The Audacity of Despair

Hope, "with her clothes in rags, her body scarred and bruised and bleeding, her harp all but destroyed and with only one string left, she had the audacity to make music and praise God... To take the one string you have left and to have the audacity to hope.

These were the words of Jeremiah Wright the former pastor of the 44th and current President of the United States, Barack Hussein Obama II. Obama would later adapt Wright's phrase "audacity to hope" to "audacity of hope", and make it the title of his 2004 Democratic National Convention keynote address – The speech that propelled him to national prominence in less than twenty minutes, and established his candidature to enter a future presidential race. The title of Obama’s speech would go on to grace the cover of his second book.

During a visit to Borders, I wandered in to get a copy of Fatima Bhutto’s ‘Songs of Blood and Sword’, albeit 12 months later than originally intended. Glancing along the rows of books, I became side tracked by a smiling picture of Obama looking accompanied with the words, ‘The Audacity of Hope’. I’d come across the book before, but my cautiously nurtured and ever increasing contempt for the author forbade me from lending my time to his thoughts. Nevertheless, despite my predisposition I loved the title and always had.

Featuring Obama’s trademark smirk, a public endorsement by Oprah Winfrey, and the imminent declaration of his aspiration to become the next President of the US, ‘The Audacity of Hope’ was named both Amazon and New York Times bestseller in 2006. Looking down on Obama, I concluded the book had substance. After all it sat pompously atop the display stand 5 years on from its first print. But with no intention of supporting Obama plc, I swiftly moved away from the stand, signaling a crucifix with my fingers, I backed away from Barak – but with a dangling thought.

‘Audacity’ according to the Oxford dictionary; ‘a willingness to take bold risks’: he whistled at the sheer audacity of the plan; he demonstrated a complete impudent lack of respect with his audacious remark.

There is something unique about this word. Perhaps, it’s the notion of brazen nonconformity, individualist defiance that it translates? Or maybe it’s the sense of ‘daring’ it conjures up in the mind?

However, it is the audacity of an opposing nature that seems to be front and center on the US agenda of late. From the audacious apparent assassination of Osama bin Laden, right through to this week’s revelation of a superficial plot to kill a Saudi diplomat in true Hollywood style by the Iranian government and ratchet up the temperature in a region already at boiling point. These and similar occurrences this year must surely leave us questioning how the masses remain so passive. This is the manifestation of the audacity of despair, an ideology hell bent on destruction, desperate times calling for desperate measure.

Ladies and gentlemen, dark days lie ahead, and although we are by nature a race of optimists, the practitioners of the audacity of despair are slowly but surely leading us down a very precarious path.

Teddy Wayne the author of the award winning novel Kapitoil, perhaps put it best in a blog saying, ‘Well, if it’s sunny, that’s because it’s late evening in America, and our star is not rising over the horizon but setting. And, after it sets, it’ll be exploding in a supernova that obliterates the entire solar system.