Missing America

For perhaps the first time since coming back to Jamaica, I have a strong feeling of missing being in America.

As the results came in for Obama's victory -- a landslide in electoral terms -- the hope that I can dimly remember associating with the world's foremost democracy started to seep back in, after what seems like an eternity of dark gloom.

The Bush years made me glad to be living back home in Jamaica, away from the ugliness, wars and fear that started for me in 2000 with the Bush election "victory."

Now, it seems, America is back... simply by demonstrating that so much is possible for a Black man, and by extension, for every person in the world who has ever been told that that "they can't."

Whether or not Obama turns out to be a great president or not, at this point in time humanity has won an important victory of possibility over cynicism, resignation and despair. That this is happening in America is not historically surprising.

That it comes after the awful Bush years IS shocking to me, and the repudiation of that awful brand of leadership, politics, partisanship and anti-intellectualism comes as a giant leap away from an abyss.

I miss living in America, where this kind of transformation is what life is all about, and what makes that country the single most coveted physical and emotional destination for anyone seeking a better life.