Vintage Galleh. You have come through again. Perchance, this is my singular
affinity with Obama's potential. A value that stores enormous perspective to
all but cancel centuries of despondency, Eden's vicissitudes. I had wished
this value of Obama to become more apparent in his supporters. Like John Edwards
before him, it portends adoration and focus. Nay the intricacies of
untethered hope and erstwhile considerations threaten to retire it ever so
discretely. It is not too late however and I join in your sense of more tethered hope.
Thank you for you. Such potential. Such moorings.
Masoud. MQJGDT. Darbo. Al Khairawan.
In a message dated 2/4/2008 10:44:02 P.M. Mountain Standard Time,
[log in to unmask] writes:
A Prayer for the Hopeful
By Baba Galleh Jallow
He sat there, watching, listening, thinking, and the tears rose like a hot
fountain of grief from the depths of his heart and ran down the sides of his
cheeks as those three words, those words of hope and power, those words of
sense and sensibility, those words sang by men and women, adults and children
who have much to look for, who dare to hope, sank into the depths of his soul.
Yes we can, they sang, yes we can.
The tears welled up in his eyes and ran down the hills of his face as he
thought how so different, how so very different this land, these people who can
sing so confidently of hope, of ability, of spirit, of freedom, and choice.
How so different from the land of political bullies and security thugs, so
different from the land where the people cannot sing of hope, where if they must
sing of hope, they must sing of hope under the weight of anger and a hot
determination to buck that bully, those bullies, with clenched teeth and burning
hearts, and the words can only come out of their mouths in a fit of rage,
and the passions can only flow from their hearts like poisoned arrows, like
molten lava, sizzling hot from rage at the monster that will not let them sing
of hope in peace and freedom.
The tears welled up in his eyes. He wanted to stop them, but let them flow
like rivers down his cheeks as a sacrifice for his country, that beautiful
country now turned into a punching bag by monstrous political bullies who have
killed the people’s rights to hope, to humanity; he let the tears flow for
those millions of people who have been turned into milch cows and milch goats,
who have been turned to little more than donkeys to be ridden upon at every
moment of day, slaves to the wanton and unbridled greed of callous men and
women. Tears for that beautiful hope that, like a new born baby, is being
strangled by the corny hands of callous despots, that hope that has been microwaved
to death, baked in the blazing fires of men who are men but in shape and
form, who are the very devil himself in human skin, whose little minds can only
think of themselves and the satiation of their gross appetites, a gross lust
for power and glory they will never get, will never win. Soul-blind men that
can’t see that power and glory cannot be obtained through the shedding of
blood and tears, but through the free labors of the mind, through the generous
flowering of the senses, of hope and creativity, through the soaring of the
human imagination to the limitless heights of the distant skies, to the million
corners of the world. He shed tears for that beautiful land that is being
raped by the phallic hearts of mindless despots.
How so terribly sad that in those lands of potential plenty, there is merely
want; that in those lands of innocent peaceful, there is only strife, that
in those lands of plentiful hope, hope so plenty that it could drench the
world, there only lurks a hopelessness that can only make you cry at the sight of
hope. How so tragic that in those lands of beautiful hearts and beautiful
minds, only the heartless ugly and the mindless tyrant can smile and eat their
fill and sleep in comfortable beds. How so very tragic that in those lands of
generosity, only the mean and the miserly are in positions to give or to
take liberty and freedom; how so sad that in those lands of neighborly love,
neighbor slays neighbor, brother hacks brother to bloody pieces, and sister
kills sister because a few greedy men will not let the people live out their
hope, sing out their hopes and wishes at the top of their voices without fear and
without a care in the world. They will not let the people say yes we can.
Watching those hopeful souls sing, he cried for those souls that could not
sing of hope. He cried for those millions of hapless men, women, and children
who even at that very moment were shivering with fear and hunger in the
dusty, thirsty, thorny, and viper-infested sands of Sudan, in the cracked plains
of Chad, cradling the cold ridges of Mount Kenya; those poor souls who have
been driven from their homes, cruelly snatched from their loved ones and thrust
into the jaws of snake infested jungles of Congo, to become food for the
hungry hyena and gluttonous vulture, their flesh and blood and bones to be
strewn like so many evil trophies in the forests of Central Africa. He cried for
those poor souls waiting to be raped, waiting to die, waiting to be torn to
pieces by wild beasts of prey only because a few greedy and mindless tyrants
want to spend the rest of their empty lives wallowing in the lap of luxury. He
cried for those souls for whom the very sound of hope has become alien, yet
for whom hope is the only reason to hang on to live.
As the beautiful song of those hopeful souls faded away into endless space
and the last notes of their musical voices trailed off into the wilderness of
his soul, flowing like a disappearing river into the heart of his spirit,
Mojo stood up, his face awash with the sacred tears of sacrifice, and raised his
hands to heaven, and said a prayer for those beloved lands so full of hope,
yet so lack of hope. And he prayed to the heavens saying, please Lord, please
make us too sing, YES WE CAN. And he felt the smile of the Lord upon his
tear-washed face, and he said: Yes We Can!
_________________________________________________________________
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