The inauguration of the 44th president of the most powerful country on earth, the United States of America, has been completed. This former skinny kid now President Barack Obama has been transformed into a 175 pound symbol and embodiment of the dreams, hopes, role models and aspirations of the 400 or more million Africans on the planet earth and added to that all free and forward thinking people of all races who dream and hope for a better, more peaceful and prosperous world.
Martin Luther King Jr had a dream like our own Jamaican National Hero Marcus Mosiah Garvey, Rastafarians, Rosa Parks, Malcolm X, Stokeley Carmichael, Black Panthers, Louis Farrakhan, Jesse Jackson, Angela Davis, Nelson Mandela, these and others.
This is a historic occasion that the socially and politically conscious among the human race cannot but help having eyes filled with tears of hopes and joy with this being the epitome of black faces in high places. It has been a long steep climb to this day and along the way many have sacrificed their lives and their freedom. Others have made their down payment with time, money, sweat, tears and blood,thank god this present achievement has been by the ballot.
I cannot but hope that the awesome responsibility and goodwill that has been directed towards President Obama i hope he will be able to deliver. As a black man he not only has to be a good president to the Americans but to all those people in what he calls “the forgotten corners of the world”.
He has to be like our own Usain Bolt was at the recent Olympics the best of the best and the greatest by a long shot. With discipline hard work with support and focus he can, he must and I hope he will as it will have implications for the future of the Blackman and other minorities everywhere and certainly after the all inclusive pomp and pageantry over there in Washington.
The new president has an America to preside over in a most difficult time a country whose image abroad has been battered to its lowest level, an economy in shambles and its deep involvement in the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts combined with an ongoing war on terror .
On all levels this is a great moment in history. America’s first African American president, the greatest show of democracy on earth a demonstration that the American democracy is alive and well, where the ballot has maintained its superiority over the bullet.
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Michael Spence
P.O.Box 630
Liguanea, Kingston 6
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