The independent Russian media is certainly not dead. That is the only conclusion one can draw of this editorial comparison of the leadership styles of President-elect Barack Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, from the Russian newspaper, Gazeta.
The Gazeta editorial not only praises the stake that average Americans have in the political life of the U.S., it frontally attacks recent electoral reforms in Russia that are designed to have the completely opposite effect in their country.
Pointing out that the two young leaders gave major speeches on the same day - Obama his electoral victory speech and Medvedev his first ’state of the union’ address, The Gazeta editorial says in part:
“Except that Obama addressed fifty million supporters who voted for him, while Medvedev spoke to a thousand legislators, governors, and bureaucrats.”
“When Obama repeated time and again, ‘we,’ ‘us,’ ‘our climb,’ ‘our goals,’ regardless of how sincere these words were, his listeners believed them: “we” - this is the people, the citizens of the United States. It is the citizens, the regular people that the new leader appeals to. They’re the ones who now have “the chance to make change.” And the words that “it can’t happen without you” seemed quite obvious to them.
“But Dmitriy Medvedev couldn’t have said in the Kremlin ‘It will not happen without you,’ even to his select audience. Because after all, even this narrow circle would have been too wide for such comments. Decisions here are made by a far smaller number of people. … The individual opinion of an ordinary person (unlike his abstract “rights and freedoms”) is definitely not about to be taken into account by those at the ‘top.’”
A truly extraordinary editorial from what many Westerners consider a completely tamed Russian press.
One of the more rewarding things about showing Americans what the rest of the world thinks about our nation, is to introduce people to newspapers that they would never ordinarily be able to read. For example, how many Americans have ever read a newspaper from the civil-war stricken Portuguese-speaking country of Angola?
This article by Altino Matos of the Jornal de Angola has an interesting take on the election of Barack Obama. While it suggests that the ‘American Media Machine’ chose Obama to alter our global image - it doesn’t seem to think there’s anything wrong with that.
“The American communication system, one of the largest in existence, was quick to realize that it had to do something substantial and consistent to save the United States, considering the erosion of its image, which began primarily with wars in Afghanistan Iraq and the Middle East.
“The strategy for recovery had to come from the Democrats, but it couldn’t be based solely on words. It was essential to find a face that could incorporate these words and breathe life into a comprehensive program. In this way, the technocrats found in Barack Obama a man of the multitudes.”
Here’s a new take on Obama’s election as president from none other than China’s state-controlled media. According to this op-ed from China’s strictly-controlled Global Geographic Weekly, Obama’s victory is a ‘color revolution’ - similar to those promoted by the Bush Administration in Ukraine and Georgia.
“The U.S. presidential election, watched so closely by the entire world, has finally given us its result. In the past, [the U.S. election] rules and guidelines haven’t always reached a positive outcome - but the fact that the American people previously elected “the decider,” no doubt helped these same people elect Obama, a Black man, the new U.S. president.
“After over 200 years of White rule, Obama, a Black man, in one fell swoop successfully launched a “color revolution” and seized power. In recent years, the leadership of Bush’s Republican Party has stirred up trouble all over the world, playing up the “Rose Revolution [Georgia ],” the “Orange Revolution [Ukraine ],” the “Tulip Revolution [Kyrgyzstan ],” and other “color revolutions.” Well, this time a “Black Revolution” has played out in America’s own land, and it was this color revolution that forced them from the stage.”
The word progressive has an interesting and storied history, and according to this article, in Obama’s victory, the word and its meaning have been snatched back by the left, from the right - who had “stolen” it from them.
“The election of Barack Obama has another meaning just as decisive to our fate. Since the 1980s, the progressives of the planet have been on the defensive. The forces of individualism and money confiscated the very idea of progress. Business and finance, combined with technology and free trade, were the engines of a revolution that shook the planet, changed work habits and transformed the relationships between people. The exuberance of the markets and the energy of individual selfishness have pushed humanity forward without it knowing where it was going. Capitalism, according to Marx’ theory, revolutionized life. Suddenly, the words changed and reform, innovation, audacity and creativity moved to the right. Although the term doesn’t have the same meaning in the United States, and even if Barack Obama, somewhat like the Kennedys, is also a proven politician, centrist in many ways, a tough competitor and able to maneuver, these words have now come back to the left. By a huge margin, without question, Americans wanted to say that this society is too hard on people, that inequality is not the ideal for citizens of globalization, that the Earth is not infinite and indestructible, and that the rich must lose at least some of their arrogance. Progressives had the idea of progress stolen from them. Now they have taken it back.”
“Power has often had the same face: White men of a certain age. Our habits, in the end, have turned into sclerosis! We must help the elite to change … or force them a little, because psychology alone won’t do. … The voters are ready. I think the political parties are ready to accept the imposition of certain standards, a charter or a pact. The Obama effect should propel us. … When I hear [Italian Prime Minister] Silvio Berlusconi joke about the fact that Obama is ‘always tanned’ … I am very pleased to have become French!”
Emerging from the Democratic Party witness protection program, the former perpetual candidate was slouching toward redemption last night for a discussion of last week’s elections at Indiana University and next week will debate Karl Rove, his Republican counterpart in shamelessness, at an American Bankers Association meeting in San Francisco (paying them with taxpayer bailout money, no doubt).
There used to a timeline for public rehabilitation, but it has been erased, first by Rove’s instant reincarnation from Bush’s smear-master as a political pundit and now by John Edwards’ popping up in public only three months after a weasel-worded admission of adultery for being caught red-handed by a tabloid.
Is there anyone left out there wondering of the the rest of this planet sees America in a new light after President-elect Obama’s victory?
This article by the great Christian Merville of Lebanon’s L’Orient Le Jouris particularly eloquent - and ends much more cold-eyed than this paragraph in the beginning might lead one to believe. And demonstrating the incredible change in perceptions, it has the same refrain as the famed Le Monde front page of September 12, 2001:
“A leader was born, an unknown even four years ago, who through the magic of his word has enabled all of us, beyond the borders of his country, to imagine that we are all Americans, in solidarity at last after having been divided for so long … But the words, as exhilarating as they may be, will not suffice. Nor will promises of a better tomorrow if they take too long to come. The disappointment could be as cruel as the great hopes that were raised when everything seemed possible.”
