Lesson from America: Love always wins
Kamala Harris (left) bumps fists with US President Joe Biden (right) after being sworn in as the 49th US Vice President on January 20, 2021, at the US Capitol in Washington, DC.
Like millions across the world, I watched history unfold as Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor asked Vice-President of United States Kamala Harris to “Please raise your right hand and repeat after me,” thereby signalling the beginning of a new era.
At exactly 11.48am Eastern Time (7.48pm, East African Time), the United States of America was under new management. It was all pomp after that, with a unique assortment of entertainment from Jenifer Lopez’s rendition of This is Your Land, to Garth Brook’s melodious Amazing Grace and a phenomenal poem The Hill we Climb by the impressive 22-year-old Amanda Gorman.
It was hard to believe that just two Wednesdays ago, the same US Capitol, in which Biden arrived for his inauguration, was under attack from a crowd of insurrectionists threating the Congress sitting to certify the presidential electoral result.
At the onset of the violence two weeks ago, none of us was sure about Wednesday, January 20 and if the inauguration would proceed peacefully. It all went well.
Former President Trump agreed to leave the White House and no violence was reported at the US Capitol on Inauguration Day.
Election madness
But even as this US election madness is now behind us and we can finally go back to our lives, I cannot help but think about the two sides that defined this election. One was a seemingly unreasonable group that flat out refused to accept unfavourable election results.
Led by a racist and hateful President Trump who incited violence at the US Capitol, the group peddled hate and violence that claimed five lives. The other was led by President Joe Biden, who called for unity in his inauguration speech pledging, “My whole soul is in it… Today, on this January day, my whole soul is in this—bringing America together, uniting our people, uniting our nation.”
In what seemed like a tug-of-war between two sides — hate and love — it would appear that love and unity emerged stronger and now the once superpower nation is on its way to recovery after four tumultuous years. It is hoped that President Biden’s administration will signal the return of decency to the White House and indeed to world leadership.
This is a cathartic moment for many of us after the shock we experienced in 2016 in President Trump’s inauguration. Then, it seemed like hateful, racist and divisive rhetoric had won. People felt defeated and wounded and it would only get worse — from the pictures we saw two weeks ago.
The biggest take-home for me, other than the fact that America is an incredibly fragile democracy, is the fact that in the end the good guy always wins.
Biden’s win, hard as it was to achieve, proves that the nice guys always finish first. More importantly, it proves that love always wins.
