US08: the president elect
Undoubtedly, Democracy is a Utopia. It is never there, it’s not really anywhere, and yet sometimes we believe it’s there. This only happens when we are made to believe in it; when enough elements echo in our hearts and arouse our imagination. This is what happened when the ”skinny kid with a funny name” became president elect of the US a couple of minutes ago.
This is one of the rare times I mention politics outside the Middle East. And I do so after months of difficulties in writing anything on Middle Eastern politics. It is hard to write when there is little hope, even harder when you feel that the ideals you hold have no echo in the reality you live in.
“Change we believe in”… and change we see. A change of style. A change of colour. A change of language. A change of policy? Neoconservative pseudo-idealism died years ago. What exactly are we looking at? Is there anything behind this formidable rhetoric, this striking iconicity?
