European Obamania
By Nidra Poller
[INTERNATIONAL] The flames of French Obamania leaped skyward last week when the once and future president, glowing from his mass rally in Berlin, stopped in Paris on his way to London. Pushing past the statistics - a recent poll showed over 80% of the French would vote for him if only they could - what does this wishful thinking reveal about the expectations aroused by the charismatic candidate? While Obama worshippers the world over clamor for a right to vote in the November elections, their enthusiasm should reciprocally help Americans understand what is at stake. Two interlocking redemptive fallacies, focused on Obama's enhanced racial value and the international dividends this will incur, are clarified in the light of European incandescence.
Transposed to France, where 99.99% of the media are rooting for the "first black American president," the Obama look-alike would not be a slim trim sexy Antillean intellectual. He would be a Muslim, a real Muslim, not a Christian convert. Modern, of course, with no ostentatious religious symbols that could disturb resolutely secular French voters, but Muslim in heart and soul, arisen from the beleaguered immigrant class and placed on high to prove that France, too, has atoned for its sins of racism and colonialism. Only a Muslim could fulfill this role. No other minorities - Chinese, Jewish, Brazilian, etc. - need apply.
You wouldn't know it but France already has a dashing young diversity president. Nicolas Sarkozy's father is Hungarian, his maternal grandfather was a Jewish immigrant from Salonika (who converted to Catholicism in 1917 to marry his French sweetheart), and his son Jean is reportedly converting to Judaism before his marriage with a Jewish girl. But Sarkozy gets no credit for his origins, and no applause for including three Muslim women - Fadela Amara, Rachida Dati, and Rama Yade--in his government. The French president has been ground to mincemeat by the media though his government is rapidly implementing the major reforms promised during the campaign. He was trashed for a three-day post-election jaunt on a rich man's yacht, bashed for vacationing in Kennebunkport and eating barbecued hot dogs chez the arch-criminal Bush, and run through the wringer for having too much personal life. Mocked as an over-excited omni-president who leaps from photo-ops to grandstanding interventions, Sarkozy is dismissed as a shallow show off one-man government, an elected monarch, a versatile back slapper... Along comes Barack Obama and the adjectives are shined up and pinned on his chest like medals. Oh la la le rock star! Cameras caress his private jet. His toothy smile is an expression of political brilliance, his glad hand is evidence of extraordinary diplomatic skill, his outstretched arm at Berlin's Victory Tower promises miracles. The screeches of his international groupies were relayed with exceptional indulgence and his deliberate snubbing of Socialist politicians (presumably to avoid guilt by association) did not raise an eyebrow.
The American Wonder's brief Paris stopover offered a rare moment of respite for the French president. Press, fans, and a huge chunk of the political class from right to left, basking in the promise of New Improved Franco-American relations that will be ushered in when Obama wins in November, looked on tenderly as Sarkozy bantered with his copain Barack.
As could be expected, Obama fan clubs and paraphernalia flourish in Muslim immigrant communities. The nominally conservative Figaro daily ran an enthusiastic article on the hopes ignited by the Democratic candidate. Karim Zeribi, an elected official in Marseille's Socialist government and self-described bobo, is lost in admiration for Obama who has "transcended" his origins. "He's the best! Calm and powerful," exclaims Zeribi, who chafes at being seen as a member of a "pseudo-minority." On the right, Kamel Hamza, a UMP (Sarkozy's party) official in the Seine St. Denis municipality shares Zeribi's enthusiasm: "Un black [trendy French for noir] has a good chance to become president of the United States! A guy like us...president of one of the world's most powerful nations!"
Dig that! Suddenly American power, in the right hands, would not be evil. American society, systematically portrayed as racist, communitarian, and imperialist, could become a beacon to the world...if only the right race wins. And Western European nations, faced with overwhelming problems of immigration, Islamization, and demographic decline, should redeem themselves by doing like the Yankees.
While the mere suggestion that Islam could be in any way shape or form a factor in the personality of Barack Hussein Obama is scorned as dirty fighting in America, hopes for a Muslim president are openly promoted in France. And democratic values are brushed aside with a flick of the wrist. In the place of elected officials committed to the general welfare, aggrieved minorities are unashamedly seeking "guys like us" who will defend their interests. Walt and Mearsheimer's pseudo-academic expos? of the "Jewish lobby" has no black power equivalent when Obama ignites ethnic-racial hopes.
Why bother with a lobby when you can have the whole building! If, as many Blacks and Muslims fervently believe, their interests will be more fairly represented by a black American president, shouldn't the dominant group stand up and take notice? Why share power with the diversity crowd when you can keep all the goodies for yourself? Why give artificial advantages to groups that cannot pull their own weight, if they are going to use it to push you out of the driver's seat and maybe out of the car?
