A More Perfect Union
Today is not the end of the past.
While America today inaugurates a new leader, today is no more the beginning of a new chapter in history than it is the end of an old one. The challenges we face today are the same as the ones we faced yesterday, and the ones we will likely face tomorrow. History is a continuum, and the gears of time don't stop for one man, one event, or one country.
September 11th happened. The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq happened, and they continue. Hurricane Katrina happened. The financial crisis is ongoing. We cannot delude ourselves that one man, one day, can erase the events, the wounds, the tragedies, and the scars of history.
But just as the events of the last eight years have had a profound impact on the world we experience today, the events of today will have a profound impact on our future. Just as we did on this day eight years ago, we face this day with hope the impact will be for the better, and reservations that it might be for the worse.
I don't know Barack Obama. I've supported him for the job he is about to undertake since a time before he had even announced his candidacy, but I don't know him, or just what kind of President -- what kind of leader -- he will be, any better than I knew his predecessor. And still, today, I am filled with more hope than reservation.
My hope is buoyed by the sense that Mr. Obama will represent a fundamental change in tone. I sense he will be a leader who understands that, while he is the leader of all Americans, he is responsible and answerable to all of us too.
In the speech he gave upon his victory, Mr. Obama said this:
"As Lincoln said to a nation far more divided than ours, we are not enemies but friends. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. And to those Americans whose support I have yet to earn, I may not have won your vote tonight, but I hear your voices. I need your help. And I will be your president, too."
Barack Obama did win my vote, and he will be my president. George Bush never won my vote, but the enduring tragedy of his term in office is that I fear he never grasped that he, too, was my president. I feared we might never survive eight years of George Bush, but we have - worse for wear, to be certain, but we've survived. And for better or worse, we would not be where we are today, were it not for the presidency of George W. Bush.
In the same speech, Mr. Obama called this a "defining moment." But as I said above, history is a continuum. And I can't help but feel, if this is a defining moment, that perhaps it is a moment at which America could only have arrived in the face of a time like the past eight years.
I believe that is fundamentally a good thing. Should my hopes bear out that Mr. Obama becomes the type of president I wish he will be, and should my optimism actually turn in to a better future ahead for America and the world, it will not be because the past has gone away. I believe it will be because we have faced the past and internalised its lessons; that we have learned through painful experience how to make better, more informed choices.
Above all, I believe that it will be because, as Mr. Obama said in his speech, we at long last recognise that "our union can be perfected."
I wish President Obama well, and I hope for a better world to come.