Hope & glory

What an exciting few days it has been, I really feel like the world has turned a new page with Obama as the new president of the USA. We have been away in London for 10 days and there was a lot of interesting comment and analysis in the paper to read on our journey home yesterday. One theme that came up a lot was ‘would it be possible to have a black prime minister in the UK?’

It obviously depends greatly on the actual candidate in question; I hope we will see in the coming years that Obama has a lot more going for him than just the colour of his skin. And we also have to consider the different cultures. Not only is 13% of the American population black, compared with 3% in the UK, it is important to remember that ‘African Americans’ are only one of many ethnic groups – of all colours - in the US. America is the melting pot – or salad bowl – where people from all over the world have gone to start a new life. In the UK the situation is completely different and while there are many different ethnic groups we are still over 90% white English.

Here in Italy I have no idea of precise figures but ‘monoculture’ is the word that springs to mind. I have often wondered if we would have received the same warm welcome had we not been a couple of blond(ish) Londoners and instead come from a poorer, less desirable nation. When we first moved to Lecce in 2002 we did a government funded Italian course for immigrants. Our classmates mainly came from Sri Lanka, Kenya and Albania and it was fascinating to hear their experiences, quite different from our own.

I will be interested to read the papers here today and see the Italian reaction to the new American president. I suspect they will be as optimistic as the English press, I hope so. That is the truly great thing about what has happened, it really could be a breath of fresh air for the whole world.