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Dear American friend...
A post-election letter
by Bruno Giussani
7 November 2004
Dear American friend,
I understand your disappointment. It's ours, too. The majority of us Europeans would have voted for John Kerry, as you did Tuesday morning after waiting in line for two hours. You went around all day with that "I voted" sticker on your shirt, as if to display the pride you felt in having contributed with your ballot in bringing your country back on the right track after three years of misrepresentations, tragedies and follies.
But the morning after there was despair in your eyes and bitterness in your voice. When you asked me who those three million people are that gave the majority to George Bush, I quickly answered "don't you know?" and regretted it immediately. Because I saw that you couldn't really fathom either the motivations of those who re-elected the president.
For three years we have waited for this November 2nd like one waits for the curtain to close at the end of a bad theater performance. Everything seemed so clear, this election was not even supposed to be close: here is a president who has started an unjustified war, imperilled the treasury, weakened civil liberties, curbed dissent, ignored the environment, isolated the United States on the global stage - I've heard someone calling America "an imperial pariah": how fitting - and cynically nourished the sinister feeling of fear. In a rational world, the election should have been a referendum on the incompetence of the Bush administration, and an avalanche of ballots should have sent him back to Texas.
But the United States nowadays is evidently not a rational country. It is a country where the tortures at Abu Ghraib carry less moral opprobrium than the tired breast of Janet Jackson flashed on television or the union of two people of the same gender who love each other. The newspapers say that the election has been decided by "moral values". What "values" did John Kerry exactly lack? War hero, practicing catholic, good father, honest chap. I understand your confusion, my friend. We, too, don't know anymore what America is, and are alarmed: the authoritarian temptation of the Bush team has been validated by the majority, and we are concerned that their efforts to roll back half a century of progress and reconfigure at gunpoint the international system will only be accelerated.
I would like to tell you comforting words, but I can't find many. This morning the sun rose as usual, and that's already a reason for optimism. You're not alone: fifty-five million other Americans and countless global citizens have felt the same spasm in the stomach when the election was called, but many have already moved past their frustration and started thinking and acting creatively about the future - just go online and read the blogs and you will see that amazing, bitterless energy flowing.
I also have the feeling that the next four years won't be easy for George Bush. Now he has to finish what he started. You see, if Kerry was elected he would have gotten a bucketful of hot potatoes, an antagonist Congress to deal with, and phalanxes of critics ready to bash him for "messing up an Iraqi mission that, when we passed it on to you, was on the right track". Kerry would have had little chances to repair the damages and a high probability to take home the blame.
Now Bush has to own up to his own choices, stabilize Iraq, grow the economy, and has no excuses anymore: he can't hide for another four years behind the victims of 9/11. And in 2008 there will be new elections. True: in the meantime the country may have suffered more damage. But maybe, as you say in America, "things have to get worse before they get better".
Be assured of all our friendship, despite your fellow countrymen's poor taste in presidents.
(copyright 2004 Bruno Giussani)
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