THE OBJECTIF

A Century from today, the perception of electing the first black man to the US presidency will be called the early man’s history. The historians, as they recount our history, will be quick to point to their students how the early men scuffled over insignificant things. It will be played over in social gatherings and filled with interjections to elicit laughter.

The historians will say, “Our civilization was built from theirs, but we take pleasure for not having to go through that kind of irrationality and infighting that impedes progress. Their history is primitive because they were too slow to learn from the past. They considered things that were insignificant history; the first woman to become president, the first black man to become president, the first black person to go into a house painted white on Pennsylvania Avenue enraged others and so on. Their natural differences had blinded them not to see what was for their universal good. Their blindness made them fight each other and erroneously believed fighting was progress itself. Even though they saw the potential of building their society and making it more prosperous, they were too reluctant to increase their pace because of the prejudices and animosities they harbored”.

As time changes, they are the ones who will remain stuck in the past and need a boot to eject them and they are the ones who will slowly progress with the changing times. In a rapidly changing world, our progress should no longer be measured by a movement from point A to B, but by how quickly we realize the benefit from moving from A to B in as short a time as possible.

Primitive communities have remained largely primitive because of their reluctance to challenge their stagnation and their willingness to gloat on the past. They trail because they have endorsed the belief that progress is progress; it does not have to come fast. They have since lagged behind and falsely taken consolation in the thought that no matter how fast they try, change inevitably comes slowly.

Obama’s election definitely and psychologically empowers some groups of people who might have been lost in the American dream, or felt it was far-fetched. However, just how long some will remain moaning at their loss and others entranced by their victory for varied reasons will be a true measure of a civilized progress.

For one group of people, history is a stepping stone and a springboard for better things. For another group, history has inevitably become the main impediment to progress. Nothing, but the choices we make now decides which group we will be a part of.

It is our history. Only we can shape it, and should we strive beyond our imaginary boundaries and delusional prejudices our success would be boundless. It is the effort to know what we do not know, the effort to realize our prejudices and the effort to be better that is our only liberation. Then our history will not be told with interjections in social gatherings to evoke laughter, but remembered and emulated for how quickly we were able to learn our hindrances and forged for a better future.

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