I was working a shift in the Emergency Room as John McCain conceded defeat. As I recall, it was already early afternoon Sydney time.
“Congratulations! We won!” my effusive, grinning co-worker said to me as I was standing there at the X-ray viewer, trying to interpret a chest film.
“Congratulations for what?” I replied, irritated at having my train of thought broken. “What are you talking about?”
The ecstasy on my co-worker’s face melted away and devolved into something akin to puzzlement and total mystification, and she looked at me as if I had a third eye, or was born without a belly-button, or something else along those lines. “You don’t know? WE won! Obama won!” she said, seeking signs of affirmation in my countenance.
They were not particularly forthcoming. “Oh, I’m sorry”, I replied in a manner that was not offensive, but was not really apologetic at all. “I voted for McCain”, I added firmly.
At this point, the expression on my co-workers face turned once again, but this time, to one of embarrassment, as if she had somehow overstepped her bounds. What followed as a pregnant, uncomfortable silence, which ultimately went unbroken as she turned and walked meekly away, with the demeanor of someone who had just had her lunch eaten by a bully. At the time, I was reminded, of all things, of the film “Forrest Gump”. To paraphrase a line from that film – “I’m sorry I spoiled your little Barack Obama party.”
This encounter, with small variations, replayed itself several times over the next few days. Overjoyed Aussie Obamites congratulated what they thought was yet another Yank expatriate who had come to Australia to escape the Dark Age of an America ruled by Conservatives for much of the last eight years.
The collective Aussie ecstasy over the advent of Barack Obama is completely understandable, given the “rock star” treatment he was given here in the Land Down Under by the media – which of course, was overwhelmingly pro-Barack. The Australian press followed the campaign with a rigor that really took me by surprise. I was floored by the amount of interest there was in another sovereign nation’s political affairs, and in general, by the amount of airtime devoted to the United States on the nightly TV news, regardless of the election. By comparison, how much does your average American care about what’s going on in Canada or Mexico?
Nevertheless, the pro-Obama orientation of the Australian media was plainly obvious. The preponderance of air-time was devoted to the Obama camp, while the McCain campaign was treated as a kind of annoying postscript – a necessary afterthought hastily added at the end of the news segment, if only to maintain some semblance of objectivity and, hence, good journalism.
Australian news segments devoted to Obama looked like they were produced by Spielberg himself. There was Obama, at some packed, outdoor political rally, beautiful fall foliage in the backdrop, with crowd shots carefully selected to show the multiracial diversity of the crowd. Then there was Obama himself – jaunty, confidently strutting up to the podium, with that perfect smile on his photogenic face – the very flower of youth and vigor. Segments depicting McCain were very different – always filmed in dark, indoor settings, with crowd shots showing an all-white, staid (Middle American?) audience – sequences that accentuated Mac’s semi-shuffling gait, the fact that Cindy McCain towers over him, or that the movement in his left arm was limited, as if he were some kind of invalid. I remember thinking that the Australian media’s treatment of Senator McCain somehow reminded me of Emperor Palpatine from Star Wars. With coverage like this, it is no surprise that the Australian public came to perceive McCain as old, worn, infirm, weak, and out of touch. Too bad that they could not see that Mac’s bum left arm was not really a sign of infirmity at all, but instead, a badge of honor. A badge of honor earned by enduring, honorably and courageously, as a POW in some of the most freakish and horrible of circumstances imaginable.
So, with this Princess Diana-esque media treatment, how could the Aussie public not come to adore Barack Hussein Obama, and come to expect the very best from an Obama Presidency that promised “Change” and “Hope” (and, let’s not forget, “Sharing the Wealth”), aphorisms of a New Golden Age for the United States and the rest of the world? As an American who loves his country and only wants the best for it, I can only hope that these sentiments turn out to be real core values for Mr. Obama and his appointees, not just punchlines delivered at the denouement of a political rally.
