When the sense of history overwhelms

The Shape of Days has a powerful essay, When the sense of history overwhelms, on the Iraq election, .

Here's part of it:

How many different ways are there to say “historic moment?” How many different ways can you say that a nation was born yesterday? If I were writing a speech, I’d have all the high-minded rhetoric and soaring oratory you could ask for. But to try to write about it casually, in my own voice … I’m speechless.


Look, here’s how it is: Yesterday, for the first time in their history, the 25 million people of Iraq went to the polls and elected a legitimate, democratic government that was established by a constitution they wrote, a constitution they ratified. Not just for the first time in modern history; not just for the first time in the history of that particular nation-state. For the first time ever.

Read it all here.