What a joy to witness the inauguration of a man of colour as the leader of the USA. We know he stands as a symbol of hope and new possibility, the whole nation here is feeling that. American friends talk of a new era, pride and possibility that has been buried for the last 8 years. So we, the millions in Washington and the many more millions around the world who watched President Obama take office with grace and some style, can be sure we are stepping into a new era. And Obama in his speech was signaling this so clearly, in language not heard before from a US American leader.
Its amazing to think that the work of the Awakening the Dreamer Initiative was only started in ‘05 as a response to the dearth of discussion about the environment in the last US Presidential election, and now the new President is saying;
“each day brings further evidence that the ways we use energy strengthen our adversaries and threaten our planet” and “we will harness the sun and the winds and the soil to fuel our cars and run our factories”.
Better is to come, for beyond the ecological he goes on to say this about social justice;
“a nation cannot prosper long when it favors only the prosperous” and “that the lines of tribe shall soon dissolve; as the world grows smaller, our common humanity shall reveal itself”
And then he talks about our spiritual nature;
“the spirit of service; a willingness to find meaning in something greater than themselves. And yet, at this moment — a moment that will define a generation — it is precisely this spirit that must inhabit us all.”
So Hallelujah, Hooray, Right On. And . . . . . . . .
His job isn’t easy. Years ago I was involved in a programme with the Leadership Trust, a bunch of ex-SAS guys who had become the sexy fashion in leadership development in the UK. We played a game in which a team of 30 or so of us operated a paint mixing factory – lots of fun pretending and filling different coloured buckets with gloop from multi-coloured pipes to fulfil orders from imagined customers. We were all allocated different roles, mine was to play the role of CEO in a team of simple structure, me and a board, supervisors and the workforce. My mission was to change the way the factory team operated. I met with my board and, not short on vision, we communicated to the supervisors in order to have them enroll the workforce in some new practices. Long story short, I sat with horror, confined to ‘HQ’ as my colleagues scurried around trying to change a system that was already set in its way and rolling. It took enormous persistence, co-ordination and focus to have our ideas reflected in what was actually happening. I can still vividly remember the sense of powerlessness, and that in a team of 30 not a nation of 300 million.
And . . . . the work is still for us to do, individually, locally, within our own coomunities and with whatever contribution each of us can give. A new chief at the helm is inspiring and invigourating, but we need to keep his administration to account for delivering on the promises of the campaign trail. As a Brit I’ve been burned. In May ‘97 we elected a young, articulate and inspiring politician, who spoke convincingly of principle-led politics, of ethical foreign policy and justice and equality for all. He seemed such a tonic after 19 years of Conservative governments, but within a year we’d caught him pocketing Bernie Ecclestone’s million quid and 10 years later his legacy is little more than the war in Iraq, the lies that took the UK into that war and the many hundreds of thouands of lives this has taken or touched. Tony Blair ultimately lacked the moral fibre to be the stand he had so clearly defined.
None of this is a comment on Barack Obama, but it is a stark reminder for us to particiapte, get inolved, have our say, Stand Up and Speak Out. So to all of us here in the US of A, let’s seize the opportunity we now have to continue the reform required, in our thinking, our own lives and our systems and structures to build a world that works for us all.
With hope and virtue, let us brave once more the icy currents, and endure what storms may come.
