Letters & Speeches
Ambassador Blake Accepts Interfaith Blessing for President Obama
January 26, 2009: Gangaramaya Temple, Colombo
Good evening. Thank you Podi Hamaduruwo and thank you to the American Alumni Association for organizing this service.
I am proud to be here to tonight to represent America’s new president Barack Obama. It’s a special honor to be with leaders representing Sri Lanka’s major religious groups.
The inauguration of President Obama is a very important and very historic moment for my country.
As a career diplomat, I’ve served under every president since Ronald Reagan. But this is a moment for which I am particularly proud.
A lot of people said that it wouldn’t be possible for the people of the United States to elect as our President an African American whose middle name is Hussein, and who spent several of the early years of his life outside of the United States living in Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim-majority country.
But President Obama and the people of American proved those skeptics wrong. His success has showed how far we have come in the United States.
Obama commented in his book, Dreams of My Father, that in 1961 when his mother, a white American from the state of Kansas married his father, an African university student from Kenya, that half of the states in the U.S. forbade blacks from marrying whites. Obama wrote that in a lot of places his father might have been killed for giving his mother a flirtatious look.
Such injustices took decades to undo, and took the commitment and sacrifice of countless civil rights leaders, politicians, religious leaders and ordinary citizens to recognize and rectify.
Today my country faces new challenges: the U.S. is in a recession; we are fighting two wars; and climate change threatens to further disrupt our economy and environment.
The President has stated that these challenges can only be met through unity and not division---solutions can only be found when Americans throw differences aside and work together, no matter if they’re black or white, Christian or Muslim, rich or poor.
Time and again, we see how division, whether based on class, ethnicity, or religion becomes a disease that prevents the people and leaders of a country from working together and prevents countries from reaching their full potential.
That is why tonight’s ceremony has special meaning for me. Leaders of the Buddhist, Christian, Muslim and Hindu faiths have come together to offer their blessings to President Obama for the significant tasks he has taken upon his shoulders. I will be honored to convey your blessings to the President.
Thank you again for this moving tribute to my new president.