Trying to explain Barack Obama and the impact his appearance is having on people around the world is a gargantuan task.

This article from France’s Liberation takes a good stab at it by examining his influence on young people - especially on those in the French suburbs which are so often areas of violent confrontation between police and that nation’s alienated minority population.

In describing how immigrant minorities in France, both young and old, view Obama, François Durpaire and Jean-Claude Tchicaya write for Liberation:

“Products of postcolonial immigration, the older generation - around the age of Obama’s father - say it’s extraordinary to see this in their lifetime and didn’t dare imagine such a fate for their own children. The younger generation, whose hostility against the United States took root during the war in Iraq, are finding something to smile about. One high school student told us that Obama’s victory would mean the “liberation of all Blacks in the world!”

In describing why his mixed-race background is so appealing in France, the duo write:

“French born in France have to fight constantly with employers or in communicating and dealing with police against the idea that “being French is something observable.” Tired of having to respond to the eternal question, “Do you feel more Malian (Cameroonian, etc.) or French?” They have begun to dream of a country where when someone asks a Black person from whence they came, it’s to find out whether they were born in Ohio or California. They recognize themselves in Obama’s ambiguity of identity. …”

But despite Obama’s apparently transcendent significance, Durpaire and Tchicaya warn:

“But we shouldn’t be naively optimistic. First, because the words of Pastor Jeremiah Wright, by reintroducing the specter of racial division, showed that America’s old demons could undermine the dream of this new generation. Republicans will surely play on the senator’s “dubious” origins and on these fears.”
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First, if you’re wondering what I as a Hillary supporter think about Hillary’s decision to continue running after yesterday, the answer is I don’t know what I think of it as a strategy.  Naturally I would like to believe that she could still somehow prevail.  I am not sanguine.  People are speculating that she is now running for the VP slot.  We’ll see. 

But — and this matters more to me — I most definitely admire her for her unswerving commitment to see the process through.  Despite the pissing and moaning in the media, and whatever the outcome, I predict that the day will certainly arrive when people will look back with awe and amazement at  Hillary’s insistence in going the distance against all odds and wish that they had chosen her.  She is indomitable.  I like that in a Democrat and so should other Democrats.  Alas, many of them are so beguiled by the media myths about Hillary that they just can’t see what a force of nature she really is.  

Obama could learn a lot from her and he’d be a better (future) president for it.  Instead, I imagine we’ll be stuck with him in his current incarnation — all rhetoric, all the time.   

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What do Europeans think of American election campaign tactics? Judging by this op-ed from Austria’s Die Presse, they’re nothing like those that take place on the Old Continent. Eva Male writes, ‘Smear campaigns are time-honored traditions in U.S. election campaigns. The longer the campaign wares on and the more heated it becomes, the more mud candidates are going to throw at one another, occasionally actively egged-on by the media.’

By Eva Male

Translated By Behncke

February 27, 2008

Austria - Die Presse - Original Article (German)

Smear campaigns are time-honored traditions in U.S. election campaigns. But one must take care: They have been known to backfire.

The longer the campaign wares on and the more heated it becomes, the more mud candidates are going to throw at one another, occasionally actively egged-on by the media. That’s what we are currently experiencing in the United States, where former First Lady Hillary Clinton must fear for her campaign for the nomination after the next big primaries in Ohio and Texas.

Clinton accused her challenger Barack Obama of inexperience in foreign policy, by indirectly comparing him to incumbent President George W. Bush. The fact that her campaign team circulated photos of Obama wearing traditional African garb - taken during a visit to Kenya - is being evaluated as racist and divisive. Just a few weeks ago, Hillary’s attack dog Bill barked vigorously at Obama. Meanwhile, Republican candidate John McCain was charged on the front page of The New York Times with having an affair with a lobbyist.

Ruthless tactics like these happen in U.S. election campaigns all the time. But they can backfire and earn sympathy for the attacked candidate. Surveys show that voters, especially the young, reject negative campaigning.

