CAIRO: Americans are not hard to spot. Sure, the mix of skin colors and ethnicities could beguile an undisciplined observer, but there is plenty else to set them apart: accents, clothes and, most recently, optimism.
Since the nearly two-year saga of the election concluded, many Americans have begun to beam with an effusion of hope and idealism they have rarely, if ever, felt before. This is particularly true for the young, who came of age during the distress and brutal cynicism of Bush’s tenure.
Brimming with newfound pride, Americans may do some funny, perhaps grating, things. They may try to translate cumbersome sentiments about the transformative power of democracy into haphazard Arabic, for instance, or reference their next president’s Muslim middle name a dozen times in the course of minutes. Please try to be patient: American idealism is finally hip again, and that is no small thing.
In Egypt, however, the degree of American optimism does distinguish them.
In a series of interviews conducted by Daily News Egypt, many Egyptians expressed support for Barack Obama, but said they were wary of the idea that one president could seriously alter US foreign policy. In my conversations with Egyptians since the election, many said they were relieved Bush is finally on his way out, but were cautious in praising Obama. And they have reason to be skeptical.
To put it gently, American policy has been less than ideal in the Middle East.
“National interests, whether those of America or its allies, have derailed many of the nation’s most liberally-minded efforts in the region, as with Woodrow Wilson’s call for an independent Kurdistan, or Jimmy Carter’s broader pushes for regional peace.
Add to this that the very concept of American idealism has long been fuel for anxiety. Writers have obsessed over it for ages. In “The Great Gatsby, American author F. Scott Fitzgerald famously quieted the roar of the 1920s by sketching an unsettling portrait of materialism gone awry.
Henry Miller, a great American novelist originally censored by the government, wrote this of an Indian acquaintance enamored by the American dream in the 1930s: “The young Hindu, of course, is optimistic.
He has been to America and has been contaminated by the cheap idealism of the Americans, contaminated by the ubiquitous bathtub, the five-and-ten-cent store bric-a-brac, the bustle, the efficiency, the machinery, the high wages, the free libraries .Nothing will avail to offset this virus which is poisoning the whole world. America is the very incarnation of doom. She will drag the whole world into a bottomless pit.
In Graham Greene’s “The Quiet American, published two decades later, an aging and embittered British journalist confronts an idealistic and ultimately destructive young American. The American, “was absorbed already in the Dilemmas of Democracy and the responsibilities of the West; he was determined … to do good, not to any individual person but to a country, a continent, a world, Greene wrote.
The conviction that his nation is destined to enlighten the world sits at the base of the American’s worldview and the pointless tragedy it breeds.
Though the story is set in the late days of France’s colonial wars in Indochina, the analogy could easily be extended to America’s modern occupation of Iraq.
This is not to say that idealism is necessarily dangerous. But when an Egyptian friend recently told me he was hopeful about the election because it meant America might go back to “focusing on the inside, he got it exactly right. At the root of the fulfillment of the American dream, there are specific, tangible elements: accessible education for all members of society, thoughtful and transparent regulation of free markets, an abundance of rewarding work opportunities, the free exchange of ideas and information, and an immigration policy that is both efficient and fair. When America has these things, it is at its best.
The point is this: American idealism is best-suited to solving the problems of America. If it can do this, it can inspire the rest of the world without ending up mired in pointless bloodshed like Graham’s anti-hero or the architects of the Iraq War.
Of course it is naïve to think that Barack Obama will fix everything.
Egyptians are right about this. But his election has unleashed a palpable wave of optimism among young, smart Americans of nearly every race and religion. And the conviction that the American dream is still valid, a deeply idealistic belief, is absolutely necessary to repairing the nation’s shattered economy and government.
So when grinning Americans talk about Obama and wait expectantly for your smile, please give them one. After the last eight years, a bit of hope is plenty to celebrate.
