November 18, 2008
Barack Obama could only happen here. Not.
David Berreby in Slate:
Last week, the New York Times told us Europe would not soon—indeed might never—see a political triumph like Obama's. It described British politics as though Disraeli had never existed and painted a similar picture of mono-ethnic France.
Desolé, cher collegues, but one year after the far-off, sunny isle of Corsica was acquired by France in 1768, there was born there one Napoleon Bonaparte, whose heavy Italian accent made him seem even more exotic to la France profonde than his strange name. At least our president-elect, born on the far-off, sunny isle of Oahu two years after it became a U.S. state, pronounces English without the marked accent of, oh, the governor of California. And speaking of German accents, the Times thumb-sucker also foresaw that there would be no German Obama any time soon. Bad timing for them: Three days later, Germany's Greens elected Cem Ozdemir, an ethnic Turk, as their new leader.
More here.
Posted by Abbas Raza at 05:22 AM | Permalink
Comments
Comparing the new American president to the German Green's new party leader and Napoleon.
Ca me donne envie de boire un coup!
Jesus Christ, you left-wing intellectual, euro-sucking weenies are really beyond the pale.
Have you ever lived in France? I have for the last 25 years, and I can tell you right now that there ain't gonna be no Arab any time soon as Président de la République Française. Everybody here knows that god damn well, no matter what they say in public. Nobody can show up out of the blue here anyway like Obama or Carter or Clinton, whatever their color.
Why don't you people get real? They say:
comparaison n'est pas raison
To which we may now add:
et des mauvaises comparaisons tirées d'un trou du cul, eh bien, c'est de la folie!
Posted by: curty | Nov 18, 2008 11:02:36 AM
C'est bon, Curty...
Posted by: Felix E F Larocca MD | Nov 18, 2008 11:22:12 AM
curly is right that casual racism towards Arabs and Muslims in France is off the charts. It's not better toward sub-Saharan Africans either.
If you look up the minority representation in the French parliament or among mayors, it's shocking. Go ahead and take a look.
Posted by: Hektor Bim | Nov 18, 2008 1:11:52 PM
I second the hilarity of the German Green party comparison. What did they get, less than 10% of the votes? By that logic the leader of the Kurdish identity party in Turkey is also another accomplished Obama (By the way, Cem Ozdemir is the *co-leader* of the German Green Party).
We are also led to believe that Sonia Gandhi was elected against all odds...Let me remind you that's spelled G-A-N-D-H-I.
Posted by: aegean | Nov 18, 2008 7:42:05 PM
However, the point is very well taken it's certainly not the case that it can only happen in America. (And if one goes beyond national heads of government to the regions, there are also Joe Ghiz, the long-ago Arab premier of Prince Edward Island and more recently Dave Barrett and Ujjal Dossanjh, the respectively Jewish and Punjabi premiers of British Columbia. Not, of course to speak of Governors Jindal and Schwarzenegger, whose elections were considerably earlier than the just-concluded presidential one, though Berreby does make the point as to the latter.) But one thing -- of many -- that is quite wonderful about America is that while it requires an American to speak speak such truths, one thing one can reliably depend on is that sooner or later someone there will indeed speak them.
Posted by: Mac | Nov 19, 2008 10:12:13 PM
If W. Bush would not have left the U.S. in such a miserable situation, even a political supertalent like Obama, would not have been elected.
What has that got to do with overcoming racism.
47% percent voted against Obama even under this circumstances. Yes, in the same situation Obama would have surely got a huge majority from white voters in every western-european country.
Posted by: Niklas | Nov 20, 2008 7:35:57 AM
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