Obama Symbol of Hope

If fear was the currency of Bush's presidency, then hope will be that of Obama's.

On a clear, cold day in Washington, looking at times stern and Presidential, at others smiling, relaxed and fatherly, Obama ushered in a new spirit of inspiration, energy and change in America.

His inauguration, a blend of glitz, glamour and nervous ritual, was watched by a jubilant and relieved planet; keen to herald in Obama and perhaps even keener to bid farewell to the destructive rhetoric and policies of the Bush era, which will likely go down in history as one of the darkest chapters of American history.

Where once the word terror peppered the ragged oratory of Bush, Obama, silver-tongued, his voice booming across the Capitol, spoke eloquently of America's fist being at last unclenched, of a new America committed to rebuilding itself in accord with the morally charged vision of its founding fathers.

Embarrassed and deflated by its failures on the battlefield in Iraq and Afghanistan, dishonoured by its arrogant abandonment of once-cherished judicial values and shamed by the excesses and dishonesty which have so completely infected its financial system, America today is a shadow of the superpower that once proudly cast itself as the policeman of the planet; the only superpower willing to use its might in the name of right.

Obama, his breath forming tiny white clouds in the chill air of Washington, declared boldly to the millions listening that he would restore America's pride and honour. He promised to realign his nation's policies with the norms of justice that were once the pillars of its system and to move away from the politics of vengeance that characterised the government of George W. Bush.

To many, especially the descendants of America's slaves, the scene must have seemed surreal. Many sobbed tears of joy as they watched Obama. A black man taking his oath as the 44th President in a city where, as Obama noted, just 60 years ago his father would not even have been served in a restaurant. What more powerful an image of change could there have been than a black man taking over the Presidency from a white Texan and scion of America's political elite?This was truly, as Obama's election slogan so aptly put it, 'change we can believe in'.

As we watched the military helicopter carry Bush into a sombre corner of our memory, one could not help but feel the freshness, optimism, intelligence and humanity that Obama brings to America's highest office. His family looking on adoringly, glowed with pride. Their love and intimacy, captured live on our screens, looks authentic, unforced, genuine.

Finally, one cannot help but believe, or hope at least, that a man whose roots combine oppression, globalism and struggle, a man who has overcome the bitterness of his past and the obstacles that discrimination undoubtedly placed in his way will be better able to understand the needs, fears and aspirations of the many millions of lives his future decisions may affect.