Tim Cohen
21 January 2009
Washington, DC — SOUTH Africans who remember the 1994 inauguration of Nelson Mandela at the Union Buildings would have instantly recognised the atmosphere yesterday when Barack Obama was inaugurated as the 44th president of the US.
The powerful sense of history in the making, the intoxicating tingle of anticipation and expectation, all underpinned by a feeling of relief, almost as though one could breathe out at last after having held one's breath for what had seemed like an eternity.
And like Mandela's inauguration, there were memorable moments of humour too. Newspaper articles exhorted Obama to take seriously his role as "first eater" to set an example for healthy eating. Ice cream chain Ben and Jerry's launched a new ice cream called " yes pecan" . Signs on the mall proclaimed "we have overcome", and "one people, united under a single grove" .
While the similarities with Mandela's inauguration were all conceptual, the differences were all physical; the almost unbelievable throng of humanity, the crunchingly arctic cold, the forbidding security presence, and the sense of technology everywhere -- huge TV screens, cellphone cameras pointed in every direction.
To most South Africans, -8°C is a foreign country, yet even this extraordinary natural barrier failed to diminish either the emotionality or the number of people who turned out to witness the inauguration of Obama. By the end of the day, the use of the word unprecedented had itself become unprecedented.
But the temperature was the dominating character. Minus eight hits you in the face like a brick wall. Preparing for it is like putting on armour -- layers of socks and vests, and even then the cold creeps in.
Yet more than 1-million people felt the need to confront this natural barrier -- despite gentle suggestions from even Obama himself that it might be better to watch from home -- on the huge stretch of public park headed by the Capitol building on one end and tailed by the Lincoln Memorial.
In fact, for the huge crowd, the powerful cold -- unusual even by Washington winter standards -- just seemed to encapsulate the sense of the times; an oddly appropriate symbol for the parlous state of the world economy in general and the US in particular; the need for fortitude, and an urgent call to renewal. And this is the essence of what Obama offers, and what he offered in his inauguration speech, a timely, national pep-talk.
Yet, as it was endlessly pointed out this week, an extraordinary weight of expectations now sits on the shoulders of a young, thin, black man. But Obama seems to carry it with all with an impressive and inspiring lightness.
Obama was criticised over the past week for subtly drawing comparisons between himself and another young senator from Illinois who was boosted into the country's highest office after only a short stint as a public representative.
The New York Times said the comparison highlighted "two cool, self-contained men who managed to stay calm and graceful under pressure; two stoics embracing the virtues of moderation and balance, two relatively new politicians who were initially criticised for lack of experience and questioning an invasion of a country that, in Lincoln's words, was 'in no way molesting, or menacing the US'."
Yet in one important respect, Obama's election is like no other; his race distinguishes the event, and the crowd on the National Mall included many black Americans, partly bearing witness to this aspect of the event.
Also present were a surprising number of young families; parents wanting to use the event to introduce their children to the politics of inspiration.
Politics has an amazing ability to uplift and inspire, arouse and enthuse, as Obama's inauguration showed. But it also has a terrible capacity to disappoint. Without a record to defend or history to play tricks with your intentions, inaugurations are great opportunities for political upliftment.
Mandela's was and Obama's was too. But the future awaits.
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