Will Obama Return
Latin America's Unconditional Love?
"Bush hasn't been bad for
Latin America. He traveled more and has met with more regional leaders than any
other U.S. President; he has signed free trade agreements with ten countries;
he doubled direct economic aid … It 's a resume that the next president will be
hard pressed to surpass."
At this stage of the United
States electoral process, it 's no secret to anyone that if the rest of the
world could vote in this election, Barack Obama would win by a wide margin.
What is less clear is whether this unconditional love that the world seems to
feel for Obama, will be reciprocated in the event that he wins the presidency.
In Latin America, for example, the constant question from the readers of my
weekly column is this: Which of the two candidates would, in my opinion, be
more beneficial to our region?
According to a recently
completed survey by the Pew Center of global attitudes about the election, 68
percent of French, 67 percent of Spaniards, 64 percent of Germans, 67 percent
of Nigerians, 66 percent of South Africans and 65 percent of Tanzanians would
give Obama an undisputed victory.
The same would apply if Latin
Americans could vote. According to a survey conducted in September by the
organization Latinobarómetro in 18 countries in the region ,
Obama would draw on average three times as many votes as McCain. Even if, as
one would expect, the margins of preference vary from country to country and
with the socio-economic and educational status of those interviewed. And so,
for example, in the three countries with the best educational indices in the region
(Costa Rica, Chile and Uruguay), the results of the poll show that the greater
the economic, social and educational affluence, the greater the enthusiasm for
Obama.
RUSSIA TODAY NEWS: UKRAINE FOR OBAMA - GEORGIA FOR MCCAIN
Beyond the personal charisma
and enormous historical significance that the democratic election of a Black man
as U.S. president would have, the sympathy that Europeans and Africans feel for
Obama could be explained, as shown by the results of the Pew poll, by the firm
belief of people interviewed on those two continents that the domestic
political changes promised by Obama will also reflect positively on U.S.
foreign policy. Interestingly, the optimism of Europeans and Africans isn't
fully shared by Latin Americans. According to Latinobarómetro, Latin Americans
don 't indulge in thinking that with Obama, North American foreign policy
toward the rest of the hemisphere will be any better. On average, a bit more
than a third of respondents (34 percent) thinks that the new U.S. president
will pay as much attention to the region as the current president; only 22
percent think he will pay more attention and 8 percent think there'll be even
less interest.
How to explain this contrast?
Could it be that for Africans, the dominant theme is one of racial solidarity with the candidate? And in
the case of the Europeans, could it be that the memory of the Marshall Plan,
which enabled the reconstruction of Europe after the Second World War, is still
alive? And in Latin America, could it be that most of the citizens of the 18
countries surveyed still harbor resentment over the American military and
political interventions of the last two centuries? In the case of Africans, although
it were understandable that the pride they must feel at seeing a person of
their own race aspire to such a significant post might translate into
unconditional support of his candidacy, it would be ridiculous, stereotypical
and offensive to reduce it to this dimension. The same could be said in the case
of the Europeans, since it 's hardly likely that young French or Germans would
preserve unchanged the sense of gratitude for the benevolence that they were
not alive to experience. Not to mention the Spaniards, who kept waiting for Mr.
Marshall. [Spain favored Hitler - so was penalized in this respect under the
Marshall plan ].
Posted by WORLDMEETS.US
A more plausible explanation
would be that the vilification of President Bush is so great that the world not
only anxiously awaits his successor, but distrusts the Republican candidate,
who in the Senate has always supported the interventionist policies of the
current president. And yet, despite his many faults, Bush hasn't been bad for
Latin America. As President, he traveled more and has met with more regional
leaders than any other U.S. President; he has signed free trade agreements with
ten countries in the region; he doubled direct economic aid and worked effectively
with global financial institutions to pardon $19 billion worth of debt for
Latin American countries. It 's a resume that, given the critical state of present
economic conditions, the next president will be hard pressed to surpass. Things
being as they are, one should ask again: why this attitude among Latin
Americans? Latinobarómetro offers a revealing piece of data: six out of ten of
the region 's inhabitants confess to knowing little or nothing about the U.S.
presidential race.
In other words, in Latin
America the prevailing feeling toward the United States is indifference.
