from the Guardian UK:
What our country desperately needs is a leader who loves us
Americans have been treated with contempt for so long that we have become inured to our own society's sufferingAlice Walker
The Guardian, Saturday September 20 2008
I remember seeing a picture of Fidel Castro in a parade with lots of other Cubans. It was during the emergency years, the "special period" when Cuba's relationship with the Soviet Union had collapsed and there was little gas or oil or fertiliser; people were struggling to find enough to eat. It was perhaps Cuba's nadir, as a small Caribbean island nation considered a dangerous threat by its nearest neighbour, the United States - which, during this period, tightened its embargo. Fidel, tall, haggard, his clothes hanging more loosely than usual from his gaunt frame, walked soberly along, surrounded by thousands of likewise downhearted, fearful people: he, like them, waving a tiny red, white and blue Cuban flag. This photograph made me weep; not only because I love Fidel and the Cuban people, but also because I was envious.
However poor the Cubans might be, I realised, they cared about each other and they had a leader who loved them. A leader who loved them. Imagine. A leader not afraid to be out in the streets with them, a leader not ashamed to show himself as troubled and humbled as they were. A leader who would not leave them to wonder and worry alone, but would stand with them, walk with them, celebrate with them - whatever the parade might be.
This is what I want for our country, more than anything. I want a leader who can love us. This is not what we usually say, or think of, when we are trying to choose a leader. People like to talk about "experience" and war and the economy, and making Americans look good again. I care about all these things. But when the lights are out and I'm left with just the stars in a super-dark sky, and I feel the new intense chill that seems to be the underbreath of even the hottest day, when I know that global warming may send our planet into a deep freeze even before my remaining years run out, then I think about what it is that truly matters to me. Not just as a human, but as an American.
I want a leader who can love us. And, truthfully, by our collective behaviour, we have made it hard to demand this. We are as we are, imperfect to the max, racist and sexist and greedy above all; still, I feel we deserve leaders who love us. We will not survive more of what we have had: leaders who love nothing, not even themselves. We know they don't love themselves because if they did they would feel compassion for us, so often lost, floundering, reeling from one bad thought, one horrid act to another. Killing, under order, folks we don't know; abusing children of whose existence we hadn't heard; maiming and murdering animals that have done us no harm. ......(more)
The complete piece is at:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/sep/20/uselections2008.barackobama
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