As the Reverent Sylvester Beaman took the benediction on the podium, America and the whole world knew very well that the will of the people had indeed been fulfilled in the unprecedented inauguration day in the history of the United States of America. All clad in masks, they departed after the president and the first family left the venue that has become a ritualistic alter for American democracy.
Democracy is not always the best form of governance as we may be made to believe. In the words of Winston Churchill, “Democracy is less imperfect than the alternatives” and it is such a statement that urges us to carry on depositing our total faith in the system.
We have seen that democracy is fragile and is in a way far too easy to manipulate than other systems because the people turn to have that unimaginable level of slumber when they live within a democratic society. It is on the same note that Plato of ancient Greece warns that; “Dictatorship naturally arises out of democracy and the most aggravated form of tranny and slavery out of the most extreme liberty.” We almost saw the manifestation of this truth on American soil because the system had allowed a dictator to preside on the federation of the fifty states and six territories.
The continuity of the American democracy has always been a given until this year. In fact that has been slowly inching in through the last four years and most Americans shrugged it aside. This is why Trumps first impeachment failed. He was fully protected by men and women whose allegiance was with the leader and not the constitution.
Joseph Biden gave a sterling public speech and it was by all measure above the bar. I never regarded him to be one of the best public speakers, but he did his very best as he spoke from the heart. The man was addressing the current problems that are currently bedevilling the nation of America. “We must end this uncivil war” was the epitome of his speech.
As a man who has been in government since 1972 as a young senator, Biden has over the decades seen the American democracy evolve. Then it was in the thick of things in as far as the Cold War concerned. He clearly came out to support the majority of Blacks in apartheid South Africa and was not apologetic about it.
Biden became part of history when he became vice president to the first black man to become president of the United States of America. In this week’s event of his own inauguration, history was made when the first woman became the first vice president of the country.
Democracy can at times be very unpredictable. In my own judgement and many other scholars’, America was going to have the first woman president before a black man would become resident in the White House. In my own view that woman was going to be Hillary Clinton.
This determination was actually made when she was first lady. Her character and demeanour pointed to all that direction. But she gave it a try and failed at it. It seems Obama and Harris who became the forerunners in being first had it much easy compared to Clinton’s struggles that never bore any fruit.
Listening to the entire speech, the man applied a level of wisdom only second to that of King Solomon, the indisputably wisest man who ever walked the earth. As I listened to every word of the speech, Biden didn’t come out as an orator of note, but was delivering a speech crafted to leave out the name of his predecessor. However, reading between the lines one could pick several words littered in the speech that had direct inference to Donald Trump.
Indeed Trump is a spent force. His absence had no consequence on this great event but it seems the fellow is not awake to that fact. But America and the rest of the free world breathed a sigh of relieve the moment Biden placed his hand on that historic Bible to pronounce his oath and his allegiance to the ideals of democracy.
But more honourable was the attendance of Mike Pence who served as vice president under Trump. It seems Pence and characters like Mitch McConnell ditched Trump on the eleventh hour and obeyed their consciences. It is important that as citizens of democratic nations, we at times need to listen to the inner man and obey by doing the right thing in the interest of the nation.
At one point it was feared that Trump was going to remain perpetually as president by declaring marshal law over the country. There have been similarities between him and our own Ian Khama. We all had our apprehensions about Khama leaving the State House. And the moment his successor took the oath of office, even the heavens opened up to witness the moment we had all been waiting for.
The weakest link in democracy is exposed when certain individuals are able to manipulate the system for their personal greed. And in most cases it becomes a bit difficult to deal with such manipulation. Even with the US with a democracy with a history of more than two hundred years, it seems loopholes still occur in that manipulation of the system can still be achieved.
Summing up the words of the president, he said in his speech that; “I will be a president of all Americans.” America needed a man of the calibre of Biden than any other character. For the chaos and challenges that the country has emerged from, an individual with the temperament of Biden was needed more than ever. His signature now bears the power that America possesses.
