Rise

A spectator raises her fist in celebration seconds after it was announced that Barack Obama will be the 44th President of the United States at Ebenezer Baptist Church, Tuesday, Nov. 4, 2008.

"So you may shoot me with your words,
you may cut me with your eyes,
and I'll rise - I'll rise - I'll rise - rise - rise.
Out of the shacks of history's shame,
up from a past rooted in pain,
and I'll rise - I'll rise - I'll rise - rise - rise."

- written by Maya Angelou, as performed by Ben Harper

A seemingly endless string of disasters, a hardening of the spirit that drew new rifts between us, the elicitation of the corrupt, the incompetent, and the cruel; do we let ourselves believe that these dark times are over? Is this one sign enough to bring the wearying soul even the briefest respite? Is it a crack in these storm clouds that reminds us that the sun lies just beyond? Or is it first ray of a new dawn, that makes us realise the depth of the night and the inevitable direction of change?

As he said himself, "This victory alone is not the change we seek - it is only the chance for us to make that change". It may yet be a symbolic victory, but in a decade that seemed to lose the very meaning of "freedom", "democracy" and "human rights" as symbolic casualties of war, the promise of new meaning to these symbols is incredibly assuring. It may be simply changing the hands who wield power, but when those hands had become so stained with blood and money, there can be few things more important.

The million stories that have forged this piece of history reveal again that there is something in us which hungers for this light, a common part that yearns for freedom from a yoke that was bought in fear and desperation. It is a light, that no blindness can truly take, because we realise that for all the shadows and the chains that bound us in the cave of ignorance - the light itself was always there, burning from within us all.

May our children mark this as a vital and profound new chapter in the history of our interwoven civilisation. Peace.