It was a speech rich with the great oratory style of Abraham Lincoln, Franklin D Roosevelt, John F Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr, all of whom had faced a nation in crisis.
So, too, did Obama, taking the reins of a nation enduring the Great Recession, the country’s longest post-World War 2 economic crisis, its reputation tarnished by the Bush administration’s handling of the second war with Iraq.
Many of us in South Africa embraced Obama’s ascension as a watershed. There was a particular pride for us in Africa that a black man with a Kenyan father could rise to arguably the most powerful political office in the world.
So when Obama spoke on the steps of the Capitol that day in 2009, he was speaking not only to the US voters who had elected him but to a global community seeking hope amid the contagion of the 2008 economic meltdown, the pain of which is still felt.
Obama’s words that day are as powerful as ever:
„On this day, we gather because we have chosen hope over fear, unity of purpose over conflict and discord. On this day, we come to proclaim an end to the petty grievances and false promises, the recriminations and worn-out dogmas that for far too long have strangled our politics. „
But, as Obama says goodbye, he surely cannot help see that many in the US have turned their backs on that dream.
In electing Donald Trump, the US has chosen a man who is the exact opposite of what Obama promised, a leader who embodies a fractured, polarised and insular nation.
Will history judge him as a leader ahead of his time? Perhaps. But for now we should simply thank him for shining a light when hope was in short supply.
