President Obama and Western civilization.

Tunku Varadarajan writing at Forbes states that:

The most important effect of an Obama presidency would be to sunder the connection between "Western-ness" and whiteness--or, at the very least, to ensure that such connection is no longer viewed as contingent. I use Western-ness as a portmanteau word for the following: democracy; scientific reason; respect for, but not servitude to, religion and hence a belief in religious tolerance and pluralism; sexual equality; secular education; individual autonomy, including a right to privacy and personal identity; and a belief that governments are subordinate to citizens...This severing (or fraying) of the "West-white" connection would make it easier for the U.S.--and the West, more broadly--to take its ideas into those corners of the world that have been most resistant to them. Whether we like it or not, vast swaths of Africa, Asia and the Middle East still live in varying degrees of post-colonial confrontation with the West, and with whiteness. This makes it difficult (often impossible) for the West to get the non-West to embrace its better ideas...[continue reading]