It’s been a while since I heard an Obama speech. Nothing this man does has a direct impact on my life (maybe tangentially now that I live in Canada?). And yet I continue to listen to him. To be inspired by his words. Not because I believe in ‘America’. America does its own thing and doesn’t care for me.
Rather Obama occupies a group of politicians that I look up to from around the world. People trying to make things better. There are many. Jacinda Arden. Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Mario Draghi. Nelson Mandela. Rafik El Hariri. Mikhail Gorbachev.
We should remember them and celebrate them. They don’t last forever.