Che Guevara, Malcolm X, Obama & Me

Some people said before that Barack Obama will look odd on the dollar bill. But the President-elect seems to be a popular icon nowadays after he won the election. I couldn't remember when was the last President of United States was considered an icon especially to the world. What kind of President he will be is yet to be seen. Accepting the task as a President to cleanup all the mess that George W. Bush had left behind is just too much for one man and by itself deserve a praise. He is the new hope for America and also to the world. Hope he will learn from history and be more empathetic towards his 'enemy'. The rest of the world may not think the way Americans do but do not demonized them. Different cultures with different ideals but with a common goal of freedom, peace and happiness.

Obama had inspired America. Uniting the Red and the Blue. Inspired the world and hopefully uniting people at war and promoting a lasting peace. The message looks so good on print. Great speech writers and great artists all worked together and created an icon. I love those red and blue posters. It has that radical look, strong and persistent. But will Obama iconic figure be legendary as Che Guevara or Malcolm X? That is yet to be seen. What I can see is in Photoshop. I spend the whole Saturday compositing those iconic figures together and included myself in just for the fun of it and having the chance to put on my beret again.

The base picture is of Che Guevara, the hair and the beret. Then I took a photo of myself with the same pose and layered it over. Converted both to grayscale image and then filtered it down to five shades of gray. The edges were cleaned up to achieve a more graphic look. Then I took the glass frame of Malcolm X and replaced mine. Then I separated the 5 shades of gray to different layers in Photoshop. Each layer was then converted to different colours of red and blues. I gave the highlights a yellowish retro look. But where is Obama? I just copied the word 'HOPE' from one of Shepard Fairey's poster on Obama and pasted it on my design. 'Hope' is what Obama is all about. People are hoping for a real change. The 'O' was changed to a crescent moon and star symbolizing a new hope to the Muslim world. Hoping Obama will improve the American foreign policies which is the real enemy for many decades. The peace in the Middle East will resonate a global peace. God bless America and hey why not the world too?. For God's bounty is unlimited which spans beyond the universe. He is Most Gracious and Most Merciful.

Update: 7th October 2012

After 4 years in office, President Obama hasn't done much for change or hope. That righteous image has turned into 'the lesser of the two evils'. But evil is still evil, lesser or greater. How could God bless America when Americans have lost their sense of righteousness. Money is the new god which favors the rich more than the poor. Yet the poor are fools that fell on false hope. For the fools, 'the lesser of two evils' look more sane than Mitt Romney, 'the greater of the two evils', aka Bush 2.0.
What America really needs is a totally new 'Operating System' and not the illusion of choice. The power needs to return back to the people. It should be 'By the people and for the people' and not the privileged few. Republican and Democrat belongs to the War Party. We need a peace maker. For making peace takes a lot of patience and intelligence. For many years the U.S. Presidents are lacking of it. Nothing more than a puppet on a string manipulated by corporations.