Le Grand Pissfest
Worldwide reactions to the U.S. election.
NYTimes.com/video
by Sara Tucker
Worldwide euphoria was the mood this week as the election of Barack Obama "unleashed a global tide of admiration, hopes for change, and even renewed love for the United States."
"If history records a sudden surge in carbon emissions on Wednesday," commented an LA Times staff writer in a story filed from London, "it may be due to the collective exhalation of relief and joy by the hundreds of millions--perhaps billions--of people around the globe who watched, waited and prayed for Barack Obama to be elected president of the United States."
Le Monde's Robert Solé was rendered nearly speechless with emotion: "Sorry. No column today. The keyboard is not responding. History is a page being turned. Three words on the screen: 'Yes we can.' "
Nowhere was the relief more palpable than in Europe, where U.S. relations have been deteriorating since the 1990s. "Hard as it may be to recall, the United States' problems with the world--or, rather, the world's problems with the United States--started before George W. Bush took office," Robert Kagan, a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, reminded us before the election, in the September/October issue of Foreign Affairs.
"The end of the Cold War gave everyone a chance to take a fresh look at one another," Kagan continued, "and the Europeans, in particular, did not like what they saw. American society seemed to them crass and brutal--just as it had to their nineteenth-century ancestors. [French Foreign Minister Hubert] Védrine called on Europe to stand against U.S. hegemony partly as a defense against the spread of Americanism. 'We cannot accept . . . a politically unipolar world,' he said, and 'that is why we are fighting for a multipolar' one."
No wonder that Solé went on (for a few more words) to describe Obama's election as "an event that makes you weep for joy" and "the first worldwide good news since the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989." His Le Monde column concluded: "At this moment--but for how long?--we can say with far more conviction than on 11 September 2001: we are all Americans."
But readers themselves gave ample evidence that they are not wholly ready to repair relations with Europe. In comment threads that ran below the glowing headlines, Americans lashed out at each other and at their foreign well-wishers. "Who gives a flying flip what Europe thinks?" was a typical insult, and "If I knew the French loved Obama so much, I never would have voted for him."
At Salon, where Solé's "We are all Americans" column ran as a "Quote of the Day," real Americans responded to the tribute with an acerbic dialogue. Winners attacked losers ("Today I have seen so many angry, whiny posts from GOP supporters"), and argued about Michelle Obama's dress ("I can just see that dress across Europe's papers, we're a laughing stock now"; "The US is a laughingstock because of Michelle Obama's dress? Are you f***ing kidding me?").
"The pleasure and admiration today over the election of Barack Obama is genuine," wrote The Times' Paris correspondent Charles Bremner. "It's coming from all sides--not just the editorialists, politicians and philosophers who have been spouting in the media." But after one of Bremner's readers called another "dumb as a stump" in "Le Grand Pissfest" that trailed the column, a third implored everybody, Americans and Europeans, to mind their manners, strive for common ground, and "extend to the people here the same degree of courtesy and consideration you would offer if they were sitting across from you at a table."
Granted, emotions are still raw, and level-headed discourse is not the blogosphere's strong suit. But the anger and mistrust vented under the cover of anonymity in the past few days is a sobering reminder that there is a lot of work to be done.
"Personally, I feel that every U.S. citizen who travels abroad is an ambassador for the United States, whether they like it or not," wrote Conde Nast Traveler's Wendy Perrin in a post-election-day post that called on readers to "make the honeymoon last."
That stereotypes are harder to maintain at close range is a truism that travelers know well. As the world continues to offer America its hope, never has it been more obvious that the "burden of expectation" shouldered by our president-elect is on us all.
Further reading:
* Patriot Games: The reaction in Berlin
* The Aggregator: News of the day in links
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