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NICE CÔTE D'AZUR L'ÉLECTION DE BARACK OBAMAOBAMA ÉLECTION - Est-ce que l'élection américaine a une réelle importance pour le reste du monde ? Que signifiera-t-elle pour les Américains vivant en France et ailleurs à l'étranger ? Comment les autres nationalités verront-elles cette nouvelle Amérique ? Mike Meade, rédacteur en chef de THE RIVIERA REPORTER, résidant en France sur Nice Côte d’Azur depuis plus de trois décennies, nous dit pourquoi la victoire d'Obama nous concerne tous.
THE OBAMA HOPE: WHAT IT MEANS TO US
Over 40 years ago Robert F. Kennedy predicted that within his children's lifetime a black man would become president of the United States. He was the brother of another unlikely choice, John F Kennedy - the first Catholic to hold the highest office and an unlikely pick at the time. Only a few years before the election no one could have imagined that an Irish Catholic would be living in the White House. Religious prejudice in America wasn't as visible as colour racism but it was just as present.
The Kennedy years were a difficult time for America. The Vietnam War and the Cold War were raging and racial segregation was the norm. The Bay of Pigs and the Selma riots surprised no one as both were a mark of the times. School children were trained for the possibility of nuclear attack just as today we are reminded of terrorism every time we travel by air and endure security checks. Out of that period came change brought about by the enduring sacrifices of everyday Americans like Dr Martin Luther King and Rosa Parks, the diminutive black lady who refused to give her seat to a white man on an Alabama bus in 1955. Undisguised racists like Senator Joe McCarthy and Governor George Wallace held sway over the American heartland.
Kennedy held the presidential office for only 1036 days and yet he remains the sole president still dear to the hearts and minds of people of all nationalities. He was a world leader, not just an American one. Everywhere we travel we see reminders of that - a Boulevard Kennedy in Paris, a Plaza Kennedy in Madrid, a John F. Kennedy School in Thailand, and the list goes on. It is unique in the history of the presidency that every country has named something after JFK. Everyone alive at the time still remembers where he was on that fateful day in November 1963 when a sniper put an end to the dream of Camelot. Many of us will also remember where we were on another November day in 2008 when a black man was elected president of the world's most powerful country. The event is that big.
Barack Hussein Obama shares many qualities with JFK. His imposing presence, his easy manner, his ready smile, his talent as an orator, his ability to move crowds, his moral direction and his way of making people forget the colour of his skin just as they forgot Kennedy's Catholic faith. This tendency to see the man rather than his colour marks what is unique about Obama and an indicator of what has changed in America. As one voter put it, "It is not about being a black president, it is about it not mattering any more that he is black. That was Dr. King's message."
Make no mistake. The world changed on November 4th and none of us wll ever look at race or at America in the way we once did. But the new president will face challenges every bit as formidable as those of the Kennedy years. Two wars are raging, the planetary environment is in danger and a world is in financial crisis. Terrorism is an omnipresent threat and ideological radicalism is growing everywhere. Never since the last great war has the planet been so at risk. That war was won under the leadership and spirit of men like Churchill, Roosevelt and de Gaulle. Today's wars will be won by leaders like the new president-elect. Everyone, not just Americans, will be touched and affected by his actions in office. We needed someone like this man and we needed him now.
Surveys show that if the whole world could have voted, almost 90% would have cast their ballot for Barack Hussein Obama. Here in France, American residents and visitors will find life easier now that they have a president who can be admired and appreciated for his intelligence and moral direction. Eight years in the wilderness are over and one American resident in Nice told me with a happy tear in his eye: "I can once again wear a Stars and Stripes pin proudly on my lapel."
On a personal note, I have had my differences with U.S. policies over the years but the fact that a poor black man with a strange name could even become a candidate was already a sign that American democracy works better than most. The magnitude of Obama's victory is absolute proof of that. Neither my home country, Canada, nor my adopted British nationality, nor the France where I have lived for over 35 years is even close to putting someone with such a profile on the ballot of a major party. We won't see a man named Hussein living in the Élysée Palace or on Downing Street for many years.
Well done, America. And thank you.

Mike Meade
Editor,
The Riviera Reporter


 

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