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There are no campaign rallies or bumper stickers for him in Syria, no “Yes We Can” T-shirts on sale, but Obamamania has definitely infected the “beating heart of Arab nationalism,” as it once called itself. During my recent visit to Damascus, Syrian officials and the political elite seemed captivated by Barack Obama, well before it was clear that the Democrats’ charismatic young superstar would be the party’s presidential nominee.
Partly, it’s Obama’s youth that makes him attractive to Syrians, roughly half of whom are under 18 and whose own president, Bashar Assad, is four years younger than Obama. “But it’s not just Obama’s age that we like,” says Obaida Hamad, a 32-year-old reporter for Syria Today, the country’s only independent, English-language magazine. “Syrians think that as a man of color, Obama may understand the Muslim and Arab worlds better than Hillary Clinton or John McCain,” he says. “And we are fed up with over a decade of American leadership in the hands of two families—Clinton and Bush. For us,” he says—diplomatically omitting the fact that President Assad, who has now ruled for eight years, succeeded his father, Hafez el-Assad, who ruled Syria with an iron fist for three decades—“Obama represents new blood.”
hattip: Chetz
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