Reflections on Obama's Election

Dear Friends Far & Near

I received the following message on Election evening:

"Dear Kim: We are absolutely thrilled along with all other Democratic Americans that Barack Obama has become our President. It seems impossible that it could happen and like others we were holding our breath. For once America did something right and maybe we can redeem our country in the world. Jill, my daughter, and her husband and children were working in the Obama Headquarters in Cleveland, Ohio. Leslie, her youngest daughter who is in college in Bowlling Green, Ohio worked in her college Headquarters and came home last night to be with the family. They all were crying, hollering etc like everyone else when Ohio went for Obama. We cut our trip to AZ short so we could be here in Lansing to be a part of the excitement."

Shan Wilder (her son is the Senior Director of the out-going National Security Council) wrote to me the above while I was still relishing CNN News Live Report yesterday morning and watched the CNN Projections during the vote counting, McCain's gracious concession speech, Obama's brilliant acceptance mountain-top acceptance address and the world-wide celebrations beginning in Grant Park, Chicago. What a momentous, inspirational, earth-shattering and highly charged emotional experience even for me in my home in Singapore.

The image that moved me was to see the face of Jesse Jackson beaming with pride and then his face streaming with tears. He shows the scars of the Civil Rights Movement, remembers his failed attempts to run for the Presidency, seeing the fulfillment of the Martin Luther King's dream, and witnessing his black brother attaining the pinnacle of political leadership of a great nation now energized with hope, possibilities and promise. I resonate and shed silent tears with him and others especially the blacks for I experienced the sorrows of the racial struggle when I began my college education in Kansas in 1947 and was in touch with the American scene since then.

With all the problems that we face even now with the financial crisis, global conflicts and the hitches in the LGBT movement, Obama embodies hope. In his acceptance speech when he included the word "gay" into the inclusive community of Americans he has embraced the gays and conjured up promise for the future. His life was rooted by his Kenyan father, began in womb of his white mother in the Kansan heartland, touched base amongthe Indonesians, immersed in the academic center of Harvard and engaged in communty organisation inspired by Saul Alinsky in Chicago. He has nurtured a global outlook, inherited an intellectual tradition and involvement in the grassroots. He now will give youthful, fresh and exciting global leadership to a tired and weary world.

Truly this is a defining moment for all us and it holds much promise and hope. If that grand old black poor woman who in the not too distant past could not vote, sat in the back of the bus, entered only segregated toilets and restaurants, lived in the slums could survive to see the day when a young black man is voted in as the President of the most powerful nation of the world, there is hope. All things are possible. Opportunities abound around us. We can, yes we can make a difference. Our faith in humanity is being restored, our trust in the future is being re-vitalized.

It is a dawn of a new day, the emerging of a bright future. The past is behind us and we have overcome, change has come, dreams are realised. Filled with faith and inspired we are called to participate to shape the tommorrows of God's people on this earth. We can all join to thank God for what God has accomplished. Our God has waited long for God's people to rise and march together to enter the promised land of God's rule on this earth.

Shalom, my friends, SHALOM
Kim Hao

Rev Dr Yap Kim Hao 10E, Braddell Hill, Apt. #16-17Singapore 579724Tel: +65-62504561
Email: kimhao.yap@gmail.com