Obama Quotes

Santai membaca buku The Bridge: The Life and Rise of Barack Obama karya David Remnick di kamar Hotel Oasis, Banda Aceh. Buku setebal 800 halaman. Ia mencoba merekam sejarah awal Obama. Dari perkenalan Barack Obama Sr. dengan Ann Durham hingga kemenangan Obama dalam pemilihan presiden Amerika Serikat 2009.

©2010 Andreas Harsono

Selama seminggu tinggal di Hotel Oasis, Banda Aceh, aku mulai membaca buku The Bridge: The Life and Rise of Barack Obama karya David Remnick. Aku kira buku ini memperkaya pemahaman aku soal bukan saja Obama namun politik ras di Amerika Serikat. Ia juga melengkapi pemahaman aku setelah sebelumnya membaca buku-buku karya Obama.

Remnick seorang wartawan bermutu. Kini dia redaktur executive mingguan The New Yorker. Dia juga menulis soal proses pemilihan Senator maupun Presiden di Amerika Serikat. Mulai dari fund raising hingga poll, dari grass root hingga elite. Ini buku bermutu yang kelak akan memperkaya diskusi soal Obama.

Aku mencatat beberapa quote Obama:

• I have an unusual name and an exotic background, but my values are essentially American values.
• I'm rooted in the African-American community, but not limited by it.
• America and Islam are not exclusive and need not be in competition. Instead, they overlap, and share common principles of justice and progress, tolerance and the dignity of all human beings.
• Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we've been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.
• Al Qaeda is still a threat. We cannot pretend somehow that because Barack Hussein Obama got elected as president, suddenly everything is going to be OK.
• I know my country has not perfected itself. At times, we've struggled to keep the promise of liberty and equality for all of our people. We've made our share of mistakes, and there are times when our actions around the world have not lived up to our best intentions.
• It took a lot of blood, sweat and tears to get to where we are today, but we have just begun. Today we begin in earnest the work of making sure that the world we leave our children is just a little bit better than the one we inhabit today.