I’d say yeah, things will be pretty celebratory here in Germany, considering the level of attention being payed. I don’t know if there will be literal parties in the street, but everyone I know will be pretty happy.
People went nuts in my neck of the woods a few weeks ago when it was made known that Obama had some ancestors from Alsace who immigrated to the US several years ago. The level of pride people took in that blew me away. First of all, I’m in southern Germany, on the other end of the country from Alsace. Second of all, Alsace, doesn’t even belong to Germany anymore, it belongs to France, it’s never been entirely clear who it belonged to in the first place, and the reasons why it belongs to France right now and not Germany (namely, World Wars I and II) are part of a period of history the average German sort of doesn’t like to associate themselves with too much.
So taking all that into account, it made the top of the politics page in the local paper here that Obama was descended from people who, hundreds of years ago, lived in a part of Europe that has occasionally been in German hands. And everyone went nuts. All the teachers at the school I attend and help out at clipped the article out of the paper and read it to their students. I commented on this to one of the teachers. “Seems like everyone in the world wants Obama to be part of them somehow,” I mention.
“Yeah,” she sighed. “I wish we really did have someone like him.” (Do note that she said someone like him–it’s not as though anyone is wishing that an Obama-led US would just sweep in and take things over.)
But my point is, it seems like a lot of people around the world want to view as Obama as being from them, somehow, or part of them. America has been touted for so long as being a place that anyone can call home, no matter where they come from. The rest of the world is watching to see if that can apply to leaders, too.
The Bush administration did an awful lot of arm-twisting in the run-up to the Iraq War. Countries like France who said no to joining the coalition were hit economically and diplomatically. Countries like the UK who said yes were badly used (often against the will of their own populations). America lost an enormous amount of international goodwill through such tactics.
I think that, just as there are people who want to hate America, there are a lot of people who want to like it. The Bush administration has made America very hard to like over the past seven-plus years, and we’re not seeing much from McCain that looks like change in that particular arena.
Well, I’m Australian and a few friends and I are having ourselves an U.S election night party that will will be either a commiseration McCain-won party or a celebration Obama-won party.
We’ve just decided today (purely for the hell of it) to ‘Americanise’ the proceedings a bit and we went and got ourselves some U.S flags to stick around the place and have already begun sorting out the M&Ms so that we will just have a big bowl of red, white and blue ones. We will be drinking Coke and are yet to decide whether to have McDonalds or KFC for dinner. Also, one of my friends has made a (probably empty) promise to dress up as Uncle Sam.
(Yes, we are stereotyping it up a little bit. Please understand we mean it affectionately ).
I was actually pondering whether to start a thread about it and ask for further suggestions.
Public celebrations might be a bit over the top, but the feeling I get is that the majority of Australians support Obama. In fact I’d venture that quite a few Australians would only be able to name Obama and not McCain if asked about the presidential election.
Slight Hijack: On NPR this morning there were several global bloggers from Australia to Germany, to Dakar to Japan - all of them mentioned Obama as being the favored. The most intertesting result was that they say Obama is more in tuned with diplomacy.
As an American I find this fascinating that we could actually elect a president that would help unite and not divide more people across the globe.
This I will dance in my eat for on November 5th when he wins.
Dunno about “massive” (other than in some African cities, maybe?), but there will be a lot of happy people overseas among those who follow U.S. politics. It does seem that Obama is the prohibitive favorite among them.
I assume so. Much of the rest of the world looks upon Obama as someone who will consider their interests too. What’s lost upon them is the fact that an American President is duty bound to govern in the interests of the US and to put his own country’s interests first.
While I’m sure much of the world will be happy if Obama wins (because the Republican idea of foreign policy is to act like the schoolyard bully), I don’t think there’ll be all that much real celebrating. The rest of the world cares, but not that much.
I should note (and I have no cite…my mom told me she read it somewhere so take it FWIW) that in Japan interest in the US election is higher than in the US itself.
Certainly worldwide interest in this election is VERY high. While people may not bust out in the streets dancing around the world you can be sure they will be watching.
We’re cheating a little on that one. Here, at least, you can get packs of mint flavoured M&Ms that consist only of green and white ones. We’ll mix them in with the regular ones. YUM! Thankfully, all of my friends enjoy mint flavoured candy.
We will be pleased. But no-one will dance on the streets.
I can understand why you might think that we would, given that 100,000 people in Ireland alone took to the streets against your war.
But, tbh at this point it’s more of a curiousity, and a conversation point than anything else.
We aren’t huddled around the TV, ready to jump up and down if one or the other wins.
Just wait til Obama and Congress start slapping a bunch of protectionist tariffs on everything. Remember how evil Bush did that with steel and white wine?
I seriously doubt he will. Remember he is more a product of the Chicago school of economic theory than anything else. Democrats often spout populist rhetoric that appeals to unions and such but have rarely followed up on them (note Republicans do the same thing to their base…politics as usual).
Well, my guess is that there will be some celebrations, but by and large they will be pretty limited, population wise, to those who most follow US politics abroad (for whatever reason). By and large I predict the majority of non-US folks will either not care or be only marginally interested.
I predict that in my home town in Mexico there won’t exactly be dancing in the (dirt) streets when they learn (a week later) that Obama has won. I DO predict that at the XT extended family estates (a.k.a. Nana’s House) there will be much rejoicing, especially after they eat the minstrel…
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