The last time I was out of the United States for any period
of time was my Peace Corps placement in Chile.
There were no major elections in the U.S. in that year and a half; and the
only political activity that affected me personally was the election of
Salvador Allende as the first socialist president of Chile. I lived amid Allende supporters, and it was
an ebullient win indeed—especially in Santiago.
That election, however, resulted in our departure from Chile—not due to
any negative action on the part of Chile but rather to what became clear later was
the U.S. involvement in Allende’s assassination and Pinochet’s takeover. We left immediately after his inauguration
along with all my fellow volunteers—most of whom relocated to other countries
in South America while I returned to the U.S.
Pre-internet, news from the U.S. arrived in Santiago in the
form of the Herald Tribune. We used to arrive
early at the newsstand waiting for its delivery every Thursday and consume it
lock, stock and barrel before we’d finished lunch. Here in France, the news is available in a
few keystrokes and, while the telly in our flat only transmits in French with an
occasional Spanish and more infrequent Basque broadcast, it has spent a lot of
time on the run-up to the election—the news about which we were happy to
miss. Now, however, as the election is over,
I miss the experience of having watched election results and the anticipation of
victory—or even the emotion of defeat.
Presidential elections polarize folks with differing
political points of view, and as a rule I choose to avoid discussions about it
with those whose vote supports the “other” candidate in an effort to minimize
any influence on our relationship. Even
so, with us so far away, I missed the bantering of Cokie Roberts, Gwen Ifill,
Brian Williams, Lawrence O’Donnell, Chris Mathews, and Rachel
Maddow.
We awoke to find out that Barack Obama has been reelected to
another term as President. Since I have
no intention of using this blog as a political soapbox, suffice it to say that
we will be happy to return to our home in the U.S. at the end of the year.
No comments:
Post a Comment