The eruption of joy in France after yesterday's victory against Brazil has been quite astounding.
You'd think we've already won the World Cup from the levels of euphoria displayed. Even the victory against Spain earlier this week was the source of wild demonstrations of happiness.
How can this be explained?
Adapted from a European Tribune story.
My theory is that we - and by we, I mean the French in this specific instance, but I think this reasoning applies to a lot of other Europeans, as well to much of the left in America - have been literally starved for good news in recent times and when we finally find some genuine, unadulterated, deserved piece of enjoyable news, we're almost delirious with it. Yes, I can be happy, for once, without second thoughts, without worrying, without looking like a fool.
Some of that comes from the atmosphere of fear carefully whipped up since 9/11 (in each country with local variations, but the underlying theme of fear and whipping up of the notion that an enemy is out to get us is always the same); some of that from the endless stream of supposed bad economic news - how our country is declining, how we're losing out to India or China (or, in Europe, to dynamic America), how we're unable to "reform" ourselves ("reforms" we know will make things worse for us); some of it from our sclerotic political system (Chirac's unending incompetence and corruption can directly be linked to the perception of France's decline, but poor leaders by no means are, and the Bush administration can certainly be associated with the horrifying decline of America's image in the rest of the world) and the cynicism and fuck-it-allism it generates; and some of it from the vague feeling of unease that we're increasingly on our own and that this somehow seems not to be such a great idea...
Thus, when we find the golden opportunity to rejoice, to be proud of our country, to celebrate and shout in joy with our neighbors, we just use it. It's been damn too long. No need, for a minute, to think about being subversive, anti-patriotic, blogofascist, liberal, gay, female, brown, ill, unemployed, outcompeted by the Chinese, outsourced to the Indians, overheard by the NSA, or overwhelmed by the unending Bush administration scandals.
Our world is begging for optimism - it is starving for positive leadership, not fearmongering; for hope, and not the promise of (more) tears.
