Election Day in Fairyland

It is Election Day here in Fairyland--American Election Day. We've set up tents, hung bunting, assembled the voting booths and the ballots. Students, staff and guests are arriving to watch the election returns live on TV, celebrate democracy, and--for our students and foreign nationals--to step into that voting booth and cast their vote for Obama or McCain, just like you. The only difference is, their vote won't count. They may not see a free election in their lifetime.

American staff are making and fielding calls from home. "Dad did what!?" "You really voted for him?" "I'm so proud and excited. . . " I know my students are also excited. They've been studying the American election and electoral system--warts and all--in my English for Academic Purposes. They had to give ten-minute position statements on campaign issues--McCain's program on health care, Obama on Iraq--and sometimes found themselves slipping into the "we" mode, as in "we Americans."

Is it a bittersweet experience for them, as they step out of the walls of the Magic Kingdom here into Fairyland, where their ballots are already conveniently marked when they receive them, and helpful guards direct them to the proper box, and reluctant voters are assisted to the polls by military trucks and the threat of reprisal?

"Change" is not a campaign slogan here--it is an elusive phenomenon, a word that people have lost jobs for, gone into exile for, died for. I meet people who have lost hope, having seen no change in their lifetime. I also encounter students--the ones who are well-travelled and well-read--who greet the idea of change with indifference and cynicism. All politicians are alike. Money talks. I see in these students faces the faux sophistication that we like to practice in the US, and I realize how corrosive indifference and cynicism can be. They corrode from within. They are like a parasite that protects the host by maiming it.

I don't think I can practice that kind of cynicism anymore.