Unfortunately, in my mind at least, all of this hype and adulation has resulted to a certain extent in an obscuration of the facts, blinding many of us to the real issues. Any cursory review of human history will show that it is rife with instances in which style has triumphed over substance, often with disastrous consequences. The same co-worker I mentioned at the beginning of this piece approached me again a few days later to flat out ask me why I didn’t vote for Obama. Apparently, the whole episode had been preoccupying her. As we were talking, I noted that she was wearing a Rosary bracelet – which to Catholics is a devotion to the Virgin Mary. “So, you’re Catholic I take it?” She replied in the affirmative. “So,” I said, “did you know that Senator Obama has one of the most radically pro-abortion voting records in Congress? And that he supports initiatives that limit funding to Catholic hospitals because they are Pro-Life?” A stunned silence ensured once again. Her mouth was agape. So much for her Obamessiah.
So, how do Aussies feel about the upcoming inauguration? From my own personal perceptions, and interactions with others – talking to my Aussie friends and sometimes, my patients – I have come to the conclusion that the feelings and expectations of the different segments of Australian society largely mirror the deep divisions within the United States. I have a varied group of Aussie “Mates” – running the gamut from physicians and attorneys, to independently wealthy landowners, to small business owners and software engineers, to the guy who cleans the blood and urine off the ER floors. Also, as an Emergency Physician, I am guaranteed an almost daily exposure to the parade of humanity that comes in and out of the ER doors. Upon hearing my “Yank” accent, many of my patients are only happy to share with me their thoughts and opinions about what is going on in “The States” – and refreshingly, I am glad to report that Aussie notions of political correctness are not as highly developed or “nuanced” as ours.
Those Aussies who work in high-powered, executive level jobs, occupying corner offices in the gleaming office buildings of downtown Sydney with million-dollar views of the Harbor Bridge and the Opera House, have embraced Senator Obama and his slogans of “Change” and “Hope”. They indeed are hungry for “Change” – anything to lift the global economic morass and restore the easy flow of money and big salaries. Let’s hope, then, that these people, who go home to their exclusive gated communities on the beaches north of Sydney, will also be willing to embrace the blood, sweat and tears that will be required to bring about this new Era of Global Harmony – with low carbon emissions, of course. Politics can indeed make strange bedfellows, and interestingly, the Obamania of the monied, educated, largely white socioeconomic stratum is matched only in Australia by the enthusiasm of the burgeoning Islamic population here – who, like the rest of the Islamic world, are happily anticipating the prospect of a more sympathetic resident at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. The guy’s middle is Hussein, correct?
My fellow physicians, being the idealistic lot they are, have surprised me with their level of ambivalence regarding Mr. Obama. I was wrong to initially tag them as Obamites. From my conversations with my colleagues, they are aware of Obama’s plans to create a universal healthcare system – and I think that their own misgivings stem from looking at their own failing National Health Care System, which is beset by cost overruns, corruption, poor quality, and inefficiency.
For the nurses, paramedics, police officers and those patients of mine who largely originate from the blue collar, rough-and-tumble Western Sydney suburbs where I work (the part of Sydney you don’t see in the travel brochures), the view of Senator Obama’s Presidency is different yet again. From the working class, for whom real physical exertion is required to put food on the table – often living hand to mouth in the current hardscrabble economic climate – the sentiments regarding the then-upcoming Inauguration were certainly more measured, cautious, and pragmatic ones. With these folks, there is no evidence of any airy, unbridled optimism or naïve, youthful positivity. Their views are much more sober. From what William Davis Hanson calls “the muscled classes”, I tend to hear comments along the lines of “I figure Obama is kind of weak…he doesn’t look like he has any backbone” and “What has he really done to deserve being President?” I’ve also heard a lot of comments like “I reckon McCain deserved it because he served his country”. Whether this is the sage wisdom of the working man, only time will tell.
Once again, I can only report that Australian sentiments regarding the Presidency of Barack Obama are as widely divergent, and I daresay, divisive, as those present in my own beloved America. What else can we expect? I remember that the events of last autumn split my own family right down the middle in terms of whom we voted for. The people in the Land Down Under are almost as deeply divided as those back home. We cannot deny, based on voting demographics, that the general feeling in places like New York City and San Francisco will be very different from that in small towns like Whiting, Indiana, and Hamilton, Montana…small towns where Old Glory flies in front of every home, and words like Duty, Honor, Patriotism and God don’t make people blush. As an American who loves and misses my country, I can only hope that our differences somehow become a source of strength, instead of further weakening our great nation.
“E Pluribus Unum”, anyone?
*****
AlChristian Cosca Villaruz is TSR´s Contributor from Australia.
