Dear world, How will the world look tomorrow? I think it will look pretty much like today, although today is particularly sunny for a November day in Glasgow, Scotland. The sun will shine again tomorrow and I will once again wage a (losing) battle with my fridge and its tendency to freeze my milk. It is a mundane existence but it is mine.
The US is voting for a new president today, of course. In its own way it has an impact on my life, although, mainly, in ways I find difficult to explain. My best example is my own little backyard.
In foreign matters, the Danish government has relied upon the US administration far more than any other Danish government I can recall. The Danish PM believes himself to be a close, personal friend of Mr Bush and, lo, the Danish government was one of the first to offer support for the War in Iraq (we even sent a submarine). In domestic matters, the Danish government has relied upon a far-right political party to lend them authority. The far-right party has a platform of anti-Muslim and anti-immigration sentiments with an anti-plurality, anti-intellectual stance on most other matters. This has been the political landscape in my little country since 2001. I moved to the UK in 2006 for several reasons - including an uneasy feeling of no longer being comfortable calling myself a Dane.
The world is very unlikely to change overnight and I do not think it will look any different tomorrow. I hope in a vague and abstract way that my desired (and, according to the polls, entirely likely) result of the US election will trickle down to affect a change in my own little country. How will the far-right react to a US president with a multi-ethnic background and whose father was a lapsed Muslim? How will the Danish PM deal with a US president whose stance on war is vastly different? Can I once again look at my national flag without a bad taste in my mouth?
I can but hope.
If you are an American citizen, please do go out and vote today. You are voting for yourself and your country - you are also voting for me and my country.
Love, Karie.
PS. It's been a long, long haul. This one sums it up - sorry about the NSFW URL as the content is entire SFW: This Effing Election - a babel tower of words.