I believe that we have to congratulate President Obama for having succeeded with his eloquent speeches in influencing the majority of the American population. They adored him and fought vehemently for him during the election and onward, without mentioning the large part of the American media and the American people. It is recognized that all of Obama’s nice speeches and promises were intended to create the enthusiasm and fill the people’s minds with dreams that the audience can identify itself with. Who does not love to live in peace and share the wealth of our great prosperity and having social justice for all? 

     Since my youth I heard this beautiful language which let me dream until the first German bomb awakened our peaceful town. Who did not dream about peace in his youth? About brotherhood, about lovely songs we learned in our French school, just like this song.

       “Si tous les gars du monde se donnaient un jour la main et marcheront  la main dans la main, le soleil brillera pour demain » If all the guys of the world would one day join hands and walk hand in hand, the sun will shine for tomorrow. This was a song in the old days, the time when dreamers have created the bigest disaster the world had ever known. At that time I was a young boy and the song excited us.

      These are beautiful words similar to those that our president uses. The only difference is the time which was seventy years ago, and the result was Nazism and Communism and WWII. Those who have lived in that era will understand what I am saying.  That’s why I believe that in order to reach those beautiful times and worlds that we all dreamed about, we should be careful not to encourage other nations to make revolutions, particularly those which are peaceful. When it comes to change from one regime to another, one should advance an idea slowly. We have to let every country and every people blossom on their own, according to its development, their pace and without coercion, just like a toddler who is learning to walk by himself.

     The case of Hosni Mubarak disturbed me deeply. Today I read that he is said by a security official to have slipped and injured himself in prison and has been moved to a Cairo military hospital. Although I am neither an Arab nor an Egyptian, I learned to appreciate a man who could hold the entire Middle East in peace during a thirty year period and who was a loyal friend. And since he left his office, the entire Middle East is in turmoil. This is like giving up the one we think is bad, just to find ourselves with the worse,

     We should not forget that all human beings are created equal and each one is unique and each nation is unique and each nation has its own age, its own customs and its own cycle. In our judgments, we should take into consideration those facts. As the Oriental wisdom says, “The one who is not able to honor the stranger and the man of another tribe is not worthy of being called the son of a noble nation.”

        Many politicians think that they can perform miracles without having at least a comfortable majority of the people with them.  I didn’t vote for Obama, but when he succeeded to become the president of all Americans, I wished that he would succeed in his tasks for three reasons. One, I wanted that our nation would succeed too. Second, I wanted that Obama would succeed as he is a member of a minority. The third reason is that we are all a part of one minority or another.

    I saw that he is using his intelligence and school knowledge but in a different direction from what we all have expected. This was visible when the Democrats passed the healthcare bill so fast, which infuriated many people. I can say I wonder if Congresswoman Pelosi who said, “Signe first, so we can see what’s in the bill.” The Tea Party was created in response to ObamaCare. Such a huge undertaking was without consideration for the opinion of the entire nation.

      The November election proved it. It is then that I understood that Obama would not be the president of all Americans, but the president of one group of the party which manipulated the entire bill. The leaders of this group were Congresswoman Pelosi and Senator Harry Reed. Despite the fact that Obama is a nice person, a persuasive man, and a master with great talent for the intonation and the use of the words, he didn’t see nor understood that the nation was split.

        I recognize that he had the advantage of reading and expressing himself with magnificent words and with a persuasive intonation, which reminds me of a few leaders in history, who succeeded to change the world and to awaken many forces innate in the human being, and to perform marvels while others created disaster while in their mind they wanted to change the world for the better. I should not forget that Obama succeeded to divide not only the American people but also families, religions and their members.

     If we we continue mixing ourselves in any revolution, we identify ourselves with one side or with the other and we will create in the same time one friend and one enemy. We should help both sides with humanitarian aid, as we don’t know what the best is for everyone. I still cannot believe that these revolutions were spontaneous ones, particularly when I saw how many times we interfered, by telling their leaders to step aside. This is interference in other states’ business. One day this immixing will haunt us.

      Despite all people who are enthusiastic about our president, at my age, I would like to believe that the president, besides the political considerations that he is following, will realize one day that his daughters will question his motives and bring up many other questions that in my youth I questioned.

      
Copyright 2012 Emile Tubiana