karanguni | --why we can.

There are a lot of people who would point at me and laugh if were to tell them that, today, this morning, I burst out into shouts and tears when the networks began to project that Barack Obama would be the next President of the United States, and maybe rightly so -

What does Barack Obama have to do with me, in my country - two oceans away, a completely different demographic, age, race and sex. This is true: Barack Obama has nothing to do with me, nothing to do with anyone else who doesn't live in the United States, even in the light of an increasingly globalised world. As a political entity, he is the president of the USA, and I am a citizen of an alien nation.

But he is a signifier of change. I say, yes - he has made no real change yet, he has not yet stepped into the Oval Office. But when Barack Obama started running for presidency, he represented a dream of equality, dignity and belief that is out of fashion in an age of instant gratification, cynicism, and refusal to believe in certainty.

What Barack Obama represents is a certainty that is not founded in old traditions of injustice or in a personal advocacy of his records - Barack Obama swept away, tonight, barriers of race, partisan politics, but - most of all - he won office by convincing people - in his country and everywhere else - that there is basis in believing in a dream.

When I told my dad Barack Obama would win the nomination, he said America was too prejudiced. When I told my dad Barack Obama would win the presidency, he said the world was too prejudiced. Barack Obama won the nomination, Barack Obama won the presidency; Barack Obama won the hearts of people who haven't had a dream to believe in for years.

Today I am not a cynic, today I am not ashamed to cry for something I put my faith in in spite of disassociation, distance, age, race, sex, orientation, religion or taste. Today, someone stood up and said, yes we can.

Yes we can.

His words are best:

"... white or black, gay or straight ...

... those who are cynical and fearful and doubtful about what we can achieve to put their hands on the arc of history to bend it once more."

--why we can.

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