Far from clinging to their selfish privileges, the dominant groups of our societies�directly in the U.S., vicariously in Europe�are throwing them at Obama's feet and shrieking with joy at the prospect of following the leader who will redeem them of their presumed sins of... racism. White Americans bring the world the We have Overcome good tidings that Europeans will gleefully apply in their own besieged cultures.
Of course the Obama campaign would argue that their candidate is not responsible for false hopes aroused by his superficial attributes (forget about the Reverend Wright, that was in another country and the bastard is bound and gagged), and progressives will claim that minority empowerment is universally beneficial, but that should not keep us from looking reality squarely in the face.
If origins are anything more than a drop in the blood they connect to some very real attributes indeed. All men are created equal but not all cultures are equally admirable, acceptable, or desirable adjuncts to our own. Is it sacrilegious to obverse that Obama's third world credentials were touted during the primaries while Kenyans of different tribes and political parties were hacking each other to death or burning each other alive? This may seem far-fetched in the American context but Europe's diversity-immigrants (not all foreigners qualify for the honorific label) are primarily recent Muslim immigrants from North and sub-Saharan Africa. Their countries of origin do not protect minority political, cultural, or religious rights. Of course any given immigrant from any backward country may be an exemplary citizen worthy of the highest honors. Nonetheless, ethnic politics represents a clear and present danger in Europe.
Democratic societies that have made spectacular progress in fighting discrimination would be ill-advised to backslide into a tribal move-over-it's-my-turn mode of government. Putting Obama's face on America, we are told, would win friends and influence people everywhere in the world. Obama himself has promised to replace "cowboy diplomacy" with blessed multilateralism. And that is the crux of the problem and the key to Obamania: the vain hope that not only replacing but symbolically erasing George W. Bush will make that indefinable global conflict go away.
Over and above the immediate electoral question this magical thinking weakens the free world. If the United States, which has become the default superpower precisely because a war-weary Europe has opted for infinite compromise, swoons to Obama's sirens, the resulting multilateralism will be as shaky as the ambiguous triumph of diversity. Europe has neither the will nor the way to defend itself against global jihad. In fact, a few cracks appeared in the Obamania front when the Magician pulled an Afghanistan surge out of his false-bottom hat. Several French commentators warned that President Obama would be asking us for boots on the ground...and we don't want that, do we?
President Sarkozy faced fierce domestic opposition a few months ago when he resolved to reinforce the French contingent in Afghanistan. The decision, which coincided with the Olympic Flame protests, elicited live-and-let-live comments about the Taliban and contrasting righteous indignation over Sarkozy's eventual presence at the Beijing Olympics opening ceremony. Tibet was already forgotten last week when McCain's reception of the Dalai Lama earned him a 2-seond TV yawn and a snide comment about his hopeless attempts to upstage Obama.
The 2003 Franco-American rift is given as the ultimate example of faulty Bush diplomacy. French people share Obama's conviction that we should never have gone into Iraq; they knew better at the time and the catastrophic outcome of the intervention should be a lesson for the future. Otherwise well-informed people are absolutely certain that the bloody terrorist attacks featured for years on daily newscasts as proof of America's folly continue unabated to this day. Knowing little or nothing of French involvement in the UN oil for food scam they believe that France's decision to oppose the American intervention was based on superior diplomatic finesse and tougher moral fiber.
How would Obama's promised multilateralism differ from the sidewalk-caf? diplomacy of 2003 when the Chirac government wanted the right to dispose of US troops massed on the Iraqi border on the pretext that their mere presence of would eventually convince Saddam Hussein to comply with UN resolutions? Nations that will not give blood and treasure to fight our enemies can presume to exert a "moral" influence on American military might! When in the history of humanity has there been such a disconnect from the reality of power?
Breaking with decades of anti-Americanism President Sarkozy has tried�unsuccessfully-- to encourage EU countries to increase defense spending and shoulder a greater part of the burden in a conflict that will not vanish with a swish of the diplomatic wand. Imagine, along with the Obama worshippers, a victory for their candidate this November and the subsequent election of a French Muslim president in 2012. The resulting multilateralist dream would look more like UN Resolution 1701, that delivered Lebanon into the maw of Hizbullah and doubled the threat to Israel, than to any glorious joint effort to defeat the enemies of the free world.
What would be your exit strategy on that?
