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A Donald Trump in the White House as the leader of the most powerful country in the world means different things to different people. His election has thrown the world into uncertainty with countries wondering if Trump, president-elect of the United States of America, can be regarded as a friend, foe or villain given his blistering campaign promises, especially on immigrants and Muslims

|  By Olu Ojewale  |  Nov 21, 2016 @ 01:00 GMT  |

AT least, on the global terrain, nobody expected him to win. That is now history. That Donald Trump, against all the odds, emerged the next president of the United States in the election that held on Tuesday, November 8, is no longer news. Trump’s election victory was a bitter pill for a good number of supporters of Hillary Clinton, his Democrat Party’s opponent, to swallow quietly. Hence, they took to the streets in protests to register their displeasure.

Trump and Mike Pence, his running mate, polled 289 votes, surpassing the expected 270 electoral votes, to defeat Clinton and Tim Kaine, her running mate who got 228 electoral votes.

In any way, that can be regarded as one of the by-products of the hard-fought election. Thereafter, the 45th president of the most powerful country in the world is expected to go work to get his campaign promises realised. All this, has also provided a platform for analysts to tell the world what to expect from him. Would he be a monster that his opponents called him during the electioneering campaigns? Would he take on the establishment, send some of them to jail, including Clinton as he has promised or would he just jettison all the bravados and be a friend to everyone?

Answers to all that are, probably, long in coming. What is incontrovertible is that the shockwave caused by Trump election will take a while to settle as Americans and non-Americans continue to debate his next line of action.

To get a wider base of support, Trump apparently tried to break the ice when in his first official reaction he promised to be a president to all everyone.

“To all Republicans and Democrats and independents across this nation, I say it is time for us to come together as one united people,” he told a cheering crowd in New York early Wednesday, November 9, morning. “It is time. I pledge to every citizen of our land that I will be president for all of Americans, and this is so important to me,” he said.

As some analysts have pointed out, unifying a deeply divided electorate would definitely be a tall order. Some of the experts have also pointed that his presidency would bring uncertainty to international politics because Trump did not have experience or expertise in international affairs.

Among those who hold such view is Bolaji Akinyemi, a professor of political science, who described Trump’s victory as a worrisome development. Akinyemi, a former minister of Foreign Affairs, said global prediction of Clinton’s victory was cut short by Trump’s win. “It brings uncertainty into international politics because the world now has to deal with a man who is inexperienced, does not understand the complexities of international politics and has no respect for anyone who is not white or American; I think that is dangerous.

“There has always been an ugly side to the US just as there is with every country in the world, but the good side is that the US has always prevailed in tackling American problems. But this victory of Trump is a victory of the ugly side of the US,” Akinyemi said.

The former minister also said it would be difficult to predict Trump’s policies toward Nigerians or Africans in the diaspora and the continent itself. Nigeria alone is reputed to have about 266,000 US residents claiming Nigerian heritage. Nigerians are the single largest contemporary African immigrant group in the United States.

Nevertheless, Ibrahim Gambari, a former under-secretary-general of the United Nations, advised the leadership of Nigeria and Africa to promote policies in the interest of the citizens so as to encourage development and reduce the flow of African citizens to western countries.

He argued: “As Africans, we have survived slavery, colonialism, apartheid; I think the strength of the African people will enable us to survive any negative consequences arising from this result.

“The important thing is for the leadership of our continent to put the people ahead of anything else and if the link between the people and the leadership is strong, then we will survive the decision by the Americans to elect Donald.”

Gambari expressed optimism that US laws and institutions would protect Nigerians and Africans in the country, stressing, that Africans should be prepared. “The Africans in the diaspora are the sixth region in Africa as being decided by the African Union so we have to be supportive and look out for them,” he said.

Africans are not the only ones expected to be at the mercy of Trump election onslaught. After a bitter campaign in which he fierily held anti-Muslim stance, many Asian followers of Islam were greatly disturbed that the US elected him to lead the world’s greatest power. The growing anxiety was more palpable in Pakistan, Indonesia and Bangladesh, where more than a third of the world’s 1.5 billion Muslims reside.

“I’m very afraid, will there be more wars? Will America attack Muslim countries again?” Alijah Diete, 47, a Muslim and an Indonesian activist, asked. He said further: “I’m in disbelief. I thought Americans are supposed to be intelligent and mature. How is it possible Donald Trump won?”

Concerned Muslims across the world have also been asking similar question and also listed a litany of problems for people of the faith with a Trump presidency should he follow through on a pledge to ban Muslims from entering the US, to a potential surge in Islamic extremism driven by tougher US. “Americans have just screwed the world yet again,” said Syed Tashfin Chowdhury, a Bangladeshi who has several close friends in the US.

Although Trump had further disillusioned the US white majority with populist pledges to tear up free trade deals and deport illegal immigrants, it was his attacks on Muslims that sparked some of the greatest anger abroad and drew accusations of xenophobia and racism. The president-elect made his most controversial remarks last year December, when he called for a “total and complete shutdown” of Muslims entering America after a radicalised Muslim couple carried out a mass shooting in California.

