| | |  Americas & Beyond | January 2009 
Hope Mixes with Doubt as World Reacts
 New York Times
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| | Schoolchildren wore visors with President Obama’s image in Kogelo, Kenya. (Sarah Elliott/The New York Times) | |
Around the world, people greeted President Barack Obama’s inauguration with a wide range of emotions, from jubilation to skepticism. What follows are some snapshots of reactions by people worldwide, as gathered by reporters for The New York Times:
CAIRO: In Cairo, Barack Obama’s message to the Muslim world was met with skepticism. It comes at a time when Egyptians are feeling enraged and let down by their leaders and the whole international community, especially the United States, for failing to stop Israel’s military attack on Gaza, which ended last Saturday after Israel announced a unilateral ceasefire, leaving more than 1,300 Palestinians dead and thousands injured.
“Why should I be optimistic about what he said?” said Hassan Abdel Rahman, a 25-year-old salesman in a small flower shop in a middle class Cairo neighborhood. “If there was reason to be optimistic, then we would have felt it during the war on Gaza and if he was just, then he would have said something then — but he said nothing!”
At the heart of people’s doubtful attitude towards Obama’s inaugural remarks is their strong belief that U.S. policy in the Middle East never fundamentally changes, regardless of the president, especially when it comes to the Arab-Israeli conflict, where they see an unwavering American support for Israel at the cost of Arab interest.
“American interests are the same and they never change,” said Ahmed Abdel Atti, a 26-year-old sales executive in ABC Bank standing outside a coffee shop with a group of colleagues. “He can not change policies, which have always been to divide and conquer.”
Still, a degree of hope infiltrated people’s bleak outlook in a region challenged by decades of Arab-Israeli conflict, an ongoing war in Iraq, sectarian divisions, oppressive regimes and mounting economic fears. “As a black man he knows what injustice is like and understands how we see the United States as an oppressive power,” said Ahmed Hamdi, an architecture student on his way back from a group study session. “But the fact that he is the first black president is proof that there is change; that’s what gives us hope.”
- Mona El Naggar
PARIS: At a celebration and broadcast of Obama’s inauguration in Paris’s city hall, Paris Mayor Bertrand Delanoe spoke of hope. “What we celebrate tonight is the hope of America. The hope of America will also be, somewhere, the hope of the French because like the American people, we hope that the election of Barack Obama opens a new era for peace, and for a greater respect between nations across the world.”
Hundreds of French and American guests crowded the main hall of the Hotel de Ville, as city hall is known, in the center of Paris, to watch the inauguration. The audience thundered or booed depending on who appeared on the giant screen at the end of the room. Al and Tipper Gore drew cheers, while Dan Quayle and Walter Mondale drew no sign of recognition. Jimmy Carter and later Bill Clinton were loudly cheered. Rick Warren was also booed.
Ambassador to France Craig Stapleton, speaking in French, said he saluted Mr. Obama’s victory because it represented that “a new generation is at the helm of the country and its new leader Barack Obama symbolizes that, well, that everything is possible in the United States.”
One of the things that struck the French was the overall religiosity of the inauguration. France is highly secular, and religion is seldom cited in the public sphere. Obama’s inclusion of “non-believers” in his address struck some as being notable, new, and important.
Beatrice Toulon, 53, a journalist covering cinema, said: “It really hit me when Obama cited the non-believers in his speech. It isn’t often in the States, which are very religious. To have included the non-believers testifies to his great intelligence.”
- Basil Katz
LEBANON: Many Lebanese who watched the inaugural speech seemed excited by it, and felt the new president represented a great improvement over Mr. Bush. Some felt Mr. Obama was signaling a new openness to the Muslim world. But they were all deeply skeptical about his ability to change the basic direction of American policy, especially with the Israel-Palestine issue. For many, the three-week war in Gaza, which caused tremendous anger throughout the Arab world, overshadowed the inauguration.
“The speech was good, he took on serious subjects, and certainly Obama’s election will affect the Middle East — but there’s the Zionist lobby too,” said Ahmad Bahjat, a 26-year-old teacher who watched the speech at home with his parents in the Dahieh, the Shiite enclave in southern Beirut where Hezbollah has its stronghold. “The image is still vague, but there are positive aspects,” Mr. Bahjat added. “He spoke about withdrawing from Iraq and reconciling with Muslims.”
On the other side of town, Dana Moukhallati, 23, watched the speech with a crowd of other young people at the Captain’s Cabin, a smoky bar in west Beirut. “I think it’s good if he’s true to his word,” she said. “Things can’t get any worse. It was a charismatic speech. But most people in Lebanon are not too excited. They’ve heard this kind of thing before, and they want action.”
Muhammad al Mukhtar, a 28-year-old in the village of Aramoun, to the south of Beirut, offered a similar mix of hope and resignation after watching the speech at home with his parents.
