Siftings
The impossible dream come true: Will Camelot be regained?
Here I am in the Land of Milk and Honey, the scent of apples permanently lingering in the air (in my nostrils, anyway), the cold November air presaging the coming of deep winter and Christmas and the New Year. After a not-so-gruelling 11-hour non-stop flight from Manila 5 nights ago, the jet lag is still upon me, keeping me fully awake in the middle of the cold American night while my senses are still fully attuned to the hot Filipino day.
We are in Obama country,the realization of one man's dream for his people and race. The impossible dream come true.
Two nights ago, I saw a rerun on cable TV of the movie version of "Man of La Mancha", Dale Wasserman's award-winning Broadway musical based on Miguel Cervantes' classic novel, "Don Quixote". The play caught the hearts and imaginations of the whole world back in the 1960s. It struck fire and lighted torches for the cause of freedom and justice for the Black American people (at that time still called Negroes or Niggers). In particular, its theme song, "The Impossible Dream," struck fire in the heart of a great visionary named after the Protestant Reformation leader Martin Luther, and inspired him to found the civil liberties movement for the total emancipation – social, political, economic, religious, spiritual, moral – of Black people across the length and breadth of this nation. It struck fire in the heart of Martin Luther king in such a way that his call for truly meaningful social justice – prefaced by the words "I have a dream"- became the rallying cry for all Blacks to unite and work towards their freedoms in all aspects of modern American life. That rallying cry became the seedbed for the rallying cries for more rights: of minority and immigrant populations, of women, of gays, of children and the elderly, of the abused and disabled, of patients in and out of hospitals, of criminals and their victims, of other victims of oppression in all forms. The list is open-ended to accommodate all human – and even non-human – interests, endeavors, aspects, etc. And who knows what else. To borrow from Shakespeare's Hamlet, who knows what dreams may come when we …must give us pause. But the message should be that dreams and hopes don't stop with death.
Such as, maybe, in the next few decades of this century, a woman president, or even a Fil-Am president of the US of A?
Meanwhile, at Washington D.C., they're excited at the prospect of a Black Camelot, a return (with a difference in color) to the idealism, optimism, glamour and panache of the Kennedy years at the White House – a too brief high at the start of the JFK administration indelibly glorified by Jackie's classy image and the picture-pretty charms of little Caroline and John-John, before all the tragedies came to claim their lives and hopes, leaving the world nothing more nor less than a taste of American royalty.
But there's this difference: Michelle Obama shows early signs of fashion on a budget (as befits these times of economic crisis), and her little girls Sasha and Malia would be a refreshing sight to behold in the hallowed corridors of the White House, hitherto used only to white, blue-eyed children and grandchildren of white presidents. This upcoming White House is disarmingly not "white." One of Obama's fans, a rapper (the president-elect is partial to rap music) named Boots Riley, puts it this way (San Jose Mercury News, Sunday,Nov.23, 2008):
"The people desperately wanted change, and they didn't want another old white guy up there. Even old white guys didn't want another old white guy. The United States is going to keep on with its imperialist ways. Instead of putting an ugly, old white face on imperialism, we're going to have a pretty brown one."
Aptly and wisely put. But with all the talk about Camelot, will there be a revival of the 1960 Broadway musical that inspired JFK's Camelot? Not a chance, those in the know say. Not with an all-black or all-white or even a mixed cast, because, as someone said, Camelot just isn't a good show. Can't blame him for saying that. The musical based on the Medieval Arthurian legends ended in the break-up of the Round Table and the fall of Camelot, which spelled the end of the Age of Chivalry and Knights in shining armor. JFK's Camelot ended in tragedy of classic Greek proportions.
But I beg to disagree, Camelot the play is a great play. Remember the message that King Arthur, on the eve of the great battle that was to end his life and dreams of justice, gave to the messenger boy? "Run, boy, run! And tell the world that once, there was a place called Camelot!"
And Camelot, that legendary place, will stand as a symbol of all human idealism: Truth, Justice, Fairness, Prosperity, Brotherhood, Love, Peace. Heaven on Earth.
One thing is clear: President Obama's Camelot should be given a good start. The man has taken over one great man's dream. He should be supported to give life to that dream, not for himself but for the varied peoples of this great nation. And for the rest of the world.