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U.S. used as counter example

By Michelle Martínez, Gavel Media Senior Staff, on October 26, 2009 3:13 PM

By Michelle Martinez, Staff Columnist -

Most of us probably think the international community’s views of American politics all comes down to one analogy: Bush is to bad, as Obama is to great. Granted, this is almost spot-on, considering my economics professor here in Ma­drid refuses to end a class without mentioning how Bush destroyed the economy, and the fact that I’ve spot­ted about two Obama T-shirts in just a month.

Regardless, I’ve found that the general opinions regarding Ameri­can politics actually do transcend the usual stereotypes, even if these cli­ches tend to be in the foreground.

In the month that has passed since I started taking courses in Ma­drid, I’ve noticed that in most of our classes, the United States is employed as the ‘counterexample’ for many of our discussions.

For instance, in my human rights course, our professor speaks about how they, as Spaniards, tend to take for granted many of the rights and freedoms to which they have uncon­ditional access, such as gay marriage, referring to “states in the US that outlaw it as sodomy.”

After realizing how our poli­cies tend to be looked down upon in many instances, I went to our program coordinator to ask her if that tended to be the case with most American policies or if I had just stumbled upon one of the stereotypi­cal anti-American Europeans. I was surprised to find out that they actu­ally admire certain aspects of our political system.

For example, Spaniards seek to emulate women’s rights as they are in the United States, since chauvinism, the glass ceiling in the workplace and domestic violence are far more pres­ent here in Spain than in the United States. Regardless of what Miss Venezuela might say about women worldwide having achieved equality with men, in Spain it’s almost impos­sible for a pregnant woman to find a job, which is why Spain has recently begun to carry out policies aimed at creating a more equal system mod­eled after the United States’.

Additionally, they seem to admire a certain aspect of our political sys­tem that I thought most Americans did not like much (Michael Moore particularly comes to mind): our electoral system. Considering that we are one of the oldest democracies, post-Franco Spain has looked for its “political inspiration” in the United States, with one major exception: the Bush administration.

When I spoke to our program co­ordinator about Spanish perceptions of the United States, she emphasized that, as most of us probably already know, Europeans tend to see Ameri­cans as “incultos,” or uneducated, and Bush epitomized this stereotype.

According to most Spaniards, after the obvious unpopularity of the War in Iraq, the United States’ most controversial act in recent years was Bush’s refusal to sign the Kyoto Protocol, which reflected the US government’s perceived disrespect for international cooperation dur­ing that period. It proved even more scandalous that such a refusal barely provoked any mass reaction from Americans, whereas a politician’s personal life, like Clinton’s Monica Lewinsky scandal, garnered far more attention than a purely political act.

I was wondering after all this anti-Bushism if the 2008 elections gathered any interest in spite of the growing anti-Americanism, and many people told me that the cov­erage and following of the elections was almost as enthusiastic as it was in the United States.

Even the Sarah Palin-Katie Cou­ric interview, and the jokes that fol­lowed, made their way across the At­lantic for Europe to enjoy. There was great enthusiasm for the electoral process, even during the primaries.

Once Obama won the election, local “Democrats” threw a celebra­tion over his victory, and it’s safe to assume most Spaniards were relieved that the Bush-era was over and “Obama-mania” had begun. And by Obama-mania I make no exaggera­tion – if you access the websites of main Spanish newspapers, you can easily find a tab solely devoted to “Obama in the White House,” while we would probably never find “Zapa­tero en el gobierno” on CNN.com.

In my experiences abroad, I am noticing that it’s helpful to have an outside perspective. It is almost im­possible to be objective about your own country’s politics. It’s interest­ing to see how some events that we thought mattered only to us, such as Sotomayor’s nomination to the Supreme Court, are global issues as well. Even the system of checks and balances, which many Americans consider downright trivial, is held in higher esteem by the international community.