The Monumental Moment, Even in Montreal

Everywhere in Quebec, public gatherings celebrated the inauguration.

When the conservative pastor Rick Warren began an Our Father on the giant screen, the room followed, chanting the words of the prayer with the same conviction: “Thy Kingdom come…” When the president-elect approached the podium to take his oath of allegiance, the small gathering in Montreal imitated the millions of people standing in Washington. And when Barack Obama evoked, “what free men and women can achieve when imagination is joined to common purpose, and necessity to courage,” everyone applauded warmly, and the most agitated shouted with joy.

Dozens of Montrealers responded in this way to the call by the Black Coalition of Quebec to experience this historic event together. “Barack Obama becomes the most powerful man in the world, we hope that he can change the world, and we want to meet as a group to underscore this moment,” summed up Dan Philip, president of the Coalition. At the height of the ceremony, at the moment of the long-awaited inaugural address, a little after noon, the latest arrivals at the office on boulevard Décarie could no longer get into the packed office simply decorated with American colors.

“It’s the most magnificent day of my life,” Jacques Lafortune – a 45-year old of Haitian origin who is particularly happy with the Obama model – commented at the end of the ceremony. “Blacks throughout the whole world understand where will, effort, study, and force of character can lead. It’s a fundamental symbol for all youth, and particularly for black youth.”

The director of the Youth in Motion de la Petite Bourgogne youth center also welcomed the super-hero offered up to the world. “He’s a great man, endowed with an exceptional charisma, an intellectual who was a community worker, an unparalleled orator who knows how to talk to people,” said Michael Farkas. “This is the man needed during these difficult times. We are coming out of a dark period, and we have experienced many disappointments.”

Mr. Farkas added that this accession to a prestigious post proves even more significant for Quebec’s black community than that of the Governor-General Michaëlle Jean, the head of Canada. “Madame Jean holds a symbolic position. With Barack Obama, it’s a whole different level. For myself, I see something divine in this.”

Under his long dreadlocks, Mr. Farkas proudly sports a t-shirt with the likeness of Barack Obama and Martin Luther King. The room was decorated with posters showing the same smiling face of the new president as well as the more serious one of Dr. King, who was assassinated in the 1960’s, as was Malcolm X, also represented on the walls. Catherine Desjeunes, born in Montreal of a French father and a Quebecois mother, knew this long-ago period of fighting against racial segregation and other forms of discrimination when she lived in California with her family. For her, the inauguration of the first black president of the United States marks the culmination of the civil rights movement in the United States.

“I came with a friend to celebrate this historic day,” she said, now back in Montreal. “Barack Obama shows us that anything is possible. He is the incarnation of a dream that has become reality.”

Similar parties were organized throughout the world. More than 3,000 Kenyans and foreign tourists celebrated together in Kogelo, the modest birth village of Barack Obama’s deceased father. The crowd danced and sang, chanting: “Congratulations, our son, our hope.”

Quebec universities had organized their own festive meetings to follow the inauguration of the 44th American president on the big screen. The University of Montreal offered a debate between students and researchers at its Center for International Studies and Research (Centre d’études et de recherche internationale). At Laval University, several hundred students answered the call of the Quebecois Institute of Higher International Education (Institut québécois des hautes études internationales). About fifty young people from the Collège François-Xavier-Garneau even traveled to Washington to attend the celebrations. Another celebration was on the program for last night, in Montréal-Nord.