Obama week

What an extraordinary week! All the news flooding out of America as Barack Obama hits the track sprinting. He certainly used the days between election and taking over office to good effect.

I heard a interview (BBC Radio4) which surprised both the interviewer and me,and has kept me thinking. One black person felt that with the Inauguration, he felt like he now belonged to America, and that now it was more his country, he would make more effort to get involved in solving its problems. Yet this man was born in America, and had been ‘american’ for all his life. Before this week, he did not really believe this was ‘his country’. If this hope and energy can be harnessed, maybe America will turn around in many new ways in the upcoming years.

Certainly I take hope from a new willingness to interact with world affairs, and the recruitment of experienced people whatever their creed.