The Hindu Business Line : ‘We were attacked first’

Rome, Nov. 18 It is interesting to watch reactions to the outcome of the American election from a European country like Italy. Apart from Italian Prime Minister Berlusconi’s initial gaffe about Obama having a “nice suntan” almost the whole of Italy seems to be happy about Obama, a non-Republican, winning.

In Rome, we are a group of international journalists on a tour sponsored by the international Olive Council, and our American colleague, who had already cast her vote before leaving for this trip, is keeping her fingers crossed that Obama, her candidate, would win.

“If he doesn’t, then on November 5 I’m going to drown my sorrows in a bottle of fine Italian wine,” she had said.

At Hotel Genova in Rome, the entire staff was rooting for Obama.

But surprisingly enough, other Americans I met during the visit, continued after my conference as a holiday, had all voted for John McCain.

Heather, an architect from Houston, Texas, who one met in Venice, was quite disappointed that Obama had been elected. One would expect a southerner to be anti-Black, but she appeared quite a liberal person, and not a typical conservative southerner from the US.

“I’m afraid he doesn’t have enough experience,” she shrugged.

Would she have voted for Hillary Clinton?

Her eyes lit up, “Well, I am a Republican supporter, but Hillary would have at least made me think,” she said.

During a Chianti wine tour, as our huge group reaches a castle, where Francois and his wife own 200 hectares of vineyards and produce 700,000 bottles of wine a year, we finally reach the wine tasting room.

Our table for six has two Americans, two Brazilians and two Indians.

The American couple is from Wisconsin and are not happy at all about the election result. John is an engineering consultant, and anti-Obama. “Almost the entire world seems to be celebrating Obama’s victory,” he scowls. “I wonder why.”

“Obviously because George W. Bush is not very popular around the world, certainly not in India,” I counter.

He obviously wants to know why, as he takes a huge sip of his Chianti red wine.

“Well, for one thing, because many people believe that he has made the world a much more unsafe place to live in.... and that he unnecessarily attacked Iraq.”

“Well, we were attacked first,” says the unhappy man.

“But not by Iraq,” I counter and he has to concede that point. His wife Sarah, who works in a sausage making facility, doesn’t like Obama, but didn’t like McCain either. “So I didn’t vote. But yes, Hillary would have been another issue... I would have voted for her”.

The Brazilian couple though was delighted at Obama’s victory. “We certainly didn’t want Bush to win,” said the man who worked in a brewery and was more interested in savouring the delicious wine.

But both the couples were very interested in knowing more about India, as it was certainly on their travel map in the near future, and made detailed inquires about what to visit and how much it would cost.

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‘We were attacked first’