Following his improbable election victory Wednesday, November 9, anger and anxiety were again high among Asia’s Muslims. A senior Pakistani government official, who spoke anonymously, called the news of Trump’s election as “absolutely atrocious and horrifying” while others in the country also lamented the results. “I am disappointed to see Donald Trump winning because Hillary Clinton is a good woman, she is good for Pakistan and Muslims all over the world,” Ishaq Khan, 32, said at an Islamabad market. “She was talking about world peace — but Trump was talking about fighting against Muslims.”

In Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim-majority country, there was a mixture of shock and nervousness about how the victory would affect the relationship with traditional ally of the US, as well as future relations between the country and the Muslim world. “I am very concerned that the relationship between the US and Muslim countries will become tense again,” Diete said.

In a country that has long struggled with Muslim militancy and seen hundreds head to the Middle East to fight for the Islamic State, IS, group, fears were also mounting that anti-Islamic policies under Trump could be seized on by extremists to bolster their cause. “When the United States uses hard power, extremists gain a momentum,” Zuhairi Misrawi, an Islamic scholar from Nahdlatul Ulama, a moderate Indonesian Islamic organisation, said. “Those who will be the happiest when Trump wins are ISIS,” he said, referring by another name to the Islamic State group, which is struggling to hold onto its territory in Iraq and Syria in the face of a fierce military onslaught.

Nevertheless, some observers have expressed optimism that the billionaire politician’s rhetoric was only for winning votes and would not be translated into any xenophobic policy. “We hope that Trump’s remarks against Muslims were only to boost his campaign,” Tahir Ashrafi, a senior Pakistani government cleric, said.

And for others, a great concern was the potential effect of a Trump presidency on the millions of Muslims living in America. “In Donald Trump’s view, Muslims are not part of America,” said Munarman, a spokesman for Indonesian hard-line group, the Islamic Defenders’ Front, who goes by one name. “Muslims are foreigners to him.”

Africans and Muslims are not isolated in their worries. Europe is not an exception. Simon Schama, a British historian, seemed to be speaking for a good number of Europeans when he tweeted that Trump’s presidential victory was one that would “hearten fascists all over the world.”

Speaking to BBC Radio 4’s Today programme on Wednesday, November 9, soon after writing the tweet, Schama compared Trump’s victory to the rise of Adolf Hitler in post-war Germany. “Democracy often brings fascists to power, it did so to Germany in the 1930s,” he said.

Describing Trump’s victory as a “genuinely frightening prospect,” Schama gave a list of reasons to the BBC as to why he believed that Trump was a poor choice for the US president. “NATO will be under pressure to disintegrate, the Russians will make trouble, 20 million people will lose their health insurance, climate change [policies] will be reversed, bank regulation will be liquidated. Do you want me to go on?” he said.

Prior to his interview, the historian had tweeted that the world now needs a Churchill-like figure “who refuses to normalise, resists, understands the abyss into which democracy has fallen.”

Many European leaders, however, appeared not to share Schama’s pessimism as they sent in their congratulatory messages to the US president-elect. In her congratulatory message, Theresa May, prime minister of Britain, looked forward to working with him to retain the “special relationship” between the US and her country.

But President Francois Hollande of France tempered his message of congratulations with the comment that Trump’s election “now opens a period of uncertainty.”

Similarly, Fawcett Society, Britain’s largest membership charity for women’s rights, was understandably disappointed, describing Trump’s election victory as a “massive step backwards for women and equality.” Sam Smethers, chief executive at the Fawcett Society, told Newsweek magazine that “women all over America now have to focus on defending their rights and freedoms.”

“We have to ask ourselves how it’s possible that someone who bragged about sexually assaulting women has become the most powerful politician in the world,” she said.

During the electioneering campaign, Trump was widely described as a sexist and dangerous to women. The next US president was said to have referred to women as pigs, slobs and dogs, and claimed his sexual assault accusers were too ugly to have ever warranted unwanted attention from him.

But Trump told voters at the first presidential debate that “nobody has more respect for women than I do.”

In any case, no matter how outrageous his views on women may look, he is married to one and he also has daughters. Besides, his pro-life policy is seen as another way of showing his cares for women.

Perhaps, the same argument could be extended for his alleged anti-immigrant stance. His campaign had been on the need for Americans to reclaim their countries and his vow to deport non-documented immigrants. This was widely regarded as being intolerant of immigrants. But some of his supporters were happy to point out that the president-elect has twice married immigrants and that his current wife can hardly speak English.

That notwithstanding, the world attention will certainly be on Trump as he takes over the reign of government on January 20, 2017. As the expectation rises, a good number of people would love to see whether he would keep to his electoral promises, especially those he had promised to execute within first 100 days in office. They include to appoint judges “who will uphold the Constitution” and “defend the Second Amendment;” build a wall on the southern border and restrict immigration “to give unemployed Americans an opportunity to fill good-paying jobs;” and to stand up to “countries that cheat on trade, of which there are many” and crack down on companies “that send jobs overseas.”

The rest are to “repeal and replace job-killing Obamacare — it is a disaster” and lift federal restrictions on energy production.

To some of his critics, the list looked too wide and ambitious, but with his Republican Party still controlling Congress, it could also mean an easy ride for Trump to impose his will baring filibustering by the Democrats to derail any such move. It would also mean the end, at least for now, the partisan gridlock that stymied much the Obama administration’s agenda.

But how much will Trump’s White House unite the country that was visibly divided along the partisan line is a task that may be very daunting for the 45th president of the US if not carefully handled.

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