some of us, particularly those of us who have been quick to disparage American politics, to eat a slice of humble pie. In our defense I will say that there has been ample reason for disillusion. American values as outlined in the American Constitution have remained a beacon of hope but one whose light had definitely faded and been degraded by the aggression, ignorance and arrogance of the Bush administration. Obama represents a renewal of that light of hope. Whether that hope is justified only time will tell. The challenges he faces are enormous. His rhetoric is appealing and he represents the best of an American ideal. Now that he is seated in the real world with the reins of power in his hands, it is reality that will take the upper hand and reality is a far cry from the elation of election night.