READ ON AT WORLDMEETS.US, along with continuing translated foreign press coverage of the U.S. election.

NOTE: This is one of many updates. It increasingly appears as if the photo did come from the Clinton camp:

The Drudge Report’s front page now has a screeching headline saying staffers from Hillary Clinton’s campaign are circulating a photo of a “dressed” rival Barack Obama — actually dressed in Kenyan dress — that at first glance fits in with the “Obama as Muslim” motif spread in emails and whispering campaigns — a longstanding charge that is inaccurate but being used as a slur. But Drudge couples this with photos of Clinton and President George Bush dressed in local gear as well.

UPDATE: The Politico reports that the Obama campaign has blasted the Clinton campaign — which reporter Mike Allen says has not denied or commented on the charge that it is spreading use of the photo:

Obama campaign manager David Plouffe accused the Clinton campaign Monday of “shameful offensive fear-mongering” by circulating a photo as an attempted smear.

….The Clinton campaign did not deny the charge, but did not comment further.

…..Plouffe said in a statement: “On the very day that Senator Clinton is giving a speech about restoring respect for America in the world, her campaign has engaged in the most shameful, offensive fear-mongering we’ve seen from either party in this election. This is part of a disturbing pattern that led her county chairs to resign in Iowa, her campaign chairman to resign in New Hampshire, and it’s exactly the kind of divisive politics that turns away Americans of all parties and diminishes respect for America in the world,” said Plouffe.

The photo created huge buzz in political circles and immediately became known as “the ‘dressed’ photo,” reflecting the Drudge terminology.

But Marc Ambinder reports that some Clinton aides have denied circulating the photo (see his quote in roundup below) and suggest the Obama campaign sent it.

And TNR’s The Plank suggests it may come from GOP operatives (see quote in roundup below).

UPDATE II: The Politico now has a Clinton campaign response which does not answer the question as to whether its campaign or staffers spread the email but pushes the blame on Obama for trying to “distract” the campaign. The Politico reports that the response is “from Maggie Williams, which doesn’t respond to the question of whether a staffer was circulating the photo of Obama in Somali garb, but takes issue with the Obama campaign’s embrace of the issue:”

Enough.

If Barack Obama’s campaign wants to suggest that a photo of him wearing traditional Somali clothing is divisive, they should be ashamed. Hillary Clinton has worn the traditional clothing of countries she has visited and had those photos published widely.

This is nothing more than an obvious and transparent attempt to distract from the serious issues confronting our country today and to attempt to create the very divisions they claim to decry.

We will not be distracted.

UPDATE COMMENT:

Any editor or reporter knows what this kind of statement is: it is a refusal to deny. Even if the Clinton campaign comes back later and denies it, the damage is now done.

Williams’ statement will be widely seen as tacit confirmation that the Clinton campaign has been spreading the email due to the attempt to put the onus on Obama for somehow raising a fake divisive issue by complaining about it.

The first truth a reporter even just hired and on probation learns is: news sources and subjects who are outraged will make flat, blanket denials and won’t hedge. William’s comment is either an evasion or a hedge to The Politico’s question. Either way, it suggests Drudge source wasn’t from the Obama or GOP camps.

NEW UPDATE: Josh Marshall apparently agrees with TMV on this:

We spent the better part of the morning trying to get some comment from the Clinton campaign. For the first hour or more we couldn’t get anything. Then we got this statement in which the Clinton camp says Obama should be “ashamed” at saying the picture is “divisive,” without addressing one way or another what they’re accused of doing.

(He got the same statement as The Politico.)

Put it all together and the Clinton camp would appear to be unwilling to make even the most perfunctory denial that they are or were circulating this photo around.

We held up on this because we never want to take Drudge as a fact witness for anything. But I think the Clinton camp’s statement speaks for itself.

