I Am Buraot

In a world of gathering hate and intolerable differences, a world divided by race, culture, religions, dogmas and political beliefs, a world full of immeasurable wealth controlled by a few, a world full of industries with insatiable thirst for energy with utter disregard to its consequential effect, despite all these, we can never lose hope.

As I try to read over and over Martin Luther King’s famous speech, I can feel the pains of the struggle of the black people for racial equality and freedom. And despite this continuing struggle in a sea of hate and despair, people like MLK still managed to take the moral high ground and overcame hate.

More than 45 years ago, MLK stood on the Lincoln Memorial dreaming of a nation free of hatred and prejudices, that one day “little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers”. That one day, a nation born out of compassion and love for freedom will live up to its creed of racial equality.

Freedom for everyone. That was his dream.

A lot have happened since then. When a little girl refused to give up her seat to a white man, racial segregation was outlawed, thereafter the Civil Rights Act was enacted. And today, from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, we finally came to the White House. It was a long way, but we finally arrived.

We are now here, together as one, with our collective common bond, in the midst of all the setbacks and struggles, to feel and witness a new era of hope for a new and better world.

We now have an African American as our 44th President. Barack Hussein Obama, born from an African immigrant, embodies not only the dreams of Martin Luther King and the black people, he also embodies the hope for all the disadvantaged. He symbolizes the long struggle of the underrepresented to be heard, their long quest to find justice and equality, their fight for dignity and their God-given right to achieve peace and happiness.

He is the symbol of the end of the struggle to be free, and to be equal. His presidency will finally end the remaining bitter taste left by racial disharmony.

At the same time, he is a symbol of a new beginning. His presidency will usher us all into a new era on the history of the world, a world of different races, of different backgrounds, of different religion, all coming together and working for common goals. The common goals, not of a single nation, but of mankind.

He is a living symbol of change, of things to come.

But Obama is no messiah. Make no mistake of him delivering the common dream. We all have to work for it by coming together, and dismantling all the remaining barriers that make us all free.

He is just an instrument to the common aims that we all are trying hard to achieve. Let us make him our very own symbol of hope, our common hope of achieving our common dream.

The energy and hope captured by the symbolism of his presidency in this new age in a world full of strife and economic turmoil is more than enough for all of us to strive harder not just for ourselves, not just for our families, not just for our countries, but for the rest of the world.

Enough with our selfish aims of self-promotion.

The presence of those nuclear arsenals just waiting for that button for self-annihilation, misguided extremists who are hell bent on destroying the world, the continued heating of the planet by industries and people who cared no less, and simply our irresponsible attitude towards other people. These will all lead us to creating our own collective death.

On this day of the first day of President Barack Hussein Obama, the nation’s 44th president, on this day of historical significance, on this day full of captured international and racial symbolism, let us capture the moment and live the dream.

The dreams of Martin Luther King, of the Dalai Lama, of Mahatma Gandhi, and of all the heroes of every nation, the dream that we, as human beings all share.

The dream of a better world.