As someone who has visited Malaysia, I want to share my American perspective on the inauguration with Malaysiakini readers.

My wife Florence and I had the honour of witnessing the rebirth of the United States of America on the sacred ground of the National Mall in Washington DC.

That ground was once a slave market leaving the tragic stain of the cruelest, most inhumane and fundamentally undemocratic institution that ever lived on our soil.

We watched the son of an African father and a Caucasian mother from Kansas take the oath of office as our first African-American President at long last.

Americans never said it couldn’t be done. We figured out how to do it. Barack Obama figured out a way to create a rebirth for the United States of America at a time when freedom, democracy and equality had taken a bad beating for eight painful years.

I knew that Senator Obama would defeat the undemocratic forces the moment Sarah Palin and Rudy Giuliani ridiculed him for having been a community organiser. Mocking community organisers is like mocking abolitionists, suffragettes, human rights advocates, soldiers or free and fair elections.

The outrageous anti-democratic fervour of the Bush years will stop under the leadership of former community organiser Barack Obama.

The salaried worker, struggling single mom and small businessman would not favour a party that held community organisers in contempt. Community organisers are the citizens who feed the homeless, re-train the unemployed, acclimate immigrants, conduct a high school arts programmes and protect minority rights from the tyranny of the majority.

We are a people founded by community organisers like those who led the American Revolution and the Selma to Montgomery March.

America’s number one community organiser did quite a job organising his fellow citizens to get 53 percent of the electorate to support him. His spirit of community organising touched the hearts, souls and passions of two million ordinary people to inspire us to stand in the dark and freezing cold from 4:45am until the magic moment at 12pm to witness the glorious sun break through the clouds and welcome our 44th president on Jan 20.

Our two days in DC were filled with human warmth, a commonality of purpose and deep patriotism.

As the moment arrived and he officially became President Obama, the tears, hugs and smiles of relief overtook two million of us on the National Mall. As the oath ended, our new friend Michelle (we met her sister, mother and her on the metro at 4am and quickly became a family of five on a blanket on the Mall) turned around and hugged me with tears streaming down her cheeks: tears of pride, joy and dreams fulfilled.

Her African-American heritage, Kansas roots and Brooklyn home were evident in those tears. I knew the country I loved was going to be fine again.

America is rededicating itself to our ideals of truth, justice, equality, freedom and compassion, living the dreams of Dr King, President Lincoln and our founding fathers, reaching heights that dreamers could not imagine.

Barack Obama has more than a dream. He has reality. He will make it happen because two million people on the Mall will walk with him, serve with him and join with 298 million other people to fulfill the reality of national ideals.

Unbridled success for America and the world is our only option because that is who we are. We are not torturers. We are not shadow governments. We are not bullies. We are all community organisers, honour-bound to preserve a more perfect union and fulfill the dreams of every freedom loving person that came before us and will come after us.

We are America. We are proud to lead the world into this era of rebirth. We welcome our friends from every corner of the world to join us in this march of community organisers. The national and international community now has a leader to organise us. President Obama is ready. America is ready. The world is ready.