Moscow, November 5th. At 7 am my phone rang and Mom screamed excitedly ‘we won’! Ten minutes later I was braving November morning cold and what seemed like the early stages of pneumonia to get to the Starlite Diner, the place where American Democrats in Russia were meeting for breakfast.
Running into the restaurant I saw everyone’s eyes glued to the screen. I caught the second half of new president’s historic speech. Next few hours were filled with tears, champagne, Wolf Blitzer, scrambled eggs and happiness. On my way home on a Moscow metro I felt like I was in the same carriage as the people around me but we were in completely different worlds. My facial expression, light and cheerful, clashed with the grim faces with eyes in which someone switched off all the light. Asia, Africa, Europe, even China embraced this new world that came to be that morning, but not Russia. Never mind guys. Maybe later. In recognising this you’ll be late (and stiff) like you are in everything else.
When Morgan Freeman played American president in Deep Impact in mid 90s it seemed equally cool and as it did unlikely. I was too young to understand why it felt like that intellectually and it was rather on a sense level, like measuring room temperature. We have now overcome that ‘unlikely’ feeling and the temperature that measures our kindness, intelligence, tolerance, openness has changed. As it turns out we didn’t give ourselves enough credit. It is true that Barack ran for president as an American and not as a black man and won the election because he truly is an outstanding man and not on the grounds of his skin color. However, the fact remains - he is the first African American to be elected to highest office in the country and, still, in all likelihood, in the world. It is the fact we should all be proud of.
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