Today, we are all Americans!
On September 20, 2001, nine days after the WTC bombing, French President Jacques Chirac, alighting from the chopper that overflew ground zero, muttered these memorable and unforgettable words.
Today we are all Americans.
Not since 9/11, has so much of the world’s population been so connected with America; have so many people from diverse backgrounds been so keyed into things American!
Eight years after Florida, American elections again dominate world news; this time for the right reasons.
Barrack Obama is the 44th President of the United States.
Pause for a moment – freeze this statement; etch it on history’s frieze alongside other momentous statements such as: Veni, vidi, vici - Ich bin ein Berliner- L’etat, c’est moi – etc.
Think of how much meaning and history is packed into that simple sentence, reflect on how 400 years of slavery brought the world to this point and you will understand why everyone feels a sense of the moment.
Years ago, celebrating another momentous happening – when De Klerk and Mandela stood shoulder to shoulder to receive the Nobel Peace Prize- Lance Morrow, one of my all-time favourites, wrote: ‘the ascent from the basement (of the brain) where the crocodile lives, above tribal memory and hatred, to the upper chambers of the brain, is the most impressive climb man has made.’
As one part of the world went to bed on November 4, 2008, America rose out of the basement of racial doubt; above a 200 year history of shame, of lynchings, of Jim Crow laws, of the Ku Klux Klan; above a past where there was such a thing as the Mann Act; where just 40 years ago, schools and buses were segregated.
Americans, mostly young, rose up, and in one bold stroke of history swept all that away, renewing their country in the process and remaking its covenant with the rest of the world.
After today, we would dare call this the American century; we may declare that world peace may yet be Pax Americana.
No-one this side of heaven has ever doubted America’s strength or seriously believed it was in decline – it was still the world’ richest and (in Kissinger terms – ‘a nuclear bomb under your pillow’) most powerful country.
What it had lost was its moral ‘majority’ – its right to be the world’s conscience.
For years, to paraphrase Ed Murrow; America was like a bull in a darkened house, kicking down door after door in search of light; in the process breaking a heck of a lot of crockery.
It wielded a big stick when talking softly would have helped – from Vietnam, Iran and Iraq to Afghanistan; America became a parody of itself – a ‘benevolent superpower’ that was starting and losing war after war.
Just 72 hours ago, America had egg on its face from its foreign misadventures.
Not anymore.
Today, no American need feel shame again.
America can truly stand up and talk to the rest of the world –about human rights, about democracy – because once again there is something called an American dream.
The Star Spangled Banner may now truly wave over the land of the free and home of the brave.
It took real courage to look into the twilight and walk the walk of faith.
The long walk to freedom is not over. Not by a long shot.
As one commentator wrote after the primaries, Obama has proved he can walk on water, now where are the loaves and fishes?
The messy economy still has to be straightened out – the unpopular wars ended – but one thing that has defined America of the past is that elusive compound of hope and self-belief.
And hope, if nothing else, is what Barrack Hussein Obama – 44th President of United States, embodies.
What happened yesterday was not really such a momentous shift – America has always been the land of the possible – the place where misfits and castaways come to make good.
Most people forget – and of course 200 years can create selective amnesia – that the people who sailed to America with the Mayflower, were mostly fugitives and poor folk from Europe. The founders of America were not from the Aristocracy of the old world (whatever the pretensions of the latter-day Brahmins of New England).
So it is not inconceivable that in a country where a wrestler and a body builder (turned actor) all became Governors (and even President) –a Harvard-educated, black lawyer would one day tenant the ‘white’ house.
As Winston Churchill said after the fall of Berlin, this is the end of a beginning.
It's been a season of great symbolism – the latest being the platform where the man of the moment delivered his acceptance speech.
Chicago (immortalized in Candy Staton’s stark song ‘the Ghetto’) where a decade ago another black man defied gravity on the basketball court; in the windy city, 10 years after Michael Jordan won his last ring; Barrack Obama stood and reached for the skies.
In this blue-collar city, so truly African-American, the baton of change was conclusively handed over to a new generation.
There was a final poignant moment for me, when the cameras panned to a face in the crowd.
A man who had been there, seen it all and borne witness, even to the assassination of the first black hope –was standing, alone in the crowd.
It seemed to me just appropriate - that this man, largely perceived as the bridge between that not-so-distant part and the once ‘unattainable’ future; a man who came to embody all the hopes and inconsistencies of the old generation, their great dreams and personal failures (remember his rather grudging un-support for Obama), would be here too, standing at this watershed of history.
Hemmed in by the surging crowd, witness to a ‘dream’ he never really believed feasible, under the wash of lights, Jesse Jackson wept.

And Jose Mourinho lost his nerve.

And so the London Lip – the so-called ‘special one’ – José finally up and quit.

