A Few Words About the Crowds

As I mentioned in an earlier post, many people felt compelled to warn me about "the crowds" before we went to the inauguration last week. While my response was perhaps a bit flippant at the time ("I've lived in the densest capital city in Western Europe; I can handle Obama crowds"), it really is something which has been on my mind, as a subtext to this entire event. And so I ask myself now: What about the crowds? How were they? What was it like to be in a place where MILLIONS of people congregated, in the US of A?

Well, first of all, I can't speak for what the crowds on the Mall were like, because we never got on there. No tickets, no luck. But I can say that I was surrounded by hundreds and possibly thousands of people at several points throughout the day (a little like Paris during the sales). We found ourselves in enormously long lines to buy Metro tickets, to get into the gates to see the parade, and then to go home from Union Station. At all these points the possibility for stress and conflict was high - and I can easily imagine other situations where fights might have broken out (I'm thinking mainly about sporting events). Yet the mood was calm. People were patient. There was a sense of, "We've waited 400 years for this to happen, we can wait another hour or two!" I talked to one woman who had been waiting to get onto the Mall since 5 in the morning and never got on - yet she was not bitter, or complaining. She was just happy to be part of the history in the making, part of the event.

If only every crowd could be like the ones we experienced, I think people who normally hate crowds (like me, often) would change their thinking about them. Honestly, everyone around us was so polite, kind, so - how can I put it? - downright NICE, I felt my latent misanthropy slowly melt away (and in truth, I think everyone was too cold to start a fuss!). No one pushed, no one shoved - a woman shared her Tic-Tacs with me - it really felt like everyone was on their best behavior. At one point outside the parade gates, a few people who were complaining and pushing got seriously chastised by the people around them. Peer pressure in the name of civility! I love it. Which speaks volumes about Obama, and the kind of energy he puts out and creates. Contrast that with the testosterone-fueled energy of sporting events - what a difference. Maybe so many Americans hate crowds because crowds here so often lean towards violence (or that's the perception)? Because our collective unconscious remembers things like Kent State, or race riots, and the fact of police shooting at citizens? Or because we are just by nature wary of the power of mass protest?

Perhaps part of the Obama legacy will be a raised level of civic awareness, so that Americans can learn how to be in crowds peacefully, and joyfully, without the usual fear or distrust in the equation. I would hope this could be created without the need for so many security forces - that we could learn to trust eachother, and ourselves, without someone in uniform scaring us all into submission. Well, that's another dream for another day. For now, I'm just happy that things were as surprisingly pleasant as they were. Another bonus point to add to the evergrowing Obama pile!