While studying in London, I recently traveled to Speakers Corner in Hyde Park. Speakers Corner… While studying in London, I recently traveled to Speakers Corner in Hyde Park. Speakers Corner is a unique place: It provides an experience unlike anything that exists in the United States. It is an unimpressive physical area composed of concrete on the backdrop of Hyde Park. The people and wild array of opinions that travel through that small corner of Hyde Park on Sunday mornings make Speakers Corner truly distinctive. There, people are allowed to speak freely on any subject they choose, so long as it does not pertain to the Queen or the monarchy.

On that cold London morning, I wandered over to a small group of older Londoners only to discover they were full of wisdom. They discussed the current state of international affairs, particularly their views on the United States. It is hard as Americans to admit our flaws and failures. But if anything was made clear to me on that brisk morning, it is that we Americans are, indeed, stupid. To quote one of the men I encountered, ‘How could we possibly elect a former alcoholic and perennial goat to two terms of office?’

For the past eight years, the United States has been under the leadership of an administration guided by warmongering and sharp partisan politics. Our former president acted with deliberation to tear down the walls of our constitution and construct an America that deals in torture, deceit and corruption.

The former president left our military stretched too thin fighting a war against a global army of terrorism. He left our economy teetering on the brink of total collapse. Perhaps worst of all, he left our nation struggling to live freely and peacefully in a democratic society, while our government continuously abused its powers to destroy the principles this nation was founded on.

Yet as President Barack Obama placed his hand on Lincoln’s Bible two days later, it was made clear in a most stirring fashion that the United States will correct the failures of the previous administration and restore its national image.

The severity of the current economic crisis that the United States — ‘not;’not;and for that matter the global community — is experiencing is unquestionably great. However, following the inauguration of our 44th president I find myself asking the question: Is there any doubt that the United States will persevere through this troublesome storm?

Throughout U.S. history, we have overcome greater threats and more pressing circumstances than the crisis we find ourselves in. The inauguration of the United States’ first black president, in a country with a long and horrific history of slavery and racism, serves as an incredible testament to those achievements.

It seems like an eternity in hell since Obama was elected president on Nov. 4, 2008. From that point, we have endured endless waves of devastating economic news, the deaths of more innocent Americans and Iraqis and the collapse of peace between Israel and Gaza.’ ‘ ‘ ‘

The recent months have been so devastating that I had almost forgotten why Obama had been elected in the first place. Events had forced me to believe that nothing short of a miracle could possibly save the United States and the global community from certain collapse.

However, as the sun shined down on the Capitol and millions of Americans stood through the bitter cold, I was reminded that as Obama stated so eloquently in his address, ‘The cynics fail to understand … that the ground has shifted behind them — that the stale political arguments that have consumed us for so long no longer apply.’ Simply put, Obama’s United States will not be the same country we have become accustomed to.

Jan. 20, 2009, marked not only the inauguration of our 44th president, but also the point in history when the world will remember that the United States took its first steps to creating a new and stronger nation.

Throughout his inaugural address, Obama continuously reiterated that the United States would take ‘bold and swift’ action to recreate our nation and ourselves so that we may be a stronger and better people and country as a result. And with a strong guiding wind of hope and determination at our back, it is unquestioned that the United States will break through these troubled waters and will undoubtedly come out, once again, as the world’s leading superpower.

Just as President John F. Kennedy remarked that ‘the torch has been passed’ or like President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s statement that the United States ‘has a rendezvous with destiny,’ Obama’s inauguration marks the passage from the old boys network in Washington into a nation run on the backs of a new ‘generation of Americans.’

It will be on the backs of our generation that the Unites States rebuilds its roads, fixes its schools, builds a stronger eye on our financial institutions and ushers in a new age of energy production.

We face a long and arduous road ahead, but with Obama at the helm, it appears that the sun will rise again in the United States.

E-mail Shane at [email protected]