Tuesday, November 4, 2008

Egyptians Weigh-In on the American Election

With a historic election underway as I write this post, I thought it appropriate to present the views of the Egyptians on this critical juncture.

There have been countless times when I have entered a cab, only to get stuck in gridlock traffic. Sometimes the cab driver will try to strike up conversation with me, and to be honest, one of the most common topics brought up is the Presidential election. Without fail, the cab driver will express his diehard support for Barack Obama and absolute disdain for the current President. But, to be fair, many times these drivers don't even know who John McCain is. They just know Barack Obama, the man with "Hussein" as his middle name, and they know that he promises to very different from George W. Bush.

I mentioned these frequent occurrences to one of my teammates on the rugby team, Amin. Amin, not surprisingly, is also an ardent Obama supporter. However, he has a better grasp of reality: While he hopes Obama is elected, he doesn't think that it will immediately change everything in the Middle East for the better. In fact, he thinks that very little will be done, especially in the case of Palestine, because of Obama's professed support of Israel (remember the speech at AIPAC this year?). Nevertheless, he did reference Obama's middle name as another reason why he appeals to him.
Another one of my teammates, Mo, had tons to say about the American election, but when asked about his politics for his own country Egypt, he had very little to contribute. In Egypt, where there is no democracy (Hosni Mubarak is the lone dictator and it has been that way for decades), there is little need for political opinions. Because of this, I think many are forced to look to the next best thing: American politics. I think Mo is a perfect example of this. I can only imagine, however, what it would be like if Egyptians had the opportunity to voice their political opinions at the polls as we Americans are so fortunate to do.

Today, on my journey back from campus, the conversation on the bus revolved around two topics: issues concerning the new campus and the presidential election, both of which are probably the most common subjects of conversation amongst my friends and me as well. This time, one of the female professors expressed her disgust for Sarah Palin when she said, "I think she is an embarrassment to women everywhere." Even though I don't fully agree with this (I'm not a big fan of Palin either, mind you), most people in the discussion expressed their whole-hearted support for this. In addition, one of the AUC school newspapers, The Caravan, endorsed Obama.

As you can see, the support for Obama here is overwhelming. While many do not necessarily know his policies, they know he has an Arab middle name, is a Democrat, and is not George Bush. For Egyptians, this enough to garner their support (but not their votes). Even though the name campaign against Barack Obama may have hurt him in the states (I watched a video of a lady say she couldn't trust Obama because "he's an Arab"), but it definitely helped him over here. I cannot stress enough, however, the importance of Barack Obama's perceived distance from George Bush. George Bush, regardless of your politics, has undoubtedly hurt our standing in the Middle East among the normal citizenry. Although the US still commits billions in aid to the Middle East (about a quarter of the new AUC campus was supplied by USAID), the policies pursued by George Bush, and even Bill Clinton and George H.W. Bush, have soured the opinions of many Arabs of the American presidency.

Well, now you know how the Egyptians feel about the American election. I can't wait to find out what the Americans think! I've sent in my absentee ballot. Have you voted?! If not, get out and vote!

Ma'a salaama,

Blair

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