--
Jean-Louis Kayitenkore
Procurement Consultant
Gsm: +250-08470205
Home: +250-55104140
P.O. Box 3867
Kigali-Rwanda
East Africa
Blog: http://www.cepgl.blogspot.com
Skype ID : Kayisa66
By Nidra Poller
[INTERNATIONAL] The flames of French Obamania leaped skyward last week when the once and future president, glowing from his mass rally in Berlin, stopped in Paris on his way to London. Pushing past the statistics - a recent poll showed over 80% of the French would vote for him if only they could - what does this wishful thinking reveal about the expectations aroused by the charismatic candidate? While Obama worshippers the world over clamor for a right to vote in the November elections, their enthusiasm should reciprocally help Americans understand what is at stake. Two interlocking redemptive fallacies, focused on Obama's enhanced racial value and the international dividends this will incur, are clarified in the light of European incandescence.
Transposed to France, where 99.99% of the media are rooting for the "first black American president," the Obama look-alike would not be a slim trim sexy Antillean intellectual. He would be a Muslim, a real Muslim, not a Christian convert. Modern, of course, with no ostentatious religious symbols that could disturb resolutely secular French voters, but Muslim in heart and soul, arisen from the beleaguered immigrant class and placed on high to prove that France, too, has atoned for its sins of racism and colonialism. Only a Muslim could fulfill this role. No other minorities - Chinese, Jewish, Brazilian, etc. - need apply.
You wouldn't know it but France already has a dashing young diversity president. Nicolas Sarkozy's father is Hungarian, his maternal grandfather was a Jewish immigrant from Salonika (who converted to Catholicism in 1917 to marry his French sweetheart), and his son Jean is reportedly converting to Judaism before his marriage with a Jewish girl. But Sarkozy gets no credit for his origins, and no applause for including three Muslim women - Fadela Amara, Rachida Dati, and Rama Yade--in his government. The French president has been ground to mincemeat by the media though his government is rapidly implementing the major reforms promised during the campaign. He was trashed for a three-day post-election jaunt on a rich man's yacht, bashed for vacationing in Kennebunkport and eating barbecued hot dogs chez the arch-criminal Bush, and run through the wringer for having too much personal life. Mocked as an over-excited omni-president who leaps from photo-ops to grandstanding interventions, Sarkozy is dismissed as a shallow show off one-man government, an elected monarch, a versatile back slapper... Along comes Barack Obama and the adjectives are shined up and pinned on his chest like medals. Oh la la le rock star! Cameras caress his private jet. His toothy smile is an expression of political brilliance, his glad hand is evidence of extraordinary diplomatic skill, his outstretched arm at Berlin's Victory Tower promises miracles. The screeches of his international groupies were relayed with exceptional indulgence and his deliberate snubbing of Socialist politicians (presumably to avoid guilt by association) did not raise an eyebrow.
The American Wonder's brief Paris stopover offered a rare moment of respite for the French president. Press, fans, and a huge chunk of the political class from right to left, basking in the promise of New Improved Franco-American relations that will be ushered in when Obama wins in November, looked on tenderly as Sarkozy bantered with his copain Barack.
As could be expected, Obama fan clubs and paraphernalia flourish in Muslim immigrant communities. The nominally conservative Figaro daily ran an enthusiastic article on the hopes ignited by the Democratic candidate. Karim Zeribi, an elected official in Marseille's Socialist government and self-described bobo, is lost in admiration for Obama who has "transcended" his origins. "He's the best! Calm and powerful," exclaims Zeribi, who chafes at being seen as a member of a "pseudo-minority." On the right, Kamel Hamza, a UMP (Sarkozy's party) official in the Seine St. Denis municipality shares Zeribi's enthusiasm: "Un black [trendy French for noir] has a good chance to become president of the United States! A guy like us...president of one of the world's most powerful nations!"
Dig that! Suddenly American power, in the right hands, would not be evil. American society, systematically portrayed as racist, communitarian, and imperialist, could become a beacon to the world...if only the right race wins. And Western European nations, faced with overwhelming problems of immigration, Islamization, and demographic decline, should redeem themselves by doing like the Yankees.
While the mere suggestion that Islam could be in any way shape or form a factor in the personality of Barack Hussein Obama is scorned as dirty fighting in America, hopes for a Muslim president are openly promoted in France. And democratic values are brushed aside with a flick of the wrist. In the place of elected officials committed to the general welfare, aggrieved minorities are unashamedly seeking "guys like us" who will defend their interests. Walt and Mearsheimer's pseudo-academic expos? of the "Jewish lobby" has no black power equivalent when Obama ignites ethnic-racial hopes.
Why bother with a lobby when you can have the whole building! If, as many Blacks and Muslims fervently believe, their interests will be more fairly represented by a black American president, shouldn't the dominant group stand up and take notice? Why share power with the diversity crowd when you can keep all the goodies for yourself? Why give artificial advantages to groups that cannot pull their own weight, if they are going to use it to push you out of the driver's seat and maybe out of the car?
