04 November, 2008

Quote of the day

From the opinion page of the Daily Trust newspaper of Nigeria, a few choice words:
Whenever the cliche "world opinion" is used by western powers we can expect economic sanctions, military intervention or some form of meddling in the affairs of weaker nations.

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A global village is truly emerging.

If in George W. Bush we got the first global village idiot, everyone (or almost everyone) is praying that in Obama we would have the first global tribal chief. Our understanding and expectations differ, we have no illusions about that. After all the expectations of Isreal's Kadima leader Tzipi Livni and the Ayatoolahs in Iran are very different. Yet they all would prefer Obama.

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If the son of a Kenyan, who grew up in Indonesia and Hawaii, attended a Muslim-majority school, could raise the cosciousness and hopes of people all over the world, could rise to become a credible contender to the most powerful office in the world, we have truly come far, thanks to the American dream, and the decency and common sense of its' average folks. Most of all, thanks to all those who fought to make ipossible for an Obama to emerge at all; from Martin Luther King Jr. to Spike Lee, from Rosa Park to Oprah

This, to me, captures the best and the worst of America's relationship with the world.

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