By Darren Jordan
In this most historic month, which just happens to be the one in which I was born, this generation has been privileged enough to witness the fulfillment of all those promises that were made 200+ years ago. The inauguration of the United States’ first black president is not only a milestone for them but for the world. Deservedly so, many are still in disbelief, disbelief that the marches of Martin Luther King and the cries of Rosa Parks were not in vain and that the proof of this happened in their lifetime.
As a young leader with inherent perception on such historic political events of this magnitude, I am relieved. I am relieved by the reception given to Mr Obama by the non black demographic, being for the most part, welcoming with arms wide open. I am relieved that this man has come at a time when many thought that they were still sitting at the back of the bus but now see that they are sitting in a tinted limousine.
I am relieved that we can begin to shy away from the terms of black people and white people and that we can just try to live as just people. As usual, I wouldn’t be the only one with this sort of sentiment and what that represents is progress. What he represents is progress. He has done it without spending a day in office.
Again on a minority scale, it was official at 5:29 on the 21st of January 2009 that Hilary Clinton now holds the highest foreign policy position in America which pretty much makes her the most important woman in a world. Did you know that she just happens to be the second woman in a row to hold this position?
At the time of introduction of the microchip, many said that with that technological breakthrough, advancement in that field would grow exponentially. It will soon be evident to those who haven’t seen that Barack Obama is that microchip. He has made all people equal and it necessarily follows that all opportunity will be equal. It is with that that we can expect that exponential growth.
My inaugural experience was clearly life changing. Though we all had to hassle with three million people all converging to one spot (I call it the toilet bowl effect) and we all got frustrated with the security checks, I managed to free myself enough to take in some of Collin Powell, Al Gore and James Carville’s speeches in my pre inaugural activities.
They all basically had the same message and that was, they don’t want to hear about where you have been, they don’t want to hear about what you went through, they just want to know if you can take them forward.
This is what we got out of the Obama campaign and continue to understand through his actions now that he is president. Yes he has a huge mess to clear up but that makes all of his decisions history making and to be associated with that is what makes me part of history. Besides, with three million people and four thousand portable toilets across Washington on Inauguration Day, nothing can be more of a mess than that.
**Darren Jordan is a 19 year old Guyanese studying Actuarial Science at the University of Toronto who was invited to the Barack Obama Inauguration as a Global Youth Leader. He attended and represented Guyana at the Global Youth Conference in 2007 at the United Nations and the People to People Confer-ence in the same year. At the UN conference he was elected as Commissioner of the Conference.
Darren is a graduate of the School of Nations and the son of Caricom Direc-tor of Foreign Policy Charmaine Jordan and former Budget Director Winston Jordan.
