But I digress. I was looking at the US polls (Zimbabwe have censored all their news so it's not that Im being unpatriotic - it's that I don't own a news agency so I have to watch what CNN decide), and I noticed Obama has now eclipsed Hilary. All that talk about him creating a new wave, a movement, has started to come to fruition. I learn the thing about movements is that you're either in them or in the way, much like the Japanese Shinkasen (trains). In the movie V for Vendetta, he was faced with all these british cops who had guns and told him so, and he said, "No what you have are bullets, and the hope that by the time you're empty Im not still standing, because if I am you'll all be dead before you've reloaded." So they fired till they were empty, then he just says in that chilling voice, "My turn," and what happens next was just poetry, literally, there was even an opera playing in the background. The lead inspector was the only person left, and was firing shots at V and V just kept walking towards him, so he was like "Die! Die! Why won't you die??!?", and so naturally V took it upon himself to explain (of course while strangling the guy): "Because beneath this mask is more than just flesh. Beneath this mask is an idea, Mr. Creedy, and ideas are bulletproof." - of course in V's case I think it also helped that he was wearing a steel breastplate that tended to stop the bullets :)
And apparently that applies even in life. Obama is just one of those people that exudes confidence. He has that look in his eye that tells you he really believes whatever it is he's telling you. He actually respects the opinion of experts (do you know how many leaders of latter days actually do that? You'd be surprised!). He places a lot of faith in people's intelligence and their capacity to make the right choice given favorable circumstances, and, he tells it like it is. Obama is a classic modern-day idea. In fact, it was from him that I first learned that governments aren't supposed to build an economy, they're supposed to create an environment fitting for the private sector to thrive, and for a middle class to grow (Ok, maybe Id also heard that from Economics class, but it was much less interesting then). That is one thing we are lacking in Kenya - a middle class (actually we currently also don't have a chain of command that extends beyond the president, but that is another story for another day). We have the rich, and those who literally live on faith - I guess coz everything else you have to buy with money which they don't have. Real sad.
Victor Hugo said, in 1870, that there was nothing more powerful than an idea whose time had come. Not even the sound of marching armies. And he was right. We've seen it time and time again. With broadcast TV, with internet music downloads, with (napster and kazaa) file-sharing networks, with democracy, with unions and collective bargaining. Give the masses hope, provide meaningful challenges and rewards, trust them, then get out of their way - they'll knock your socks of. Is Obama really really the next big thing? He certainly does represent that new principle.
Martin Luther King, Jr. once described the measure of a man:
Man is man because he is free to operate within the framework of his destiny. He is free to deliberate, to make decisions, and to choose between alternatives. He is distinguished from animals by his freedom to do evil or to do good and to walk the high road of beauty or tread the low road of ugly degeneracy... The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.Obama has certainly made it clear where he stands. From the beginning. No black has ever before him done what he's done. Parallels are already being drawn between him and Dr. Martin Luther King. If he's an idea whose time has come, Id go to church if I was Hillary, or McCain.
END
0 comments:
Post a Comment