Obama: America changes face

Unreasonable. Impudent. Visionary to the point that he seems unconnected to reality. How else would you describe someone who, against all odds chooses to break rules and defy common sense to create something different and better? Until last night, VitaEurope considered him a social innovator, activist, change maker. His territory was a school, a neighbourhood, a city a slice of the market. And his only weapon was the ability to believe in something that can’t be seen.

This morning we call him President. Because an activist has taken the White House; his territory is the world and his face – black, young, an outsider to the Washington lobby – symbolises something even more precious than the change upon which he built his electoral campaign. Barack Obama represents the courage to dream, to dream, to believe that the individual really can make a difference. More than that, the courage to dare: to think so far beyond the schemes and so in big to be able to actually obtain the unattainable.  In the book, The Audacity of Hope, Obama tells the story of how he built his confidence, brick after brick, watching the kids in the poor areas of Chigago becoming agents of change. This happened 10 years ago. Imagine yourselves in his shoes: ok, you are a black man, with a degree from Harvard and the positive experience of borderline kids who take their destiny into their hands. But you are still a black man, with no family wealth and few political connections. How on earth do you decide you want to become president of the United States of America? Are you mad? Unreasonable, if anything. Unreasonables is the title of one of our blogs, it talks about social enterprise and is dedicated to those people who dedicate themselves body and soul to a neighbourhood, a school, a city, a slice of the market to make the vision inside their heads into reality.  Those people who feel in their gut Obama’s words, citing Martin Luther King: “the urgent need of now”. Something that makes you dare and makes it impossible to run and hide. Impudent? Visionary? Mad? Welcome to the club Mr President. His march towards the White House is much more than a Masters in social enterprise. It is the inspiration, the pat on the back and the energy for aspiring agents of change.

Find out more:

Obama’s America: What American civil society can expect from the Democrats

McCain’s America: What American civil society could have expected from the Republicans