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This week will remain special for me, like for many others around the world, I am sure. The election of Barack Obama, the first Black to move to the White house, has done something to make me forget, even if for a while, the dismal situation at home- the mindless killings, leaders (?) bickering, and on the whole the sense of hopelessness and helplessness that must have engulfed many countrymen at this juncture. And in these dark moments when a man, whose kinsmen have had to bear humiliation, Ku Klux Klan- persecution, had to fight even to take a seat in a public bus because only whites were allowed in that section, or denied a cup of coffee in a café because Blacks were not expected to enter, becomes the 44th President of the same country, purportedly the most powerful in the world, it is, well, mind-blowing.
Obama’s acceptance speech at the Chicago playground, with supporters chanting ‘‘we can” beamed live, was one of the best anytime, anywhere from a leader-and leadership qualities this man has- and brought tears not only to many like Jesse Jackson who was openly crying, but mine too. For, Obama‘s election to the highest office might be in another country, another continent, but he symbolises that one ‘’can” . In these times we need that belief to sustain.
Even a few years ago, I thought that knowing America’s heartland and a people divided on race issues, even to this day, i at least will not see in our lifetime a Black or a woman, for that matter, donning the chair at the Oval office. Obama has proved I was wrong and am I glad to be proved wrong! These are moments when pessimism takes a backseats. For that is what Obama’s win has shown, that human aspirations can surpass set notions, that people can change.
Though expected to win by every poll, when Obama actually walked to the podium waving his hand and proclaimed that it was their – the people’s victory, it was exhilarating moment indeed. I suddenly remembered Steven Spielberg’s film Amistad on the real-life story of a Spanish slave ship in 1839 and the mutiny aboard under a black slave. When the ship was captured by the US navy and there was a legal battle over the fate of the captives, former President John Quincy Adams came out of his retirement to defend the slaves. Yes, it has been a long way.
Above all, Obama has shown what leadership can move people. Those thousands of people at the Chicago playground waiting for him to come, flags waving, hugging each other, blurring the divide of colour, economic background or age, reflected an electric moment one could not miss even from across the seas.
At the same time, my joy at seeing a man from a segregated community walking the line was tampered by a feeling of sadness. Because it also brought to mind the leaders who walk around us today. It is all very well to talk and draw comparison with the world’s oldest democracy and world’s largest democracy in one breath, but what else? If people can get disgusted enough to look for a Change after a dismal Bush-era, across social strata- poor, middle-class, rich like film stars, why do we feel so hopeless that change will come ? Even young politicians act more fundamentalist than the old die-hards. Why do we have to dread opening the newspaper in the morning or switch on the TV news channel? Who knows where extreme parochialism has made countrymen run for their lives in another part of the same country? Who knows which so-called leader has slapped a person on duty because he or she has gone by the book? Party stalwarts fight for tickets for their kin while bomb blasts kill innocent people - going shopping, praying at temples.
The sense of cynicism is inevitable. People need a leader to lead them, leaders who an inspire, show the commitment from deep within. You cannot fool the people; they know when one is sincere, and when one is only mouthing words.
So at this moment I, like many others, I am sure, feel jubilant that Obama has been able to rise above the circumstances that he inspires people to chant “We can” but also sorely feel the need of a leader in whom we can trust, a leader who leads and able to give hope.
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