6.11.08

Obama Mania

Barack Obama is finally elected the 44th President of the USA. The first person of colour to do so. Such a historic moment. For some odd reason, I was glued to the CNN (and BBC and Al-Jazeera too) all day long. It does bring back the March 8 memory in some ways. But I was mighty impressed with the CNN coverage - from the technology used right up to its oh so eloquent celebrity news anchors.
But in between hard hitting (and poignant moments) news coverage of the presidential election, there were some "light" news too. Interestingly, it is Obama mania the world over and why not when, especially the man himself possesses some form of connection to African and Asia.
But I do feel "kelakar" watching the non US citizens celebrating away, some were seen more excited than the American themselves. I guess, its human nature to feel good about the election of Mr Obama as the US president especially if you have some kind of connection (no matter how remote) to the man himself... but to celebrate melampau-lampau... that's silly and funny.

Here are some of the silly moments that I managed to watch:

1. The celebrations at Kogela, Kenya, Obama's ancestral home (the father hailed from there). Apparently, they are having a carnival to celebrate the momentous occasion for days, mengalahkan the Americans. And the Kenyan president declared a public holiday for Kenya the day after the win. Reaaalllly!!!
2. Kids at Fransiskus Asisi Catholic School, in Central Jakarta, Indonesia were seen screaming and dancing in the school courtyard after the results became official. Okay, Obama studied there in late 60s for three years but for the life of me, I could not not even begin to imagine why this young kids should be so over the moon. They are barely 12 years, in fact most look much much younger.
3.Apparently there's a small town in Japan called Obama. And of course one very creative musician wrote a song entitled "Obama loves Obama" and then he got a few residents from Obama to sing the song in his music video.

I rest my case.