"And the sands will roll
Out a carpet of gold
For your weary toes to be a'touchin'
And the ship's wise men
Will remind you once again
That the whole wide world is watchin'"
-- Bob Dylan "The hour that the ship comes in"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-zWsaPqQxw&feature=related
Paris (Nov. 5, 2008) -- It was around 4 in the morning outside of the Canadian bar where I was watching the returns this morning when I realized that it just might be cool again to be an American abroad.
It wasn't so much the French girl smoking outside who told me that she had lived in America for eight years and loved it and wanted to go back. A very rare thing to hear just a day before. No, it was when the young stylish French guy said to me, "You're American?"
"Yeah," I said, "and you?"
He took a drag on his cigarette and looked down at the pavement and said not as cheerfully as is common, "I'm from Paris."
Not many French believed, even as much as they adore Obama, that a black man could be elected to the same office as the one occupied by George W. Bush. It simply did not seem possible.
But to quote an English friend of mine, "What an improbable country." She added, "And maybe that will be Bush's main claim to fame, that he paved the way for Obama."
I never have hidden being American even as many of my fellow countrymen have ironed Canadian flags on their backpacks while wandering abroad. Even after being painfully embarrassed by the current occupant, I always was upfront about my nationality, ready and eager to defend the many good things that my country is about.
I won't be more brash now or talk louder or wear shirts with "U.S.A." on them when I walk the streets, but there is a sense of amazement over here about how my country just elected the best person (in my opinion -- judging by how he ran his campaign) despite his not being white and even tough he has a strange name for an American.
America made the world proud last night while also leaving it slack-jawed.
I got a call this morning from my friend Fatiah, a French woman of Algerian decent who runs an art gallery and loves America. She called to squeal about the Obama win. I was still a bit groggy and it was almost 11 and I wanted to listen to the hourly BBC news on the radio to hear what they had to say about last night. I was trying to get off the phone and she said, "Brett!"
"Yeah? I'm here."
"America set a good example for the world last night."
Take care,
Brett