(BACK TO OUR ORIGINAL POST)
We don’t usually link to Drudge or quote him (a lot of his reports didn’t hold up) but this one is quite specific and fits in with other reports of emails — plus a host of emails (not from Clinton staffers) this writer has deleted. Click this link soon since these reports don’t always have a long shelf life. Here’s the first part of it:

With a week to go until the Texas and Ohio primaries, stressed Clinton staffers circulated a photo over the weekend of a “dressed” Barack Obama.

The photo, taken in 2006, shows the Democrat frontrunner fitted as a Somali Elder, during his visit to Wajir, a rural area in northeastern Kenya.

The senator was on a five-country tour of Africa.

“Wouldn’t we be seeing this on the cover of every magazine if it were HRC?” questioned one campaign staffer, in an email obtained by the DRUDGE REPORT.

We’ll pass on running the photos here (go to the link) due to the intent behind the emailing and trying to get them published.

Conservative blogger Rick Moran writes that he, for one, is getting sick of the effort to display Obama as a Muslim (which he isn’t: the charge and implication arouses feelings of anti-Muslim bigotry, where some then feel if he is a Muslim he is a threat to American security):

Well, today conservative stupidity regarding Obama and his supposed ties to Islam hit paydirt – as in generating a ten on the laugh-o-meter. Evidently, the probable next president of the United States was caught in flagrante dilecto, dressed to the nines in what appears to be some kind of native garb (probably Kenyan) and with a (gasp!) turban on his head. To some of my unschooled, ignorant conservative friends, this is further proof that if we elect Obama president, there will be a department of Sharia Affairs.

The truth as Jim Hoft (via Sweetness and Light) shows, is a little less dramatic. The costume is that of a Kenyan tribal elder.

Now Obama already has some problematic connections to Kenya including his appearances for presidential candidate Raila Odinga, a distant cousin and someone whose recent actions in fomenting violence in Kenya following a crooked presidential election are extremely troublesome. (There have also been rumors of a deal between Odinga and the small Islamist party in Kenya that he would, if elected, establish Sharia law – a dubious proposition and almost certainly a lie that has been picked up by some conservatives in this country and passed off as the truth.)

But the idea that Obama in traditional Kenyan garb proves he’s some kind of closet Muslim or Islamic sympathizer is absurd. Kenya is 70% Christian and only 10% Muslim. To extrapolate that Obama’s dress denotes anything other than acknowledging his birthright not to mention playing the gracious guest by donning the clothing of his hosts is irrational, stupid, ignorant, and totally without foundation.

On the other hand, some conservative bloggers are expressing dismay over the photos on Drudge and are critical of the pix and those who are circulating them. (See roundup below). Moran also has this to say:

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Was President Bush’s recent tour of Africa just a convenient and thinly-disguised attempt to whitewash an otherwise dismal foreign policy record? Mohammad Jafar Ahmed of Al-Khaleej of the United Arab Emirates writes, ‘By signing agreements and handing out donations to help combat disease at the end of his second term, Bush’s tour appeared to be an attempt to instill memories other than the American catastrophe in Iraq and the quagmire in Afghanistan.’

By Mohammad Jafar Ahmed

Translated By James Jacobson

February 22, 2008

United Arab Emirates - Al-Khaleej - Original Article (Arabic)

In his last months before leaving the White House, American President George Bush remembered of the “Dark Continent,” setting off on a six-day African tour starting in Benin, and moving on to Rwanda, Tanzania and Ghana, and ending today with a stop in Liberia.

Bush’s “farewell” tour, which is the second to Africa of his presidency, was meant to convince the world that he feels the suffering of this forgotten people, presenting himself as an advocate who wants to help them overcome the effects of war, conflict and disease. But perhaps the true purpose was to rescue a legacy tainted with the blood of thousands in Palestine, Iraq, Lebanon and Afghanistan - the result of his wars and unlimited support of Zionist aggression, in addition to the sanctions he has imposed on a number of countries that have opposed his policies.

The tour was striking in that it didn’t include the real hot spots of conflict on the Dark Continent, notably Sudan, home of the Darfur crisis, as well as Kenya, where the turmoil that has embroiled the nation since the recent elections continues, to say nothing of Chad and Somalia.

