Friday, August 12, 2016

RELIVING THE SPEECHES OF PHILADELPHIA

Also published on Huffington Post India

What an amazing week of speeches it was at the Democratic National Convention of Philadelphia in July 2016. 

As I blogger and speechwriter, I drooled and envied and applauded the speeches, their writers and the people who delivered them with such grace and sincerity.

These speeches, they weren’t mere election rhetoric.

They inspired and put faith back in people’s hearts to where it belonged.

They touched people across nations and gave them hope. For their own people and their own situations.

They were powerful messages of equality, of humanity and of togetherness; of the need for restraint and equally of being able to take a stand; of leaving something back for our children and being role models for them; of decency and generosity; of courage and grace and optimism.

These speeches were not just about America.

They did not just inspire and touch a nation.

When people saw whites and people of Anglo-Saxon and Caucasian origin cheering and crying as First Lady Michelle and President Obama spoke, you knew that people across the world are just as good.

That the human race, across nations, will go beyond race, colour, class and caste.

That the whites will take a stand for blacks; and the blacks will fight for the whites; that Christians will support the Moslems; and Moslems will be friends with Hindus; that Hindus will help Christians and Moslems will weep for the Sikhs and that the Sikhs will always support a noble cause.

And that everyone will help and pray and take a stand for everyone who is down.

Acrimony and terror and the hate mongering may have made people cringe and withdraw and be in doubt.

And the wolves may have cashed in on fear, to divide people on race, colour, class and caste.

But the speeches of Philadelphia helped to remind and reinforce that good will prevail over bad. Not just in America, but across continents and countries.

And for that reminder, speechwriters, go on, take a bow!

Watch the speeches here:





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