Far from clinging to their selfish privileges, the dominant groups of our societies�directly in the U.S., vicariously in Europe�are throwing them at Obama's feet and shrieking with joy at the prospect of following the leader who will redeem them of their presumed sins of... racism. White Americans bring the world the We have Overcome good tidings that Europeans will gleefully apply in their own besieged cultures.
Of course the Obama campaign would argue that their candidate is not responsible for false hopes aroused by his superficial attributes (forget about the Reverend Wright, that was in another country and the bastard is bound and gagged), and progressives will claim that minority empowerment is universally beneficial, but that should not keep us from looking reality squarely in the face.
If origins are anything more than a drop in the blood they connect to some very real attributes indeed. All men are created equal but not all cultures are equally admirable, acceptable, or desirable adjuncts to our own. Is it sacrilegious to obverse that Obama's third world credentials were touted during the primaries while Kenyans of different tribes and political parties were hacking each other to death or burning each other alive? This may seem far-fetched in the American context but Europe's diversity-immigrants (not all foreigners qualify for the honorific label) are primarily recent Muslim immigrants from North and sub-Saharan Africa. Their countries of origin do not protect minority political, cultural, or religious rights. Of course any given immigrant from any backward country may be an exemplary citizen worthy of the highest honors. Nonetheless, ethnic politics represents a clear and present danger in Europe.
Democratic societies that have made spectacular progress in fighting discrimination would be ill-advised to backslide into a tribal move-over-it's-my-turn mode of government. Putting Obama's face on America, we are told, would win friends and influence people everywhere in the world. Obama himself has promised to replace "cowboy diplomacy" with blessed multilateralism. And that is the crux of the problem and the key to Obamania: the vain hope that not only replacing but symbolically erasing George W. Bush will make that indefinable global conflict go away.
Over and above the immediate electoral question this magical thinking weakens the free world. If the United States, which has become the default superpower precisely because a war-weary Europe has opted for infinite compromise, swoons to Obama's sirens, the resulting multilateralism will be as shaky as the ambiguous triumph of diversity. Europe has neither the will nor the way to defend itself against global jihad. In fact, a few cracks appeared in the Obamania front when the Magician pulled an Afghanistan surge out of his false-bottom hat. Several French commentators warned that President Obama would be asking us for boots on the ground...and we don't want that, do we?
President Sarkozy faced fierce domestic opposition a few months ago when he resolved to reinforce the French contingent in Afghanistan. The decision, which coincided with the Olympic Flame protests, elicited live-and-let-live comments about the Taliban and contrasting righteous indignation over Sarkozy's eventual presence at the Beijing Olympics opening ceremony. Tibet was already forgotten last week when McCain's reception of the Dalai Lama earned him a 2-seond TV yawn and a snide comment about his hopeless attempts to upstage Obama.
The 2003 Franco-American rift is given as the ultimate example of faulty Bush diplomacy. French people share Obama's conviction that we should never have gone into Iraq; they knew better at the time and the catastrophic outcome of the intervention should be a lesson for the future. Otherwise well-informed people are absolutely certain that the bloody terrorist attacks featured for years on daily newscasts as proof of America's folly continue unabated to this day. Knowing little or nothing of French involvement in the UN oil for food scam they believe that France's decision to oppose the American intervention was based on superior diplomatic finesse and tougher moral fiber.
How would Obama's promised multilateralism differ from the sidewalk-caf? diplomacy of 2003 when the Chirac government wanted the right to dispose of US troops massed on the Iraqi border on the pretext that their mere presence of would eventually convince Saddam Hussein to comply with UN resolutions? Nations that will not give blood and treasure to fight our enemies can presume to exert a "moral" influence on American military might! When in the history of humanity has there been such a disconnect from the reality of power?
Breaking with decades of anti-Americanism President Sarkozy has tried�unsuccessfully-- to encourage EU countries to increase defense spending and shoulder a greater part of the burden in a conflict that will not vanish with a swish of the diplomatic wand. Imagine, along with the Obama worshippers, a victory for their candidate this November and the subsequent election of a French Muslim president in 2012. The resulting multilateralist dream would look more like UN Resolution 1701, that delivered Lebanon into the maw of Hizbullah and doubled the threat to Israel, than to any glorious joint effort to defeat the enemies of the free world.
What would be your exit strategy on that?
--
Jean-Louis Kayitenkore
Procurement Consultant
Gsm: +250-08470205
Home: +250-55104140
P.O. Box 3867
Kigali-Rwanda
East Africa
Blog: http://www.cepgl.blogspot.com
Skype ID : Kayisa66
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