Screamed no mas in the middle of a fight (much like another Latino – some 20 odd years back).

No need to ask why – the loudmouth just chickened out – after facing the real prospect of getting spanked by a Derby county and fired by Billionaire owner Abramovich.

And why not? This is a man who, on the back of nearly a half a billion pounds investment - could only manage two premiership titles – not even the double; and of course not a final appearance at the champion’s league – a feat ‘minnows’ Liverpool have managed twice. Along the road, he insulted everyone he met, other Managers; referees and players and showed fans how not be a sportsman. He was a sore loser and he tried to hurt any player leaving his team - ask Gallas; Gudjohnsen or Robben.

I have said it one million times, Jose was not the real deal – a lucky guy who couldn’t read a game – he leaves the English game poorer than he found it and happier without him. All his high-profile purchases have been misfits (with just two exceptions – Drogba and Cech). The backbone of his team is basically the players Claudio Ranieri painstaking assembled and groomed (Lampard; Terry; Cole- Joe that is and Cudicini).

Enough said already – bye Jose – enjoy your millions – you won’t be missed except of course I will not have the satisfaction of seeing your ashen face when Arsenal whips your behind at Emirates Field of Dreams.

Well, one can’t have everything can one?

Never thought I’d admire the tribalistic, martinet Buhari – whose only achievement as head of State was to fill the gulags, execute drug dealers and jail journalists.

But to think that such a man could become the real champion of democracy – is the seventh wonder of our times.

But his tenacity, steadfastness and focus has been the highlight of this season of shame (and even as people scramble to clamber aboard Yar Adua’s gravy train) the point remains – the process by which he got in is flawed – and until the man acknowledges it – he has no more integrity than his predecessor and god father – the senile old Leprechaun of Otta.

Good work General – keep it up Soldier.

Hillary – the whole world awaits you.

And so will American voters vote with their head and elect the best qualified woman for the job – and demonstrate that they live in a truly egalitarian society.

American claims to be the home of democracy is unfounded so long they cannot find it in themselves to elect a woman President – while supposedly all-male enclaves such as Britain and Germany have gone beyond that (one won’t even mention the supposedly “paternalistic/caste-bound” Moslem/Asian countries)

Hey people –walk your talk.

Hillary it is and she will make a difference – and if you ever want to doubt a woman’s courage and resolve, just take a look at the kind of wills women are making these days.

To act without clear understanding; To form habits without investigation; To follow a path all one’s life without knowing where it really leads; Such is the behavior of the multitude -
Meng-Tse (370 BC)

No way Jose II 

For the sports cognoscenti, there are marquee moments that define every competition.
Not those boringly repetitive, anti-climatic trophy ceremonies; but those instants, when the course of the struggle is altered and the final outcome set.
For Ali versus Foreman in Zaire, it was a quick combination on the fifth- a short left and a huge right that send the spray flying from Foreman’s face – the kind of punch that resembles quick bank interest; For Michael Jordan and the 1991 Bulls-  it was an MJ drive down the lane in Game 2; when the man elevated for a right-handed dunk and mid-air, switched and dunked with his left, as the hapless Magic-led Lakers looked on; In the 1997 Masters, it was a shot – a 15 foot birdie putt that had green jacket written all over it, at ‘Amen Corner’ that set Tiger Woods suddenly 6 shots clear of the rest of the pack; For Liverpool at the 2005 Champions League, it was Vladimar Smicer, coming out of an indifferent season to smash in a wonder volley and bring Liverpool within shouting distance of the rampaging Rossoneri.
Last night again, in the semi-final game; there was not one, but several marquee moments – and most of them centred around Liverpool’s talismanic Captain (surely the best English player of his generation) Steven Gerrard.
Once I saw Gerrard surging forward irresistibly, tackling hard and making the kind of heroic 30-feet passes that coaches only dream of, but sometime never see in a lifetime; I realised Liverpool had the bit between their teeth and we were going to have an “Anfield” night.
Liverpool played like recent champions, like old money who had been there; seen and done it.
Chelsea, on the other hand were tentative, clumsy and unsure; every bit like any other nouveau-riche, upstart, social-wannabee at an important civic function.

It is always interesting to see the unreconstructed peasant in Jose Mourinho – its shows in his clownishly surly style at interviews; but it shows even more in defeat – the man actually looks ashen.
Well what I can say; money can’t buy you love – or for that matter, football excellence (ask Paul McCartney and Real Madrid) – and Jose had better get used to the fact that the only trophy in London this year will be the teeny, weeny, itsy bitsy Carling Cup.



Message to OBJ
“You have sat too long here for any good you have been doing. Depart, I say, and let us have done with you.
In the name of God, go.”
Oliver Cromwell to Olusegun Obasanjo and the Long Parliament, 1649.