It's been 40 years since Martin Luther King gave his prophetic last speech, the 'I have been to the mountaintop' speech, in which he spoke of a wonderful future ... presciently noting that though he wouldn't make it, it would be magnificent when it came.

He was assassinated the next day. 

I dare to believe now, that with Barak Obama, who so much resembles Martin Luther King with his celestial rhetoric and presence, that vision has come.

For such a long time I've been reluctantly anti-American, and I have to say, as someone who feels uncomfortable with being anti-anything, it felt terrible ... it's felt like a decade of holding my breath.

My god ... only a decade?  

No, it's been longer.

 I remember when I was a kid ... only ten - even here in Australia there was a magnificent euphoria when John Kennedy became President.  Somehow the world seemed full of hope and optimism - whether because my mother and father talked about him a lot,  I don't know.  But I knew about him and Jackie and I thought they were gods.

And then, when he was assasinated, I knew about that too - because all the adults around me seemed panicked and upset. I knew a terrible thing had happened.  

And then four years later Martin Luther King was killed and Robert Kennedy, and again my mother and father were greatly affected, and it felt as if the forces of darkness were closing in ... killing off all the beauty and dreams in the world.

So now,as I think about it, it hasn't been only a decade - it's been forty years I've been holding my breath, waiting for the same feeling of hope and optimism to come back that I had as a child, when my mother and father admired a man who spoke sincerely about unity and a vision of a better future.

Because after Robert Kennedy died, who certainly would have been a magnificent president, the princes of darkness, the inept, the cynical and the pale pretenders kept coming - Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush ... then Clinton who brought hope and inspiration, but was shackled by his own weakness and a Republican Congress ... then Bush the younger .... the most hideous of all.  

But worst of all was the growing cynicism of my American friends.  

It felt terrible because though they're wonderful, intelligent people, most seemed to give in to their cynicism and disengage.  

And though a part of me understood their position -  that the extraordinary heart and intelligence of America was constantly being overshadowed and dominated by the fear, greed and insularity of what had seemed like a majority who were always more vocal and more demanding and able to mobilise - still I felt my friends should be looking further than just themselves.

So though I understood their disillusionment, I couldn't understand their retreat into apathy - their prevailing view being that even if a Democrat visionary was voted in, they'd only be hamstrung and stifled by the labyrinthine machinations of the American political system, and the massive power of corporate lobbyists, so what was the use.

I couldn't understand their self righteous resignation from the only power they had to effect change - their vote.  And in part I saw it as a betrayal of all of us who are not Americans - because whether we acknowledge it or not, Americans not only have a responsibility for electing their own president - by virtue of America's immense power they also have the responsibility for electing the leader of the world. 

So each international disaster that followed Bush's election - the two wars, the polarization, arrogant rapacity and hatefilled rhetoric, I slated to them - because they had, by inaction and a self centered rationale, helped to create it all. 

But they couldn't see it - so I lost faith in them - and America - and in the darkness that followed Bush's first election, I hoped that America would at least have the grace to self destruct quickly, because self destruction seemed to be their sub-conscious desire.  At least then, with the Yanks gone, the rest of the world could pick up the pieces and have a chance for the future. 

So I've watched this election with a mix of fear and hope - fear that the Yanks would fuck it up again, whether through assassination or apathy ... and hope that now, at the most critical time, they might just be desperate enough to do the right thing by us all. 

And they have.

And as I watched Obama's victory speech, I felt an intense relief and renewed hope because it felt as if I was finally able to breathe. 

Because in Barak Obama, I saw the Yanks had finally elected a good human being as their leader - not a narcissistic smartie-pants, nor a master of the universe, or a prince of darkness - but a good hearted human being, possessed of intelligence, integrity and great purpose.  

Finally.

Whether we like it or not ... Barak Obama's election affects us all. I just hope he's got the strength to do what needs to be done. 

Welcome back, America ... welcome back to the world.

VICTORY SPEECH Part 1

VICTORY SPEECH Part 2