“I think there’s a message for the Middle East in this speech, but I hope he can carry it out, changing the president doesn’t mean changing the administration.” The congress may be an obstacle, and the Israel lobby, Mr. al Mukhtar said. But after pausing to think about it, he added: “Maybe the Democrats are better.”
Toni Nasrallah, a 39-year-old lawyer and a Christian, watched the speech at home in the mountain town of Bhamdoun, east of the capital.
“There’s a difference between interfering directly and indirectly, and I think Obama will interfere indirectly,” Mr. Nasrallah said, in what was clearly intended as a compliment. “Obama mentioned Iraq — I think he understands there’s a real problem there, but I don’t know what he’s going to do.”
Ramzi Halawi, a 23-year-old lawyer, said: “For sure there’s a message for the Middle East there, for Iraq, I do think Obama put aside the mistakes of the old administration to build a new political schedule.”
Mr. Halawi went on to list the same limitations others had — the Congress, the Israel lobby, the weight of old American policy. But he concluded: “Obama will be better than Bush, he won’t repeat his foolishness. And the arrival of a black president will impose a new fact in the Arab world.”
- Robert F. Worth and Hwaida Saad
KENYA: Once again, Kenya, the birthplace of Obama’s father, was swept by Obamamania. Across the country, Kenyans threw parties, held feasts and packed around TV sets to celebrate the ushering in of a man Kenya considers one of its own.
In Kisumu, in western Kenya, thousands of people gathered in the town’s main park to watch the inauguration on movie theater-sized screens. There was singing and dancing, vendors hawking Obama calendars and even an Obama imitation contest with Kenyans vying in heavily-accented English to do their best to sound like the new president.
In Kogelo, Obama’s ancestral village, cows and chickens were slaughtered and people beat on goatskin drums. Men in black and white colobus monkey wigs hollered the new president’s name. From now on, village elders declared, every January 20 will be Barack Obama Day.
In Nairobi, Kenya’s capital, some of the nicest hotels in town were booked for Obama parties. One banquet room was decorated with Kenyan and American flags and cloth printed with Obama’s face and Kiswahili sayings. The moment President Obama completed his oath of office, the guests jumped to their feet and sang out in unison, “Thank God!”
- Jeffrey Gettleman
MEXICO CITY: At street-side cafes, in moving taxis and in offices throughout one of the world’s biggest cities, the people of Mexico City tuned into Obama’s words from Washington. Some people were so moved they wiped tears from their eyes. Others took a more wait-and-see attitude, anxious to see whether the new administration would be different from the one before. Some car horns rang out as Mr. Obama finished his address, although in such a traffic-clogged capital it was impossible to know whether the sounds were celebratory or more functional in nature.
“He was speaking to the whole world,” said Rodolfo Sosa-Garcia, an economist who tuned into the speech from his office in Mexico City. “Obama represents hope not just for America but for the world.”
Mr. Sosa-Garcia thought Mr. Bush was an able president but he said he was still pleased to see Mr. Obama arrive on the scene. “He wants a new role for America in the world and that’s a positive,” Mr. Sosa-Garcia said.
Not everybody was so moved. “For me, as a Mexican, as a foreigner, it lacked a message,” Manuel Barberena, the president of a Mexico City market research firm, said of the speech.
La Jornada, a leftist daily, filled its front page on Monday with photos of Mr. Bush as a clown, a vampire, a space alien, a monster and a Pez dispenser. The headline said: “Finally!” Tuesday’s edition showed Mr. Obama smiling with the headline: “Can He Do It?”
Carlos Villafuerte González, 31, returned to Mexico last month after working as an illegal immigrant selling tacos in New York City because he was not making enough to make ends meet. Mr. Villafuerte said he was hopeful that Obama would revamp the economy in America so he could return. “There’s a lot of hope that Obama will make things better. If Obama succeeds, then people like me can succeed as well and I can go back.”
- Marc Lacey, Elisabeth Malkin and Antonio Betancourt
CARACAS: In Caracas, reactions to the inauguration included a range of emotions. “Ah yes, this is excellent!” exclaimed Daria Carmona, 60, a secretary at a school products company. “I felt immense envy.”
Envy?
“Envy,” said Ms. Carmona, pondering the word for a few seconds, continuing, “Because we do not have a president with the capability of leaving power in such democratic fashion.”
Indeed, even as Mr. Obama was being sworn police were using tear gas in Caracas to disperse antigovernment protests on Tuesday.
President Hugo Chávez, for his part, used the transition in Washington as an opportunity for some parting barbs against Mr. Bush. “He is the most repudiated president in his own country and the world,” said Mr. Chávez while campaigning in the eastern state of Anzoátegui. But he also sounded more conciliatory at times on Tuesday.
“From here we salute the people of the United States,” said Mr. Chávez, emphasizing that he hoped Mr. Obama’s presidency would “mark a change in the relations of the United States with the countries of the third world.”
- Simon Romero and María Eugenia Díaz |
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