Italians are in love -- with Obama - Democratic Underground

babylonsister

(1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore

Fri Nov-14-08 08:02 PM
Original message

Italians are in love -- with Obama

:loveya:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jim-schumacher-and-debbie-bookchin/italians-are-in-love----w_b_143997.html

Jim Schumacher and Debbie Bookchin
Posted November 14, 2008 | 07:30 PM (EST)
Italians are in love -- with Obama

snip//

The phenomenonal reaction to Obama is much more than just relief that the Bush years will finally end. It signifies the clear understanding that the Obama's election was extraordinary, a once-in-a-lifetime event, and that his election has set a new mark to which Italy and the rest of Europe will need to aspire.

Here's a small example of how Obama's election has infiltrated even the smallest corners of Italy: In the small Umbrian city in which we live, the mid-November celebration of our patron saint, St. Florido, is one of the most important holidays of the year. The standing room only Mass, celebrated in the high cathedral, is attended by everyone from the mayor to our local Green Party delegate in the regional assembly in Perugia. Flanked by all the priests from the twenty-odd parish churches in our diocese, the local bishop leads the one-and-a-half hour mass and delivers the homily. Generally his remarks are confined to imploring his flock to rediscover the spirit of St. Florido and our other Umbrian saints, which is to say being more humble and observant servants of the rules of the Church.

But in this year's St. Florido Mass, celebrated on November 13th, about half-way through the homily, just after the usual remarks about the good deeds of St. Florido in the 6th century, the Bishop suddenly marched off in an unanticipated direction. "A few days ago an important politician said these words," he began. And then (in Italian) he quoted a verbatim passage from Obama's victory speech in Grant Park: "The true strength of our nation comes not from the might of our arms or the scale of our wealth, but from the enduring power of our ideals: democracy, liberty, opportunity, and unyielding hope." After a pause, with the mayor and all the leading politicians of our town sitting directly under him in the very front pews, he proceeded to state that our town - and all of Europe - needs to rediscover that same sense of hope, opportunity and renewal. Not content to stop there, he began to list what kinds of actions they needed to take: involving young people in civic and political life, welcoming immigrants, and aiding the poor. In a few short moments he had turned our normally bland town holiday into a call for social justice and action.

Similarly, when Italy's leading left-leaning daily newspaper, La Repubblica, published a special 195-page "atlas" about Obama two days after the election, the tens of thousands of copies distributed to every news stand in Italy sold out before the weekend was through. Our friends implore us for Obama buttons or any other campaign memorabilia we can find, and it seems as if every Italian stranger we've encountered in the last week - bookstore owners, people on the street, waitresses, every one - has been unable to contain themselves with excitement about the election of our 44th president.

Our friends across Europe have similar stories to tell. Everywhere there is a sense of hope and wonder that America, after reaching perhaps an all time low in world opinion, has pulled a rabbit out of its hat and done the unimaginable - elected an inspirational leader with intelligence and honesty, who believes that it is possible to transcend the confines of race and religion that have stalled dialogue throughout the world, and who arrives with an agenda aimed at comforting the afflicted even if that means afflicting the comfortable. For the first time in many years, political coverage of the U.S. by the Italian a press even contains a tinge of envy. All across Italy, and indeed throughout Europe, there is a renewed appreciation of the American possibility. And more profoundly, there are many Europeans who are wondering if Europe too can find an Obama in its midst.