The inauguration of Barack Obama on 20th January seems to have inspired us with the hope and promise of a new world order. The causes of world strife and conflict rooted in racial difference we hope will be eradicated, just like our colour blindness towards this remarkable man.

His predecessors had anglicised names of the establishment: Bush, Clinton, Lincoln, Washington, Regan, Carter, whereas Obama has names reminiscent of the world of terrorism (Osama Bin Laden and Sadam Hussein).

There was a prayer on everyone’s lips for his safety, I’m sure, when he walked around so freely after his inauguration, just like the prayer most of us have for this man in whom we have placed such huge expectations for everything from a day’s work to world peace.

Obama’s success can be attributed to several factors:
• The grass-roots nature of his campaign and support, and his personal charisma and rhetoric.
• The language of his message and delivery, so moving and solid.
• His election, as a black man, a defining moment in American history, and the scale of his achievement bringing tears, euphoria and elation.
• His executive actions in the first days of his presidency: pay freezes for top officials, the banning of lobbyists and special interest groups from the doors of the White House.
• The cessation of trials condemning prisoners to torture and the horrors of Guantanemo Bay inspire confidence.
• ‘Yes We Can’. John Farreau, the 27 year-old aide, who coined the famous election slogan, is responsible for Obama’s powerful acceptance speech, and is said to have worked on it 16 hours a day for 8 weeks.

When he spoke, it was as if the gods were with him. There were three miles of people stretching from the White House, down Pennsylvania Avenue, to the Lincoln memorial. It was not so much an election, as a movement. He was like Caesar, the people kept almost total silence, with only a few odd ripples of applause. When he spoke, he seemed to actually elevate people’s sense of self.

As well as being a politician, Obama published his book ‘Dreams From My Father’ in 1995, when he was the first black president of the Harvard Law Society.

It is his memoir which became a bestseller soon after it was reissued in 2004. The book is a masterpiece: the writing is elegant and vivid, describing the birth of social conscience and awareness borne of his background and race. A rounded, balanced and calm leader has emerged from the most unpromising of beginnings.

Born to a white mother from Kansas and a black father, a visiting student from Kenya, he was exposed early to the ugly realities of racism but did not become embittered.

His parents separated when he was a toddler, his mother subsequently marrying a man from Indonesia, where he lived and went to school until he was 10. Back in America, he was raised in Hawaii by his grandparents, his much loved Gramps and Toot.

His mother, who died prematurely from cancer, instilled in him a social conscience. As a young man, he campaigned among the poorest of Chicago’s poor and subsequently went to Harvard. It is the extraordinary story of a man in search of himself.