Obama’s Melancholy

The unspoken sectarianism that permeates Spanish political life has slanted the opinions about Obama from the reduction of their own prejudices. It is easy to perceive the enthusiasm of the left and the trace of the differences of opinions in our national politics of mistrustful people of the true right, whose clumsy copying we apply to the American scene with partisan confusion. This results in ridiculous progressive pleasure, established by the retirement-–not the defeat– of Bush and in the naive belief that his successor will tone down the hegemonic role of the United States, like the conservative distrust that the new president represents a mulatto version of Zapatero, a relationship that hardly goes further from the relative shallowness of some of his most celebrated discourse, on the other side much more vibrant and emotional than the faded rhetorical mantras that adorn the frivolity of the man of La Moncloa. There is an inevitable provincialism in this domestic interiorization of a phenomenon so interesting and complex as that of Obama, whose real and profound sense we hardly have the capacity to appreciate because it has to be seen with something that is completely alien to us, like overcoming the racial barriers that still divide fracture and condition the social and human structure of America.

Our internal obsessions take out of focus the prism of observation on Obama’s most important asset, which few seem to realize–his capacity to recuperate the national leadership, is founded in the concept absent for a time in the politics of Spain: multi-directional relations, consensus and unity. All successful presidential campaigns, from the beginning, have been based in the search for the elements that can bring together the country above racial, social and ideological differences–we’re not yet saying religious–under a principle of collective reconstruction, which the president has made clear will not leave anyone behind. Until the moment that he has preached with actions, his list of appointments, that for now is the only objective factor on which he can be judged, constitutes an example of a hand reaching out to all who can contribute ideas, experience, knowledge and the courage to apply them, without looking at color, gender or political origin. There is no other quota than merit.

This factor of unity, so yearned for here, which has catapulted Obama to the presidency and permits him to warm the hope that will positively disappoint those whoe desire his failure like those who have the luck of a member of the fifth column to sell off the American hegemony. Never is there anything more American than this establishing dream of grandeur that the new president fills his mouth with every time he opens it. This dream talks of liberty, patriotism, national pride and common work. I have here a political canon to learn before discrediting his sincerity and before glorifying him too early. A project of unity which, seen from this place of resentments and ill wills, provokes an unavoidable, envious and dream like melancholy.