What I like about Americans — their open, unbridled optimism that can be both engaging and empowering — is also what annoys me about them. Take the election of Barack Obama. This was a significant moment in itself. But please don’t go on and on (and on and freakin’ on) about how “this could only happen in America”. Like the events of post-9/11, all you’re doing is alienating the rest of the world again with that attitude.

Do you really believe that “only in America” could a minority could be elected to the highest office? Really? What about the female leaders of India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka? They already came, made their mark and disappeared before Hillary Clinton fought for a spot on the Democratic ticket. What’s more, there were female, and even — God forbid — communist leaders in Europe and prominent communist and minority players in Asian politics long before now. (And don’t think I’m cheating and only referring to the Soviet bloc here, ‘cos I ain’t.)

Let’s rephrase. Maybe when you said a minority could be elected “only in America”, you meant only in the world that’s like America. Say, Canada, Britain, Australia and America. Forget the rest of the world. Palin didn’t even know Africa was a continent, right, and Obama made that gaffe about the 57 states of America (excuse: the past lecturer in American constitutional law at the University of Chicago Law School may have been tired that day), so let’s stick to what the average American knows. Well, believe it or not, a woman (or, at least, a woman-shaped object by the name of Margaret Thatcher) was elected as Britain’s Prime Minister in 1979, when Obama had just reached voting age. The leader of New Zealand is a woman. There have been female opposition/third-party leaders in the aforementioned countries.

[17-Nov correction: It now seems that the "Africa is a continent" statement did NOT come from Palin, but was made up by a pastiche personality called Martin Eisenstadt. Full story here. What's really interesting is that I didn't rely on a blog for this news but got it from The Register which, in turn, embedded a Fox News clip that went through the allegations. I read the text, watched the video, and deemed it legitimate enough to include in this blog. If there ever is an example of never believing what you hear -- especially from media outlets -- this is it.]

Even in the forelock-tugging colonies, things are better than the shining city on the hill. As P Sainath, an editor with The Hindu, points out in a recent Counterpunch essay:

India today has an upper-caste Hindu woman as President. A dalit (former Untouchable) as chief justice of its Supreme Court. A Muslim for Vice-President. A Sikh for Prime Minister. And the leader of its biggest  -  and ruling -  political party, the Congress, is Sonia Gandhi, a Catholic from Italy. The Speaker of Parliament is a godless Communist.

And, believe me, India is not a land of unicorns and sparkles and still has a long, long, long way to go on the road to true participatory democracy, as Indians themselves will readily admit. (And for anyone reading from India, the line about it being “Asia’s oldest democracy” is also wearing a bit thin, to be honest.)

I made the comment once on LE Modesitt jnr’s blog that I thought a problem facing America was its steadfast belief that it was/is the bestest evah country in the world. There are other countries that think that, and it’s my contention that such thinking is blinkering. If a person thinks that theirs really is the best country in the world, then what is there to change? What dissatisfactions rear their heads? Or, do you mean to say, “mine is the best country in the world, except that it doesn’t look after its sick, one fifth of its children are officially malnutritioned, our literacy rate — and percentage of women in professional positions — is behind Cuba’s, our incarceration rate is the highest in the world, our environmental record is woeful, we torture civilians, we eavesdrop on our citizens and read their email, it’s where the gap between the richest and poorest is highest, and a few other things, but it’s still the country every other country in the world should look up to”?

I am constantly struck by a strange division in the minds of Americans I speak to. On the one hand, they know a lot of things in/about their country need changing (as with every other country in the world) but, on the other, they also simultaneously think that they are head and shoulders above every nation on the planet. This is compounded by the fact that they quite cheerfully also admit they know very little about any other country on the planet. (”Australia? Isn’t that in Europe somewhere?” “Malaysia, you say? Is that the country the rest of the world calls Indonesia?”) Am I the only one here seeing a basic example of cognitive dissonance in all this?

I’m not saying that people should completely run down the country of their citizenship. But I do believe a degree of clear-sightedness and open criticism does the country more good than harm. As does some basic knowledge of world geography.

It isn’t cute that people in the most armed and powerful nation on Earth don’t know the difference between Austria and Australia. Or don’t know where Iran and Iraq are. Or that minorities have been elected to leading positions in other nations or empires decades (sometimes even centuries) before it ever happened in the USA.

It’s frightening.