Listening to Obama

Listening to Obama / Diario de Cuba, Dariela Aquique Moon
Posted on January 21, 2015

Diario de Cuba, Dariela Aquique Moon | Havana | 21 Jan 2015 – Of course
it wasn't shown on Cuba television's state channel, but Telesur did
broadcast live and in full the State of the Union speech delivered
yesterday evening by President Barack Obama. His spontaneity, his
affable but convincing tone, his way of exhorting but not prescribing,
and each of the issues addressed in his speech; it all makes me think
this man is perhaps now one of the most progressive politicians in the
world, though I wouldn't want to be absolutist.

In the final of his two terms, when he has only two years left in the
White House, Obama doesn't want to leave the arena without having
accomplished his proposals. And as he said himself, at this point in the
game, his proposals go far beyond promises to gain followers in an
electoral campaign, it is about doing what he believes is right and best
for his country.

Listening to a speech like this and seeing the natural reactions of the
audience, that some stand and applaud, get excited and express it; or
some simply disagree, don't clap and remain seated; seeing and hearing a
speech like this, where there is no obligation of unanimity, no set
slogans shouted, I see the face of democracy a little bit closer,
something I do not know because having been born in Cuba, and being only
eleven when the bearded-ones entered Havana, I've lived here on this
island that I don't want to leave my whole life.

I confess I was excited when the American president asked Congress to
suspend the Cuban embargo. When he talked about the reforms necessary in
favor of immigrants who make up an important part of the economy and of
US society. When he referred, without trappings and stock phrases, to
respect for diversity. Beyond being male or female, black or white, gay
or straight, Democrat or Republican.

Since I was a child, I've become accustomed to hearing only two types of
allocutions: the bombastic, pamphleteering and extensive harangues of
the Comandante; and for some years now, the brief, always read, and dull
proclamations of the General. But both have something in common, the
marked intention of convincing people that there is nothing more fair
than socialism (their socialism). These fanatical outbursts that always
try to show the dark side of any political practice would be somewhat
compromised if all Cubans could hear Obama's speech in its entirely,
where he demonstrates that is possible to fight for social equality (or
at least to try to), regardless of whether one is capitalist or socialist.

The American leader has demonstrated his excellent skills as an orator;
this annual State of the Union will perhaps be considered along with
Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address and Martin Luther King's I Have a
Dream speech, as one of the best in American history.

Perhaps readers will think I have an excess of enthusiasm for a speech,
And perhaps they are right, but I am not used to proclamations like
this. This was a positive and hopeful speech in a context where
everything appears to be starting to change once and for all. I've
always heard political tirades to the point of paroxysms. And hearing
Obama, I who want a different Cuba, I have a dream.*

*In English in the original

Source: Listening to Obama / Diario de Cuba, Dariela Aquique Moon |
Translating Cuba -
http://translatingcuba.com/listening-to-obama-diario-de-cuba-dariela-aquique-moon/