So, it’s finally over. George W. Bush is President of the United States and although my opinion in all this doesn’t count (I am not an American citizen), I have to admit that I felt quite a bit of anxiety about the results on election night.
I stopped to think why this matters to me. Why I cared who became the next President of the United Sates.
The obvious answer is at the personal level – that being a resident of America, I am quite concerned how the policies of the next President will affect my life. I’d like to feel safe, be assured that I will not be unfairly hounded by the Department of Homeland Security and not pay exorbitant taxes.
The more important answer has little to do with how I am personally affected by policy. Like many other people, I am concerned more with America’s attitude to the world – something I think has drastically changed under the tenure of George W. Bush.
The overwhelming mandate that George Bush got from the country is perhaps an indication of the somewhat centre-right tendencies this nation is leaning towards. Is America changing fundamentally ? Will it stop being the great melting pot that made it the land of everybody’s dreams and become a country that frowns upon immigrants and gay people and bombs every country in the world that it thinks is evil (as defined in the Bible) ? Will America be even less of a global citizen and continue to burn oil up in its SUVs, give a hoot for the environment and rely on the rest of the world financing its indulgence?
I have great respect for America and indeed, there is just so much that I have learned, and continue to learn, every single day that I have been here. I only hope that the America that everybody in the world looked up to and respected, once upon a time, is not just a thing of the past but in fact, the America that I know and live in.