Bush’s five-country selection prompts anyone interested Africa’s difficulties to question the meaning and true objectives of his tour and whether it was for political or economic purposes. As Darfur is one of the major preoccupations of the West, particularly in the United States, which kept the crisis on the international agenda until it reached the U.N. Security Council, Sudan can be considered the greatest failure of Bush’s tour; similar to the way Palestine was the great failure after his last Middle East tour, where as result of American cover for “Israeli” crimes, hundreds have been martyred in Gaza and the West Bank.

READ ON AT WORLDMEETS.US, along with out continuing translated foreign press coverage of the United States.

China is playing a spoiler role not only in Sudan, but now in Kenya as well. In the midst of the country’s post-election turmoil, Beijing has steadfastly refused to put any pressure on the warring parties, despite (or perhaps because of) its “large and growing economic stake.” Numerous countries have already sent envoys, as have the AU and the UN — China’s absence from the process, then, is striking. Like in Sudan, the failure of Beijing to play a more active role could be the crutch on which the corrupt parties rely. Via The Economist:

With China to fall back on, Mr Kibaki may feel better able to cling on to power and withstand any Western threats to impose sanctions or suspend aid. According to the IMF, China’s trade with Kenya was $706m in 2006, a startling 36% up on the year before. Kenya’s trade with America, its largest Western partner, was $919m, but down on the previous year; with Britain it was $864m. The Chinese have invested in mining and offshore oil exploration, plus some big infrastructure projects, such as new bypasses around Nairobi.

China, of course, cannot solely be blamed for the international community’s failure to wage a peace agreement in Kenya (or end the genocide in Darfur, for that matter). While Beijing is certainly playing an unhelpful part, the United States and other world powers are also to blame for their impotent actions.

This is a Guest Voice column by Alan Boswell, an American college student who has been studying in Kenya since August 2007. Guest Voice posts to not necessarily reflect the opinion of The Moderate Voice or its writers.

What’s Really Happening In Kenya

by Alan Boswell

“Tribal violence”? “Ethnic cleansing”? These words have been splashing in the international headlines recently as Kenya’s flawed presidential election in late December has opened up its suppressed undercurrents of inequality and tribal politics for all the world to see.

For the West, these types of headlines are startling and seem radiated from a different world, a different age. If these phrases don’t end up resurrecting age-old philosophical questions on human nature, then they tend to just lend to the further dismissal of the entire “dark continent” by the rest.

However, such quick off-handedness is unfortunate.

In Kenya, these headlines are misleading, and its recent events are neither inexplicably inhuman nor are they really fundamentally tribal in nature. Instead, its quick drop into instability was a political fall caused by a complexity of economic, social, and historical factors intertwining into the tangled mess the world is currently watching.

Historically, contemporary ethnic communities in Kenya (and similarly in much of Africa) are as much a creation of their colonial masters (in Kenya’s case, the British) as any pre-colonial ethnic identity. Through a divide-and-rule strategy that attempted to pre-empt broad dissent, the British firmly separated Kenya into different tribes, cementing what was previously often much more ambiguous and shifting social constructions.

The British policies of separation instead of unification created tribal animosities in the battle over scarce economic resources and political privileges, purposely stunting any nationalist sentiment from forming and threatening its rule. For instance, national associations and political parties were not allowed; instead, only intra-tribal groups could organize and lobby their colonial rulers.

Today, these colonial policies are all too evident in the post-colonial Kenyan state and have taken on new dimensions since independence. In a country where governance and rule have operated largely on a patron-client system, these tribal groups (clients) rally behind their political leaders (patrons) in the expectation of receiving a larger piece of the pie in proportion with greater political power. This demon of tribal politics has proven tough to kill.

In short, the current animosities stem from frustrations of economic inequalities and political back-handedness, not from any pre-colonial, age-old hostilities between tribes.

But how, though, in a nation as developed and civilized as Kenya—which was considered a beacon for the rest of the region until now—could all this “barbarism” break out?
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