Obama med potential till en stor ledare - a leader of unusual quality
Already 2004 I saw senator Barack Obama from Chicago as a possible president in the future. Now he is there, sooner than espected. But after all no big surprise.
This I remember from Boston 2004 and his keynote speech there at the Democrat National Convention in Boston. the speech created a minor sensation. He was an unknown state senator at the time, still to be elected in any capacity to Washington, and he'd been working for months by himself on his speech. What it ended up as was an elegant narrative, its simple rhetoric quite sublime. The speech began, in part:
"Thank you so much
"On behalf of the great state of Illinois, crossroads of a nation, land of Lincoln, let me express my deep gratitude. Tonight is a particular honour for me because, let's face it, my presence on this stage is pretty unlikely.
"My father was a foreign student, born and raised in a small village in Kenya. He grew up herding goats, went to school in a tin-roof shack. His father, my grandfather, was a cook, a domestic servant to the British. But my grandfather had larger dreams for his son. Through hard work and perseverance my father got a scholarship to study in a magical place, America. While studying here my father met my mother. She was born in a town on the other side of the world, in Kansas.
"Her father worked on oil rigs and farms through the Great Depression. The day after Pearl Harbour, my grandfather signed up, joined Patton's army, marched across Europe. Back home my grandmother raised a baby and went to work on a bomber assembly line.
"After the war, they moved west, all the way to Hawaii, in search of opportunity. And they too had big dreams for their daughter, a common dream born of two continents.
"My parents shared not only an improbable love. They shared an abiding faith in the possibilities of this nation. They would give me an African name, Barack, or 'blessed', believing that in a tolerant America, your name is no barrier to success. They're both passed away now. Yet I know that, on this night, they look down on me with great pride. And I stand here, grateful for the diversity of my heritage, knowing that my story is part of the larger American story, that in no other country is my story even possible …"
Fifteen hundred words later, Obama concluded: "In the end, do we participate in a politics of cynicism, or do we participate in a politics of hope? I'm not talking about blind optimism here, the almost willful ignorance that thinks unemployment will go away or the health-care crisis will solve itself. That's not what I'm talking about.
"I'm talking about something more substantial. It's the hope of slaves sitting around a fire singing freedom songs, the hope of immigrants setting out for distant shores, the hope of a skinny kid with a funny name who believes America has a place for him, too. Hope in the face of difficulty, hope in the face of uncertainty. The audacity of hope: a belief in things not seen, a belief there are better days ahead.
"I believe that we have a righteous wind at our backs, and that as we stand on the crossroads of history, we can make the right choices and meet the challenges. America, if you feel the same energy that I do, if you feel the same urgency that I do, if you feel the same passion that I do, if you feel the same hopefulness that I do, if we do what we must do, then I have no doubt that out of this long political darkness a brighter day will come.
"God bless you. Thank you."
Four years later, Obama's victory speech on Wednesday in Chicago after the election victory - written with a team of three staffers -Obama had the same power, delivered with the same mesmerising cadence, the same simplicity of language, and the same compelling narrative style. It was all there four years ago, already then in Boston.
Politics is about leading people and about leadarship, like the three great leaders in US historiy - George Washington, Abe Lincoln and Franklin D Roosevelt. Now Barack Obama maybe is about to step in to the same line of big leaders in US political history.
Time will show if that will be the case. So far Obama has proven to have the same shill and passion to lead. Let`s hope there is more to come!
So far he has started well, very well.
Robert Björkenwall in Stockholm
/robert.bjorken@telia.com/
This I remember from Boston 2004 and his keynote speech there at the Democrat National Convention in Boston. the speech created a minor sensation. He was an unknown state senator at the time, still to be elected in any capacity to Washington, and he'd been working for months by himself on his speech. What it ended up as was an elegant narrative, its simple rhetoric quite sublime. The speech began, in part:
"Thank you so much
"On behalf of the great state of Illinois, crossroads of a nation, land of Lincoln, let me express my deep gratitude. Tonight is a particular honour for me because, let's face it, my presence on this stage is pretty unlikely.
"My father was a foreign student, born and raised in a small village in Kenya. He grew up herding goats, went to school in a tin-roof shack. His father, my grandfather, was a cook, a domestic servant to the British. But my grandfather had larger dreams for his son. Through hard work and perseverance my father got a scholarship to study in a magical place, America. While studying here my father met my mother. She was born in a town on the other side of the world, in Kansas.
"Her father worked on oil rigs and farms through the Great Depression. The day after Pearl Harbour, my grandfather signed up, joined Patton's army, marched across Europe. Back home my grandmother raised a baby and went to work on a bomber assembly line.
"After the war, they moved west, all the way to Hawaii, in search of opportunity. And they too had big dreams for their daughter, a common dream born of two continents.
"My parents shared not only an improbable love. They shared an abiding faith in the possibilities of this nation. They would give me an African name, Barack, or 'blessed', believing that in a tolerant America, your name is no barrier to success. They're both passed away now. Yet I know that, on this night, they look down on me with great pride. And I stand here, grateful for the diversity of my heritage, knowing that my story is part of the larger American story, that in no other country is my story even possible …"
Fifteen hundred words later, Obama concluded: "In the end, do we participate in a politics of cynicism, or do we participate in a politics of hope? I'm not talking about blind optimism here, the almost willful ignorance that thinks unemployment will go away or the health-care crisis will solve itself. That's not what I'm talking about.
"I'm talking about something more substantial. It's the hope of slaves sitting around a fire singing freedom songs, the hope of immigrants setting out for distant shores, the hope of a skinny kid with a funny name who believes America has a place for him, too. Hope in the face of difficulty, hope in the face of uncertainty. The audacity of hope: a belief in things not seen, a belief there are better days ahead.
"I believe that we have a righteous wind at our backs, and that as we stand on the crossroads of history, we can make the right choices and meet the challenges. America, if you feel the same energy that I do, if you feel the same urgency that I do, if you feel the same passion that I do, if you feel the same hopefulness that I do, if we do what we must do, then I have no doubt that out of this long political darkness a brighter day will come.
"God bless you. Thank you."
Four years later, Obama's victory speech on Wednesday in Chicago after the election victory - written with a team of three staffers -Obama had the same power, delivered with the same mesmerising cadence, the same simplicity of language, and the same compelling narrative style. It was all there four years ago, already then in Boston.
Politics is about leading people and about leadarship, like the three great leaders in US historiy - George Washington, Abe Lincoln and Franklin D Roosevelt. Now Barack Obama maybe is about to step in to the same line of big leaders in US political history.
Time will show if that will be the case. So far Obama has proven to have the same shill and passion to lead. Let`s hope there is more to come!
So far he has started well, very well.
Robert Björkenwall in Stockholm
/robert.bjorken@telia.com/
posted by rbjorkenwall at 2:26 PM
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