Sen. Barack Obama will be the next President of the USA!

I am out of words. Emotional. And I am not even a US citizen. Barack Obama has just won the elections to become the next President of the United States of America. This is history in the making and I am lucky to be witness to it, to be a contributor to his campaign, and to be a supporter of his mission. I am so proud of him. He did what my mother always told me: Yes You Can!

This world has suffered much in the past 8 years. This change was so needed, not just for this country but in some ways for the whole world. This world seems so dark these days…there is terrorism, war, famine, disease, economic distress all around us. We badly needed some light to shine into our lives. My baby daughter was born just 4 days ago and I really wanted her to have some hope around her in this world. Obama is exactly that ray of hope. This story is not just about an extraordinary journey of a man. It is about a generation of Americans realizing how our mistakes can cause so much pain for so many people…but then in truly American fashion, correcting itself.

This is an opportunity for my generation, for me, to define a better future and move towards a more peaceful, cleaner, greener, benevolent world. The journey has just begun – and the doors have just opened up – and we must seize this moment to make this world a better place to live for ourselves and for our future generations. At home, I pray for peace, and at work, I aspire to work ever harder to make clean energy economy a reality for the US and for the rest of the world.

As I think of what Obama has achieved today, I am reminded of these famous lines from Martin Luther King Jr. He had dreamed this day decades ago.

Well, I don’t know what will happen now. We’ve got some difficult days ahead. But it doesn’t matter with me now. Because I’ve been to the mountaintop. And I don’t mind. Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I’m not concerned about that now. I just want to do God’s will. And He’s allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I’ve looked over. And I’ve seen the promised land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the promised land. And I’m happy, tonight. I’m not worried about anything. I’m not fearing any man. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.

NY Times: Branded a radical by hate-groups, a Muslim educator loses her school

Apalling…..When something like this happens, we all suffer. Americans, Jews, Muslims, Christians…Everyone.

From The New York Times

April 28, 2008

Battle in Brooklyn | A Principal’s Rise and Fall

Critics Cost Muslim Educator Her Dream School

By ANDREA ELLIOTT

Debbie Almontaser dreamed of starting a public school like no other in New York City. Children of Arab descent would join students of other ethnicities, learning Arabic together. By graduation, they would be fluent in the language and groomed for the country’s elite colleges. They would be ready, in Ms. Almontaser’s words, to become “ambassadors of peace and hope.”

Things have not gone according to plan. Only one-fifth of the 60 students at the Khalil Gibran International Academy are Arab-American. Since the school opened in Brooklyn last fall, children have been suspended for carrying weapons, repeatedly gotten into fights and taunted an Arabic teacher by calling her a “terrorist,” staff members and students said in interviews.

The academy’s troubles reach well beyond its cramped corridors in Boerum Hill. The school’s creation provoked a controversy so incendiary that Ms. Almontaser stepped down as the founding principal just weeks before classes began last September. Ms. Almontaser, a teacher by training and an activist who had carefully built ties with Christians and Jews, said she was forced to resign by the mayor’s office following a campaign that pitted her against a chorus of critics who claimed she had a militant Islamic agenda.

In newspaper articles and Internet postings, on television and talk radio, Ms. Almontaser was branded a “radical,” a “jihadist” and a “9/11 denier.” She stood accused of harboring unpatriotic leanings and of secretly planning to proselytize her students. Despite Ms. Almontaser’s longstanding reputation as a Muslim moderate, her critics quickly succeeded in recasting her image.

The conflict tapped into a well of post-9/11 anxieties. But Ms. Almontaser’s downfall was not merely the result of a spontaneous outcry by concerned parents and neighborhood activists. It was also the work of a growing and organized movement to stop Muslim citizens who are seeking an expanded role in American public life. The fight against the school, participants in the effort say, was only an early skirmish in a broader, national struggle.