I've been talking about Obama for months and months. And yet, I missed seeing live, the most exciting and truly symbolic Presidential inauguration for many years.
All my life, I've always believed that America is really a great country. However, it seems almost always, America's critics seemed to have been proved annoyingly right. Nationalistic, isolationist, a belief that it ought to single-handedly police the world fuelled by its unhealthy phobia of communism. America seems have been much more willing to prove that it is right, through its military might, rather than the strength of its belief in those iconic statements of what it stands for. "The Constitution".
Britain has an "unwritten constitution". Some would say that's very wise. After all, we can always say, "ah well, we never really said that" when we find ourselves in one of those moral quandaries where we feel that we're required to uphold something, when clearly its bananas, after all.
Perhaps "the right to bear arms", may well have made sense during those pioneering days of the USA. There was a justice system, but that was not accessible to all. People felt, that they couldn't ensure that their freedom and safety. In the 2000's, the right to bear arms is obselete.
The original reason for it has gone. Indeed, almost gone even in the 1880's. American towns and cities were becoming much more law-enforced. Incredible progress was made, although that was overshadowed by what people believed to be wrong with the USA, rather than reality. The stuff of the "Westerns" would probably have seemed unreal to many people, who were actually lived through those times.
Racial prejudice was rife in those days. People, even very "respectable" people simply were unable to believe that they could have, black sheriffs, black judges or black Senators and Congressmen. Not just white people, but black people themselves, couldn't counter any white originated arguments that would put the case about their true equality.
I heard someone observe today, that sixty years ago, almost any USA restaurant would have refused to serve Obama's own father. And now, his son is President of the United States of America. It clearly points the way to how the USA has and is, truly evolving.
"Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness " never was, and is certainly not now, merely the right of some Fundamentalist religious right, corpulent, white conservative. It truly means, at last, it is indeed, an inalienable right for all Americans.
The British are extremely pleased with the Obama victory, not merely because it represents some narrow based political victory, but because they feel when one nation truly heals, especially a strong, rich one like America, it also brings about much more hope for the whole world. Leading by example. It can't be long before we have our first black Prime Minister and that will be good for Britain on so many levels, not just for black people, but for people of all kinds of races and creeds. America's authority abroad is going to be greatly increased, and that implies that they will be much more sucessful agent in realising world peace.
As I see the deluge of images flowing from Washington DC, I see true patriotism flow from those steps where Abraham Lincoln's statue sits, one hopes, seeing something on Tuesday, January 20, 2009, worthy of what he strove to achieve himself. He will be be so pleased as, he will see a new black President of the United States. A truly free America, united, after being so divided for so long.
Welcome home, America.
