inauguration mistification

 

William Idrissi

 

Standing in the cold huddled up in the mass of people I could not help but to feel humbled and small compared to the "great unwashed" that gathered on the national mall today. It seemed that everywhere I looked Obama was staring back at me; button with his likeness was covering people’s clothes and T-shirts which showed him in a bright light. This was an eerie feeling as if Obama’s likeness was being idolized. What would the next step be? Maybe a monument for Obama or perhaps a Golden stature of our 44th president. To these people on the national mall Obama was more than a man. This led to the humbling effect that I mentioned earlier. Obama knows of this and definitely uses it to his advantage by introducing religion in his speech and by having priests bless the inauguration.  Religion played an important role today and in this Judeo-Christian dominated society this was used to connect the audience to Obama. however when Obama spoke the mass of people became very serious and began to whisper things such as "amen" or "that's right" these words and they way they are said is usually reserved for church when people feel the presence of something greater than themselves (God) so in this case the people unanimously react in the same way to Obama. Does this mean that people are idolizing Obama and giving him supernatural powers, based on the reactions of the people I do believe that Obama is addressed with respect that is only deserving of a messiah. People woke up at three and four in the morning just so they can be closer to him. This above celebrity status is one of the greatest myths for Obama is a mortal man and he is raising expatiations to a level which is unreachable. The constant myth is that Obama plays himself up to the historical figures, weather it is the “endorsement” from Dr. martin Luther King which we have no idea if he would have liked Obama or not. Also Obama uses Lincoln as another way to make himself larger than life in addition to taking the same route to dc that Lincoln did or swearing in on the same bible that Lincoln has Obama wants to achieve an immediate change to become a historical figure.

            Waiting for Obama to show I noticed something interesting, a complete lack of interest for the status quo. Any person who symbolizes the previous times was instantly met with violent booing from the crowd. The people would not accept anything except for change from their government which I think is a result of the peoples fear from repeating of the same mistakes. They feel that if they accept the people of the past cabinet or offices then somehow the problems will be repeated. I think it’s also due to Obama’s campaign strategy which persuaded people that change is a word that is synonymous with good. This may or may not be true but either way Obama successfully convinced us that he had change which we can believe in. this is a blatant myth for we don’t know what change will do, our instinct tells us that unknown change is bad, this is the reason why we are inherently afraid of the dark. But in this case where things are bad people are adopting a sinking ship policy which means we should discard everything from before and get on a new ship to safety.

            Oboma used many symbols to connect with the audience, patriotically charged music and historical flags were the least. He used his family and his modesty to try to influence us into believing that he is an average Joe with a heart of gold who wants to make a difference. And he is wildly successful at it. Martin Luther king’s “I have a dream” speech was echoed throughout the night and it was very apparent that Obama wanted you to think that martin’s dream included Obama election as a black president.